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Dr. Jeffrey K. Liker is Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan, owner of Liker Lean Advisors, LLC, Partner in The Toyota Way Academy, and Partner in Lean Leadership Institute. Dr. Liker has authored or co-authored over 75 articles and book chapters and eleven books.
He is author of the international best-seller, The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer, McGraw-Hill, 2004 which speaks to the underlying philosophy and principles that drive Toyota’s quality and efficiency-obsessed culture. The companion (with David Meier) The Toyota Way Fieldbook, McGraw Hill, 2005 details how companies can learn from the Toyota Way principles. His book with Jim Morgan, The Toyota Product Development System, Productivity Press, 2006, is the first that details the product development side of Toyota. Additional books in The Toyota Way Series are (with David Meier), Toyota Talent: Developing exceptional people the Toyota Way (May, 2007), (with Michael Hoseus) Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way (January, 2008), (with Gary Convis) The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership (2012), (with James Franz) The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement (2012), (with Tim Ogden) Toyota Under Fire (2012), and (with George Trachilis) Developing Lean Leaders The Toyota Way (2014). His articles and books have won eleven Shingo Prizes for Research Excellence and The Toyota Way also won the 2005 Institute of Industrial Engineers Book of the Year Award and 2007 Sloan Industry Studies Book of the Year.
In 2012 he was inducted into the Association of Manufacturing Excellence Hall of Fame. He is a frequent keynote speaker and consultant. Recent clients include Caterpillar, Applied Materials, Siemens, Dover Industries, Kraft-Oscar Meyer, Alcatel-Lucent, Hertz, Solar Turbine, Art Van Furniture and Henry Ford Health Systems.

Jim Morgan, Ph.D. is President of EMC Network, a research and consulting firm specializing in new product and process creation. He is also Senior Advisor to the Lean Enterprise Institute for their lean product and process development initiative. In these roles Jim has helped senior leaders from a wide variety of industries to improve their organizations development performance. Dr. Morgan’s expertise comes from a rare combination of deep industry experience and rigorous scholarship.
His most recent industry experience was serving as Chief Operating Officer at Rivian, an electric vehicle manufacturer that he helped lead through a critical transition period. Prior to Rivian, Jim spent ten years at Ford Motor Company, first leading the development of Ford’s Global Product Development System (GPDS) then serving for eight and a half years as their Global Director of Body and SBU Engineering during Ford’s historic, product led revitalization under then CEO, Alan Mulally. Prior to Ford, Jim worked at Troy Design and Manufacturing (TDM) for 15 years as Vice President of Operations. TDM is a tier one, global automotive supplier of engineering services, prototypes tools and low volume parts and subassemblies.
Jim holds a Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of Michigan where his original research into Product Development won two Shingo Prizes for Research Excellence. In addition he co-authored (with Professor Jeffrey Liker) the award-winning book The Toyota Product Development System (2006) and Designing the Future (2018). He has also authored or co-authored several book chapters on product development, as well as related articles for the Sloan Management Review, The Engineering Management Journal and other publications.