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Since 1st July 2012, Eckhard Gatawis has been directing the Staufen AG’s Business Unit Automotive. The excellent Lean Expert consciously changed from the automotive supply industry to the consultancy business in order to assist more companies with his expertise. With a degree in mechanical engineering, he has – due to his practical knowledge of more than twenty years – experience in the development and roll-out of production systems, the set-up and restructuring of plants and in the design of a global manufacturing footprints. In particular the implementation, communication and training of Lean principles, including the appropriate introduction of KPIs, are among his strengths, as well as international project management skills in multicultural structures. “My goal is to further establish the Business Unit Automotive at Staufen and to drive our customers from Lean Production to a Lean Enterprise, “said Gatawis. “Furthermore, we plan to advance the internationalisation of the business unit according to the needs of the OEMs and suppliers of the automotive industry.”

Reduction of growth rates, increasing wages and energy prices mean more and more negative headlines regarding China’s economic situation. According to the European Chamber of Commerce, a fifth of all companies are already reconsidering their investments in China.

As manufacturers nurse their wounds after the worst recession since the 1930s, many are taking a long, hard look at their business models and making some changes. For many companies, this has meant increasing the proportion of revenue generated by non-traditional activities such as service provision. For others, the soul searching has prompted a move from high-volume goods to high-value products.

Interview with Dr. Jeffrey K. Liker 1) Can you tell us something about the role of leaders at Toyota? – we have learned that they should be mentors. What exactly happens at Toyota in terms of leadership? The most important role of a leader at Toyota is developing others.

In order to be competitive on saturated markets, many manufacturers (OEM) often find only one solution: they expand their range of products with new product variants thus trying to completely exhaust niches. Only few of them, however, have a reasonable variant and complexity management.