Lonnie Wilson has owned and operated Quality Consultants continuously since he started the firm in 1990.  Prior to his consulting, Lonnie was in refinery management for Chevron for 20 years.  During his tenure with Chevron and once again as a consultant Lonnie has demonstrated that he an accomplished teacher, problem solver and cultural change agent.  His career spans 20 years of management with Chevron and now over 27 years with Quality Consultants.

Lonnie’s uniqueness is not just in his broad technical base.  Rather he has two skills that he has honed over the years.  First is his ability to deal with the executives in the C-suite with the same energy and effectiveness as he deals with the cell worker on the floor.  Second he is not only an accomplished technical problem solver, but he  has an uncanny ability to quickly and accurately size up large and complicated situations and quickly reduce them to very solvable problems.  He can get to the heart of the matter quickly.

Early in his career with Chevron Lonnie became very accomplished in problem solving and was sent all around the corporation to “solve difficult problems”, he became an internal Over the years we have found there are “high leverage points” which will allow you to not only change your culture, but implement the elements so those gains are sustained.  Those high leverage points are: leadership, employee engagement, planning, and supervision; we are experts in all four, and can make you experts as well.  Then you can have a business that is:

• a better money making machine;

• a more secure workplace for all your employees, and;

• the supplier of choice to your  customers

 

After 3 years he became a supervisor that allowed him to not only use but teach/train/coach/mentor others in problem solving skills including statistical problem solving, Shainan Techniques, Kepner-Tregoe  problem-solving as well as classical techniques. Once again, early in his career he was charged with making a large cultural change at a Chevron refinery, which catapulted his knowledge and culture change knowledge and experience to new levels.  (You can read about this entire and incredible story in Lean Refining).  Lonnie then advanced to new management positions in Chevron and managed the plant operations, designs engineering, process engineering, drafting, facilities planning, oils planning, information technology, environmental engineering and compliance and literally every function…except the steno pool.

 

In addition to his work in refineries, Lonnie has spent time in the oil fields working on gas and oil recovery and low temperature extraction plants.  In addition he was sent to many locations to “solve tough problems” that included environment issues, corporation-wide computing support, an explosion and a myriad of operational problems that could not be handled by the local staff.  Even during his time with Chevron, Lonnie was an internal consultant, serving many other facilities largely to make use of his problem solving and leadership skills.

 

Immediately after his retirement from Chevron, Lonnie started Quality Consultants.  In 1990 his primary products were three fold;

• Teaching and applying statistical problem solving to tough problems including teaching and applying statistical process control (SPC), measurement system analysis (MSA), designs of experiments (DOE), and correlation and regression (C&R).

• Problem solving using cross-functional and small groups including quality circle principles

• Group Leadership and Advanced  Facilitation techniques

 

And, just as with days with Chevron, his clients asked him to expand into other areas and soon enough Lonnie was well versed in the strategy, tactics and skills of the vaunted Toyota Production System (TPS).  Soon after that, the term Lean Manufacturing was coined as a synonym for the TPS.  Since that time Lonnie has become well known as an expert in the TPS.  Not only has he practiced it, he has taught it and he wrote three books on Lean manufacturing (see Lonnie’s Books….hotlink).  In addition he has written over 50 articles on the many facets of  lean manufacturing (see White Papers….hotlink), and you can download any or all of the White Papers you would like.

Lonnie’s recent passion have become more focused than just Lean manufacturing as a culture changing agent.  Specifically, lean is:

The creation of a culture of continuous improvement and respect for people. And the “Means to Lean” is to:

• Problem solve your way to the Ideal State

• Through the total elimination of waste

• Using a fully engaged workforce

 

The current lean community has missed the important aspect of “respect for people” and it is manifest by not working on creating“, a fully engaged workforce”.  Lonnie has written about this rather extensively in Lean Refining (Sergio….make this a hotlink).  However, to further explain the nuances and the specific actions needed by management to attain “a fully engaged workforce, Lonnie is finalizing his fourth book, “Employee Engagement…How to create and sustain a fully engaged workforce” to be published in the winter of 2017.

Besides all this work, Lonnie recently retired from youth soccer coaching which he had done for 32 years.  Dozens of these players went on to acquire college level soccer scholarships and more than a handful have gone on to play professionally.  So if you want chat about soccer….the door is always open. 

 

Lonnie and his wife Roxana live in El Paso Texas and both are football and soccer enthusiasts.  Actually Roxana is the one who is not only more knowledgeable but also more passionate about both soccer and football.  They have 4 children and 6 grandchildren who are strewn across the country:  Eric and Ann plus our grandkids Stella, Stanley and Sadie live in Escondido CA; Kirk and Jamie and our two grandkids, Kalista and Erik live near Phoenix; Brianne and her husband Dave and our grandson Wilson live in Seattle; and Kevin, our youngest, is a Junior studying psychology at St Edwards University in Austin.

 

Other available assets

​

Quality consultants has cultivated a long list of small and medium sized companies to assist them with

• Large jobs where additional consultants are and

• Specific technical skills

 

We can, and do, frequently call upon these relationship when we, alone, cannot fully supply our customer’s needs.  All of these are experts in their fields and in each case, and we have proven that will actual hands on experience or we do not bring them on board.  With these relationships we can remain small, carefully control the quality of our work and maintain the sterling reputation of being an excellent supplier.