Profile of John Darlington

John Darlington is a management consultant specialising in Lean Enterprise applications applying lean principles across the entire enterprise, from design to delivery.
 
He develops programmes of practical implementation integrating improvements to the physical flow of the product or service, and the information flow that converts customer demand into actions.

A qualified accountant John won the Toyota “Prize for Best New Idea” at the South African Production and Inventory Control Society and has been a guest speaker at APICS. 

Career history

John worked for AlliedSignal Turbochargers from 1986 – 1998.  During this time, he held a variety of roles including Financial Director and IT Manager of the Original Equipment site and Plant Manager of the Turbocharger European Aftermarket. A Director of AlliedSignal Limited John qualified as a Lean and Six Sigma Expert through Renault and in Constraint based management with Goldratt Institute.

As Kaizen Director of United Engineering Forgings, the largest independent forging and machining group in the UK, John led the systematic introduction of Lean manufacturing across the 6 U.K. sites with particular emphasis on practical application to improve bottom line performance. 

His recent work has been on compression of manufacturing lead-time to gain competitive advantage and on valuing and directing improvement activity. He combines application with teaching for Cardiff Business School Lean Enterprise Research Centre on their MSc course specialising in mapping, capacity planning and scheduling and where he has developed Flow Accounting.