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LMSPI is Changing its Name!
Starting in December of 2004, we set out to help transform companies and incorporated as Lean Manufacturing Solutions Partnership, Incorporated. We knew it was a mouthful, but we were highly blessed and have grown quite a bit since those initial stages. Today, we have fifteen Enterprise Excellence Consultants traveling throughout North America with the mission of saving Free Enterprise in North America!
In the early days, we spent a good portion of our time doing product consulting; doing the work FOR the client. Today, we spend most of our time as process consultants; taking the client on the journey toward True North as a coach and mentor. This has allowed us to experience far better sustainment and organizational development. This has also meant engagement at higher levels in client organizations, typically focusing on business transformation for the full enterprise.
Earlier, we were focused purely on manufacturing. Today, we have forayed into banking, healthcare, and government work. As big as our original mission sounded – saving manufacturing in North America – it actually became too small as we wanted to help non-manufacturers as well. We still focus on operational excellence and certainly would like to continue re-shoring as a viable manufacturing strategy, but we also want to improve the efficiency of our healthcare system, our government, and even non-government organizations.
We also found that the word “Lean” in our name had many negative connotations where “we tried that stuff years ago and it was a disaster!” Also, LMSPI’s offerings were always far more than the traditional “lean manufacturing” offering. As many of you know, we also conduct organizational development work, executive coaching, HR functional excellence, as well as utilize theory of constraints tools to elevate constraints , and statistical variation reduction methodologies such as six sigma.
What we’ve learned is that our name is too limiting. It’s also too long. We tried to shorten it with the LMSPI acronym, but many people would mix up the letters and before long, we were Lean Manufacturing Per Square Inch! J So, in an effort to be more inclusive and more accurate, we have changed our name to (drum roll please)….. DRIVE, Inc.
It’s short. It’s simple. It’s the exact opposite of Lean Manufacturing Solutions Partnership, Incorporated! So, why DRIVE? Many of you experienced some of our attempts at a name change. The overwhelming response was that everyone agreed that the name needed to change but very few liked the changes we were considering.
We think the name DRIVE supports a focus on journey. A journey can start at the very beginning or even at the middle of a path. The key is to know where one is (YOU ARE HERE) and to know the path and the means to the destination . The name DRIVE implies direction. Many of you can personally attest to the DRIVE that was created in your organization through our efforts to motivate your teams. We tend to be known for our DRIVE and certainly would like that to continue. The name DRIVE is action oriented and can imply acceleration. We certainly would like to accelerate the improvement efforts of businesses and enterprises throughout North America.
It’s not just about cars just as it’s not just about the automotive industry for us. Although many of us got our start in the automotive industry, over 90% of our manufacturing clients have been engineer to order or custom businesses outside of the automotive industry. One could associate DRIVE with a hard drive on a computer as a repository of knowledge. All of our consultants have at least 20 years of hands-on experience with operational excellence execution. That sounds like a hard drive to me. There are servo drives as well. One can DRIVE a screw or a golf ball. Either way, it’s about action, and it’s about getting results. We still can be trusted to “make it happen.”
As we are close to our ninth full year in the consulting realm, we thank you for being a part of our success and our transformation along the path to sustained excellence. The legal name LMSPI still exists for us and one can still contact us through the LMSPI website and e-mail addresses. However, we encourage you to visit www.driveinc.com to see our new look. Our future clients may never know the LMSPI saga, but you can say that you remember when….
DRIVE, Inc hits the road on September 1st!