Carl Livesay (left), Dave Rizzardo (middle) and Sarah Tilkens (right) speak at the IndustryWeek Operations Leadership Summit in Indianapolis in June.

Lean Manufacturing: It's Still All About People, Darnit!

July 26, 2024

A lively panel discussion featuring Sarah Tilkens, Carl Livesay and Dave Rizzardo focused on getting the most out of people by listening to them and understanding them.

Robert Schoenberger

No one will ever accuse Dave Rizzardo, associate director of the Maryland World Class Consortia of being shy or dispassionate about lean manufacturing and operational excellence. But, on a panel discussion at IndustryWeek's recent Operations Leadership Summit, the audience got an earful from the operations expert on treating people right, listening to your employees and how it's the leader's job to make sure everyone else can do their work.

Joining Dave for this particularly lively panel discussion was his friend (well, they were friends at the start of the conversation) Carl Livesay, general manager of Maryland-based Mercury Plastics. Also speaking was Sarah Tilkens, CEO of the KPI Lab and senior manager for operational excellence at GE Healthcare. The moderator is Robert Schoenberger, editor-in-chief at IndustryWeek.

About the Author

Robert Schoenberger

Editor-in-Chief

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/robert-schoenberger-4326b810

Bio: Robert Schoenberger has been writing about manufacturing technology in one form or another since the late 1990s. He began his career in newspapers in South Texas and has worked for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi; The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky; and The Plain Dealer in Cleveland where he spent more than six years as the automotive reporter. In 2014, he launched Today's Motor Vehicles (now EV Manufacturing & Design), a magazine focusing on design and manufacturing topics within the automotive and commercial truck worlds. He joined IndustryWeek in late 2021.