Great Lakes Continuous Improvement

Systems that work.
Cultures that thrive.
Excellence that lasts.

I started Great Lakes Continuous Improvement to solve a problem I have seen repeatedly across multiple industries. Organizations build solid systems and processes, then watch them degrade due to toxic employee behavior, poor succession planning, and lack of leadership and accountability. Or organizations actively push for a good culture while their systems lag behind, which in turn sours employees and creates a toxic, reactive culture. Either way, the results end up the same. Operational performance suffers, talented people leave, and the financials wither. My methods work on both systems and culture simultaneously and build sustainment into the system from the start so that the gains hold for years.

Tim Morin, Founder and Principal Consultant

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1 Section 1 · free
The Sounding
Fit and First Look

Before either party commits anything, we take a first measure of your organization and objectives to assess if we are a good fit for each other. This stage produces three things that are yours to keep, whether you decide to work with me or not.

Deliverable 01

The Conversation

I ask your leadership team what they need, how far your organization wants to take continuous improvement, and where you believe the opportunities lie.

Deliverable 02

The Walkthrough

I walk your operation and take a brief look at your management processes to understand how the system performs today.

Deliverable 03

The Micro-Assessment

A short self-assessment you complete, paired with what I observed on the walkthrough, written up as a baseline that you can keep.

On your schedule. These happen in order, but not necessarily in one visit. We fit them around your calendar, in a single session or a few shorter ones, whatever works for you.

Navigable?
Before we go further, I want to be honest that this only works if you do. The deeper, transformative work of continuous improvement surfaces things about how your organization really runs, and some of it may not match how leadership believes it runs. Some things that turn up in this process may make you uncomfortable and uncertain. This is completely normal.

What comes to the surface is only useful if you are willing to look at it critically and with an open mind. That is why this early stage runs two ways: you are deciding whether I am the right fit, and I am deciding whether your organization is ready to get real value from going deeper. If the honest answer is that you need a few specific fixes rather than a full transformation, I will tell you, and we will keep it in Section 2.
If we agree the need is targeted

Go to Section 2. Training and hands-on help, chosen to fit the problem in front of you.

If we agree the desire runs deeper

Go to Section 3. A full diagnostic assessment and a customized transformation plan built on what it brings to light, with a sustainment plan, always.

2 Section 2 · day rate or fixed fee
Waypoints
Training and Targeted Services

Focused help in the domains below. Buy one, buy several, or add them into a bigger plan.

TrainingApplicationBlended
Offering Styles: Training, Application, or Blended. Every offering from GLCI seeks to drive learning in your team. This can be primarily driven through Training (80% teaching, 20% execution); Application (20% teaching, 80% execution); or Blended (roughly 50/50). Training courses are led by me with your real problems being used to demonstrate the ideas; Application exercises are where I drive the execution activities with some small amount of training attached for sustainment; Blended exercises involve both. The idea is to create sustained learning so that your organization benefits long after I leave.

These offerings are also tagged by the different audience groups I think that they would most benefit. Each offering is tailored to its audience and packaged in a way that the audience will understand most naturally.
Domain 01

Quality & CI Foundations

LeadershipTechnical StaffShop Floor
  • Foundational knowledge about what quality and continuous improvement are
  • Why investing in quality pays dividends for your business
  • The seven quality tools, problem-solving
  • Systems thinking and the ISO 9001 framework
  • Lean / Six Sigma overview
  • Getting value instead of checking a box
Domain 02

Quality Management Systems & Auditing

LeadershipTechnical Staff
  • ISO 9001 structure and the process approach
  • Process maps and turtle diagrams, document control
  • Internal audits across every function in scope
  • Gap assessments to ISO or customer requirements
  • Management review, quality policy and objectives, corrective action
Domain 03

Problem Solving

Technical StaffShop Floor
  • 8D, to true root cause across all three legs
  • Five-why, fishbone, is / is-not analysis
  • Disciplined corrective action that stays fixed
  • DMAIC and project charters with SMART goals
  • Generalized structured methods for tough, recurring defects
Domain 04

Quality Planning & Risk

LeadershipTechnical Staff
  • APQP, general audience and engineering depth
  • FMEA and control plans
  • PPAP and part approval
  • Requirements and special characteristics
  • Measurement system analysis (design and interpretation)
Domain 05

Quality Statistics

LeadershipTechnical StaffShop Floor
  • For shop floor: what variation is, check sheets, reading an SPC chart
  • For leadership: what variation costs, hidden factory, common versus special cause
  • Technical staff: design of experiments, ANOVA, regression, capability and gauge studies, Monte Carlo
Domain 06

Shop-Floor Excellence

LeadershipTechnical StaffShop Floor
  • Standard work, 5S, and visual standards
  • The waste lens (TIMWOODS), muri / muda / mura
  • Andon and reaction-plan design, quality alerts
  • Jidoka, where lean and quality meet
  • SPC and process capability
Domain 07

Supplier Quality & Development

Technical Staff
  • Supplier self-assessment and on-site assessment
  • System evaluation tooling
  • APQP / PPAP readiness and process sign-off
  • Runoffs, qualifications, and pre-launch trials
  • Collaborative material-flow improvement
Domain 08

Leadership & Quality Culture

LeadershipTechnical StaffShop Floor
  • Shop-floor management, layered calendars, scoreboards, andons
  • Process ownership and risk-based approach
  • Data-driven decision making
  • Conflict resolution and teamwork
  • Daily routines / kata that drive excellence
Domain 09

Technology for Quality

Technical Staff
  • Hands-on dimensional metrology assistance and good laboratory practices
  • Weld analysis, spectrophotometry, calibration systems
  • Quality Engineering analysis of CMM programs, metrology data analysis, datum structure analysis
  • AI and IoT for Quality applications
  • Recommendations for specialized and advanced NDT / DT methods
Domain 10

Employee Skill Matrix and Employee Development Planning

LeadershipTechnical Staff
  • Role-to-skill matrix based on organizational / job knowledge requirements
  • Skill-gap identification and people development planning
  • Leader standard work, succession planning, kata structure
  • Training system design, training level definitions, competency matrices
  • Development plans for Quality / CI professionals mapped to ASQ Body of Knowledge & Lean methodologies
Domain 11
LeadershipTechnical Staff

House Rules

  • A simulation and learning-driven game for leadership and technical staff
  • Teaches common and special cause variation, and why the difference matters
Domain 12

Blueprint Interpretation and Datum Alignment

Technical StaffShop Floor
  • Aligning design, manufacturing, and inspection datums
  • Appropriate documentation and specification using GD&T

How every offering works

Phase 1

Classroom / Background

The understanding that comes before the application. Training courses naturally lean toward building in-depth understanding; Application and Blended engagements give enough background to understand the why. Training offerings spend 80% of our time here; Application and Blended less so.
Phase 2

Application

Hands-on work on your real processes and parts. Depending on the situation, this may require a larger group, or a small group of participants.
Phase 3

Verification & Sustainment

A takeaway plan of action with scheduled follow ups. This helps keep the system from reverting back to the prior state.
A straight answer about this section. These services solve symptoms well and enhance organizational understanding. If the same symptoms keep coming back, or the learning leads to a reflection that deeper change is needed, see Section 3.
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3 Section 3 · one engagement, priced as a retainer
Deep Water
Diagnose, transform, and sustain

One engagement, three phases. Find the real condition, fix it, and keep it fixed.

Phase 1 · 1 to 3 days on site

Diagnosis

I ask three main things of your people: where do they think the organization is today, where do they think it is headed, and what opportunities do they see to drive it down a good path. I ask these questions across functions and levels, because leadership commonly loses sight of the flaws looking downward. A cross section of the organization paints the most realistic picture. All information gathered, if shared, is shared anonymously.

Phase 2 · multi-month

Roadmap & Execution

I assemble the findings into a portfolio of your quality systems and culture as they really are (current state), then build a roadmap with your input. The plan focuses on highest priority needs first; defines ownership of each objective that we agree to; outlines timing and sequence; and highlights needs for training and development of the people at every step.

Phase 3 · ongoing

Sustainment

A monthly cadence of audits, leadership reviews, coaching, and a quarterly assessment to re-evaluate progress to the plan.

◂ diagnose ——— transform ——— hold the gains ▸
Staying Power

I do not take on transformations without sustainment attached. Results decay without reinforcement. Diagnosis and execution change the organization, and sustainment is what keeps those gains in place. All three phases work together to hold the improvements we make, which is why they are one engagement rather than three separate purchases.

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The Field Guide, Dialed In background · the book behind the method

The same pattern holds across very different organizations and industries, from heavy manufacturing to medical devices to consumer products. The organizations that last build systems and culture together, not one at the expense of the other. Dialed In, my field guide, lays out how the two work as a pair, why most improvement efforts fail when only one is addressed, and what it takes to reach the state the title describes.

Read it · excerpts/concepts defined in Section 1 (free)Learn it · methods run through Section 2 (for a cost)Live it · full framework in Section 3 (for a cost)
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