VELOCITY - The Book

About the Authors

Dee Jacob

Dee has always marched to a different drum beat and been successful in getting others to follow a new pathway to rapid success. A manager at Procter and Gamble for 18 years, she further developed the Production TOC applications in the areas of chemical processing and high speed packaging for P&G all over the world there.

Besides implementing some of the first TOC supply chain applications in consumer products in the world, she brought the beginnings of the TOC Critical Chain concept into application into consumer products. In health care, beauty care, household cleaning, soap and detergents, she led many applications involving the use of TOC from creating strategy, decreasing time for product development, improving facility design and project execution, to product rollout and capacity increases. Utilizing an integrated approach with many of the TQM techniques that evolved into Lean Six Sigma, Dee was able to build rapid consensus and bottom line results in a just a few years – credited with positively impacting the bottom line at $500 million.

Upon leaving P&G in 1991, she joined AGI as a partner and introduced TOC into the South Africa and Australasia markets, as well as to numerous clients in North America and Europe. She continues to lead the development of the TOC Project Management application into the multi-project environment and its use in a variety of environments from product development to construction to the test and evaluation of the some of the most sophisticated technologies in Department of Defense, as well as the integration of the TOC Thinking Processes into Strategic and Operational Planning. Her success comes from her hands on approach, her understanding of what it takes to achieve organizational transformation and her ability to transfer capability to clients to enable them to improve and sustain.

Besides being a world renowned expert in TOC Project Management, TOC Thinking Processes, AGI Leadership Strategy Process, she is the chief architect of AGI’s Leadership Strategy Process, SDAIS deployment models and VELOCITY Approach for the integration of Lean Six Sigma and TOC. She was elected Managing Partner of AGI in 2005 and has led AGI in that capacity since 2006.

Dee is a graduate of Lafayette College, as well as the University of Tennessee’s Executive Excellence Center Statistical Process Control and Design of Experiments. She was trained by Dr. Shingeo Shingo in SMED and Poka Yoke; Dr. Richard Schoenberger in World Class Manufacturing and both Dr. Juran and Dr. Deming. She is a founder and lifetime member of the Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization and holds all six TOCICO certifications.

Suzan Bergland

Suzan has worked with numerous organizations to help them improve their bottom-line results and to create a sustainable competitive advantage. As a Manager at Cryovac Division Sealed Air Corporation for 20 years, she held various positions in both Information Systems and Quality Assurance. During the last half of her career at Cryovac she implemented a Continuous Improvement training curriculum that included courses in Lean, Six Sigma and the Theory of Constraints (TOC). In addition, she facilitated strategy and improvement efforts at all levels of the organization. One of her last assignments at Cryovac involved leading the effort for synchronizing the supply chain for one of their major product offerings. These efforts resulted in increasing throughput and eliminating a major market constraint.

Upon leaving Cryovac, Suzan joined with David Bergland and became the Managing Partner of TOC Solutions, LLC, a Certified Associate of the Avraham Y. Goldratt Institute, LP. During this time Suzan and David worked with organizations of all sizes to implement TOC solutions to improve their bottom line.

In 2005 Suzan joined the AGI-Goldratt Institute as the Vice President of Implementation Services. During this time she led the effort to fully integrate TOC with Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in a way that truly creates breakthrough performance. In 2006 she became a Partner and is currently serving as the President of the North American Group.

A sought after speaker, Suzan is coauthor with Dee Jacob of AGI and Jeff Cox (coauthor of THE GOAL) of the new business novel VELOCITY – Combining Lean, Six Sigma and the Theory of Constraints to Achieve Breakthrough Performance, published on December 29, 2009 by Simon & Schuster.

Suzan holds a Bachelors degree from Furman University, a Masters degree from Converse College, and a Masters degree in Quality Management from Loyola University in New Orleans. She is a founder and lifetime member of the Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization (TOCICO) and holds all six TOCICO certifications (Supply Chain Logistics, Thinking Process, Holistic Strategy, Project Management, Finance and Measures and Fundamentals). She is also a member of APICS and ASQ and holds three ASQ Certifications: Certified Quality Manager, Certified Quality Engineer (CQE), and Certified Quality Auditor (CQA). She is a Jonah’s Jonah and has extensive experience in implementing all aspects of the TOC Body of Knowledge. She has also had considerable experience with Lean, Six Sigma and Total Quality Management (TQM) in addition to leading AGI’s work in integrating these methods with TOC.

Jeff Cox