Matt Stewart

Matt Stewart is an Associate of TranSystems | The ACCESS Group and has over seventeen years of experience in operational and leadership positions. His operational experience includes extensive involvement in lean manufacturing, plant management, materials management, program management, product engineering and quality system implementation for the complete value chain. Matt has held numerous positions within operational organizations from shop floor to senior management. Matt has worked in industries including automotive, heavy truck, machining, injection molding, assembly and others in both consulting and full time positions. Companies that Matt has worked with include ASC, Intier, JCI, Pilkington, World Gym, McNeilus Truck, Lear Corporation, Mexican Industries and others.

Matt has led many projects over his career ranging from a quality improvement system which was modeled by a major OEM for use in their own supply base to lean manufacturing conversions of plant wide operations in many different industries. Some of his accomplishments include leading a team through a total lean conversion at a light engine crankshaft manufacturing/assembly operation through reducing inventories (47 days to 5 days), floor space used (by 20%), total work force (by 24%) on same sales, cycle times and lead times. He also managed an implementation of a material pull system synchronized to the customer demand that level schedule for the whole production floor resulting in the reduction of 93% missed shipments, a 47% reduction in excess unneeded finished goods, an overall improvement in BOM accuracy from 41.2% to 92.7%, and a reduction in hourly overtime of 74%.

Matt interacts well with people from all levels of the organization, which has been instrumental in the successful projects he has led. Matt’s involvement in the value stream includes all facets including lean plant layouts, employee training, plan implementation, performance measurements, and ongoing operations. He is intimately familiar with JIT and sequencing for the automotive industry, pull and kanban systems, cellular and single piece flow manufacturing processes, level loading, and other lean manufacturing principles. Matt is an enthusiastic leader that gets results by involving and teaching the people he works with in order to ensure success both during the implementation and after his engagement is complete.

Matt’s educational background includes a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemical Engineering from Michigan Technological University. He has received Certification in Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma Methodology – Black and Green Belt from University of Michigan-College of Engineering.