Bill Fish is a Senior Advisor with FTE Performance Consulting and has over 40 years of experience in the automotive, major appliance and heavy equipment industries.  Mr. Fish has extensive training and experience in the deployment of lean principles in both direct and consulting roles.  Areas of expertise include plant management, quality systems, warehousing and distribution material flow optimization, material and production control, packaging and kitting operations and aluminum foundry operations. Bill has extensive international experience having lived and worked for 5 years in Europe and consulting for 2+ years in Brazil.

Notable experience and accomplishments:

• Led a “Fix It” project at three Brazilian automotive spare parts facilities that resulted in a 34.8% productivity improvement, a $1M/year reduction in Direct Operating Costs and a 15% annual quality improvement.
• Supported the start-up of 15 new spare parts distribution centers that resulted in General Motors going from “worst to first” in warehousing productivity.  Effort was recognized with a Chairman’s Honors Award (Top10%).
• Directed the Quality Systems, Packaging Engineering and Export Operations Department in General Motors Customer Care and Aftersales Division.  During his tenure, the division had six consecutive years of customer quality improvement and received “Best Practice” recognition by Carlisle & Company.
• Developed and implemented a Global Quality/Packaging Improvement Process at Parts Distribution Centers in England, Germany, Korea, Australia and the United Arab Emirate that led to an annual savings of $500K.
• Led the Quality Control Engineering function at automotive joint venture working with problem suppliers.
• Developed and implemented a customer quality improvement process at a major appliance operation.
• Directed implementation of lean materials process in greenfield vehicle assembly plants in Poland and China.  
• Developed and implemented a lean materials template for brownfield vehicle assembly plants in England, Belgium and Sweden.

Prior to consulting, Bill held various executive positions in Plant Management, Quality Systems, Warehousing and Distribution and Material and Production Control in General Motors.  During his 38 years with GM, Bill spent 5 years in international assignments in Germany.  He was also one of 16 General Motors managers assigned to the GM-Toyota Joint Venture (NUMMI) in Fremont, California where he learned the basics of the Toyota Production System from direct day-today lean implementation based on the Toyota continuous improvement principles.  Prior to this, Bill held various management positions in GM’s foundry division.

Bill has a Master’s Degree in Management from the Sloan School of Management at MIT and a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Administration from General Motors Institute (Now Kettering University).