Kevin Steele, CFPIM, is a leading supply chain expert with over 25 years of experience helping corporations develop lower cost and higher performing business operations.  During his consulting career Kevin has been noted for bringing a strategic perspective to operational issues.  Kevin has assisted companies ranging from start-ups to multi-billion dollar corporations on a global basis.  His experience includes establishing effective product introduction, manufacturing, supply chain, sustainability and customer support business processes and enterprise systems.  He has led clients through strategy development and execution for customer experience improvement, outsourcing, lean operations, supply chain optimization and quality system implementations,.  He has worked with clients in the semiconductor equipment, wireless communications and hardware, consumer products, networking equipment, software, computer and peripheral, medical device, and semiconductor industries.

Kevin has conducted and managed projects in many areas, including procurement, supply chain, order fulfillment and reverse logistics.  For several companies he has led the selection/implementation of ERP,CRM and SCM systems.  He has also led efforts of procurement teams in identifying cost reduction opportunities and negotiating contract modifications with suppliers. For a $3.5B storage device company with monthly volumes of ~!00K units he led projects to improve order scheduling and lean fulfillment processes, test systems effectiveness and overall quality strategy.  For a $1.5B wireless device manufacturer with monthly volumes of ~90K units he led the implementation of a new outsourced repair services provider, implemented parts planning and distribution and assisted with redesigning returns management processes to reduce costs by 25%.For $2B capital equipment manufacturer he led the analysis and optimization modeling of the global supply chain resulting in 19% cost reductions and 8% reduction in carbon footprint.

As a consultant, he has also served in a variety of interim management positions, including Chief Operating Officer, Vice President of Operations and Vice President of Worldwide Customer Support. Results have included 90% reductions in manufacturing cycle time and 40% reductions in customer service inventory while maintaining or improving customer satisfaction.

Kevin graduated from Brigham Young University with a BS in Engineering, and received an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration with a concentration in Operations Management.  He is certified by the American Production and Inventory Control Society at the Fellow level.   Kevin is a frequent speaker, magazine article author and leads executive education seminars for the Industrial Relations Center at the California Institute of Technology on Lean Operations, Customer Service, Design for X and Value Engineering.