The TWI Institute
The center for training, education & connections for the TWI community

Staff

Robert Trachtenberg
TWI President and CEO
Email |
Patrick Graupp
Senior Master Trainer
(JI, JR, JM, JS, PS)
Bio
Robert Wrona
TWI Executive Director
Email | Bio
Richard Abercrombie
Master Trainer
(JI, JR, JM, JS)
Bio
Steven Grossman
TWI Director
Email | Bio
Mike Braml
Master Trainer
(JI, JR, JM)
Bio
Lynne HardingLynne Harding
TWI Program Administrator
Email |

Roger BilasRoger Bilas
Master Trainer
(JI)
Bio

Susan KuhnsSusan Kuhns
TWI Director of Marketing
and Communications

Email |

David PalazzoliDavid Palazzoli
Master Trainer
(JR)
Bio
Clara ScherfnerClara Scherfner
TWI Finance Administrator
Email |
 

 

Lynne HardingRobert Trachtenberg

TWI President and CEO - rtrachtenberg@twi-institute.org

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Robert Wrona

TWI Executive Director - rwrona@twi-institute.org

Bob began his manufacturing career with six years at the Chevrolet Division of General Motors in Buffalo, NY while earning a BS from Canisius College. He spent four years at Eastman Kodak, in Rochester, NY where he obtained his MBA from Rochester Institute of Technology before joining a start up retail organization in Syracuse, NY where he soon became VP Organizational Development implementing training and “lean” just-in-time concepts as the company grew from 12 stores to 140 stores with sales over $250 million. He returned to his manufacturing roots as an Organizational Development consultant in 1982. This led to implementing TQM for small and mid-sized companies that in turn led to a study on how to implement Japanese manufacturing techniques as they became known in the US. Bob contacted Professor Alan Robinson in 1998 when he discovered TWI was part of Kaizen in Japan. This led him to Patrick Graupp who was employed by SANYO in San Diego and the two of them talked about reintroducing TWI in the US. They were not able to pursue this common interest until Bob joined CNYTDO as a Lean Consultant in 2001 at which time they reintroduced TWI training to US companies for the first time since the end of WWII.

Having demonstrated that TWI training enabled companies to achieve results with little investment by leveraging the knowledge and skills of their employees, CNYTDO was soon responding to requests from companies throughout the US looking to do the same. The need for standardization to quickly spread the training was apparent with the first group of trainers that wanted to “personalize” or to “modernize” the methodology. After reviewing the archived materials with those used in Japan, Bob and Pat determined that to successfully deliver TWI they would recreate the materials trainers would need just as they were delivered during WWII and in Japan after the war. Their initial work is documented in their book The TWI Workbook: Essential Skills for Supervisors that is a Shingo Research and Professional Publication Prize Recipient for 2007.

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Steve Grossman

TWI Director - sgrossman@twi-institute.org

Steve has spent his professional career helping people improve themselves, what they do and how they do it. So, joining the TWI Institute was clearly an extension of this work.

Through December 2008 he was the chief operating officer at Hezel Associates, responsible for development and management of educational evaluation projects. As a fulltime consultant Dr. Grossman maintained his connection to the technical workplace as principal investigator, for the National Science Foundation, in an evaluation of the implementation of Problem Based Case Learning in community colleges.

At the time of his retirement from public education in 2004, he was the Assistant Superintendent for Instruction at Onondaga - Cortland - Madison BOCES (a large educational service agency in Central New York). His oversight responsibilities included career and technical education, and adult and continuing education. In addition, Dr. Grossman has been an adjunct professor at the State University of New York at Oswego in the Department of Vocational Teacher Preparation (VTP). As a vocational and technical education specialist, Dr. Grossman worked to provide programs to empower skilled workers, in and out of the workplace, with improved skills for productivity. Steve is looking forward to continuing that important work as an organizer and advocate for TWI. He believes in the promise of TWI for workers and their employers.

Dr. Grossman earned his Doctorate in Educational Administration from Syracuse University in 1986.

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Lynne HardingLynne Harding

TWI Program Administrator - lharding@twi-institute.org

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Susan KuhnsSusan Kuhns

TWI Director of Marketing and Communications - skuhns@twi-institute.org

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Clara ScherfnerClara Scherfner

TWI Finance Administrator - cscherfner@twi-institute.org

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Patrick Graupp

Senior Master Trainer
(JI, JR, JM, JS, PS)

Patrick began his training career at the SANYO Electric Corporate Training Center in Japan after graduating with Highest Honors from Drexel University in 1980. There he learned to deliver TWI and other training to prepare employees for assignment outside of Japan. He in turn was also transferred to a compact disc fabrication plant in Indiana where he obtained manufacturing experience before returning to Japan to become Programs Master Trainer delivering TWI around the world for Sanyo. Patrick earned an MBA from Boston University during this time and later published a book on how to teach Japanese staff to implement Job Methods Training outside of Japan. He was then promoted to the head of Human Resources for SANYO North America Corp. in San Diego, CA where he settled.

Patrick took vacation time to deliver a pilot project for CNYTDO in 2001 to reintroduce TWI in the US, and again in 2002 to reintroduce the full TWI Program at ESCO Turbine Technologies-Syracuse. The results at ESCO encouraged Patrick to leave SANYO in 2002 and work with CNYTDO to deliver and document how to deliver the TWI program in the US as he was taught in Japan and which he described in his book The TWI Workbook: Essential Skills for Supervisors, a Shingo Research and Professional Publication Prize Recipient for 2007. These standardized training manuals and materials are now used by the TWI Institute to train and certify trainers on how to deliver JR, JI and JM as was done by the TWI Service during WWII. Patrick also documented the format on how he was trained in Japan while training two other TWI Master Trainers (trainer of trainers) like himself. TWI is now readily available nationally and in Spanish from the TWI Institute.

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Richard Abercrombie

Master Trainer
(JI, JR, JM, JS)

Richard has over 20 years of experience in manufacturing, most of it with the Boeing Company in Washington State. There, Richard became involved in Boeing’s Lean Manufacturing initiative as a member of the Boeing Supplier Support Center which assisted key Boeing suppliers, both domestic and international, with beginning a continuous improvement program based on the Toyota Production System. To fulfill this role, Richard received training in TPS from the Shingijutsu Company both in Japan and at Boeing.

Since retiring from the Boeing Company in 2000, Richard has continued to consult independently as President of Lean Promotions. Recognizing that TWI is one of the fundamentals supporting the Toyota Production System, Richard was trained and certified by the TWI Institute and has since delivered the TWI supervisor programs to clients in manufacturing, aerospace, steel, food, banking, construction, and healthcare industries.

Richard has a contractual relationship with the TWI Institute and is collaborating with them as their TWI program expands. Now a Master Trainer, Richard conducts the 10-hour “J” training and train-the-trainer sessions for the TWI Institute in addition to being an independent lean consultant.

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Mike Braml

Master Trainer
(JI, JR, JM)

Mike has more than 30 years of manufacturing and service industry experience. Significant background in manufacturing management and continuous improvement efforts has enabled Mike to help diverse enterprises gain competitive advantage and position themselves for robust futures. Broad continuous improvement experience including lean, six sigma, and TOC implementations, coupled with being a certified TWI instructor to dozens of companies.

Recently Mike has taken TWI outside of manufacturing, and applied the concepts to service and public institutions with significant success. Mike has delivered TWI within public institutions including public schools, county worker environments, medical centers, and service organizations. Mike is engaged in becoming a Master Trainer for TWI, and hopes to invest his passion for the program to continuous improvement efforts in numerous markets.

Mike has a double major in Biology and Scientific Land Management, and has earned a MBA from Kennedy Western University. Mike has been certified in Production and Inventory Management through APICS, and has been a senior member in the society of Industrial Engineers. Mike is a NIST MEP certified instructor for Lean 101, Value Stream Mapping, 5S, Setup Reduction, Plant Layout, Kaizen Events, Cell Design, Kanban Systems, and Standard Work. Mike has implemented lean throughout small and medium sized companies, and more recently assisted hundreds of companies make significant continuous improvement gains.

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Roger BilasRoger Bilas

Master Trainer
(JI)

Roger has over 25 years experience leading teams and organizations in both manufacturing and the service sectors. His experience includes frontline supervision, engineering and maintenance management to director of manufacturing for a multi-plant operation. He has led or facilitated numerous continuous improvement efforts using lean principles, six sigma, total quality management and other improvement methodologies. Roger has found the TWI programs of Job Instruction, Job Relations, Job Safety and Job Methods Improvement to be the “missing link” for implementing and sustaining the improvements generated by a lean strategy.

He has led dozens of workshops in a variety of settings – manufacturing (assembly, continuous processing, and batch processing), services, and administration with excellent results on integrating the use of TWI with other improvement methodologies to generate sustainable bottom line improvement in organizations. Roger is a certified trainer for all four of the above 10-hour TWI programs. He is also a certified TWI Institute JI Master Trainer with plans for him to continue down this path with JR and JM.

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David PalazzoliDavid Palazzoli

Master Trainer
(JR)

David has diversified industry experience having worked in the Healthcare Facilities Engineering Management, Laboratory Analysis, Manufacturing, Metal Finishing and Transportation for over 30 years before joining the Mohawk Valley Applied Technology Center (MVATC) as a Process Engineer and Analyst for this NIST MEP Center in Utica, NY where he was responsible for large-scale savings programs in waste reduction, waste water treatment, recycling and energy management. Dave’s interest in employee safety led him to expand his consulting into the Environment, Health, and Safety field including regulatory compliance issues and he is now trained as an “Authorized OSHA Outreach Trainer” to document, trains trainers and conduct OSHA related information programs. Dave has been an active TWI Trainer in JI, JM, and JR since 2002 soon delivered several JR classes for manufacturers for MVATC He has also delivered numerous JR, JI and JM classes for a wide variety of manufacturers throughout the US for the TWI Institute before completed his training to become a TWI Institute JR Master Trainer. Dave became one of the first Job Safety (JS) trainers when this program was first introduced in 2008 because of this programs focus on safety incident prevention that he delivers in addition to the OSHA training.

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