The members of The Quest Alliance constitute a consortium of colleagues who have all worked extensively in all aspects of the Quality Sciences. The members of the "alliance" are in frequent contact with one another and have work together in a number of situations providing consulting services, developing technical training material, and developing and advancing proprietary analysis and improvement technologies.
We now provide biographical information for each of the members of The Quest Alliance.
Dr. Ray L. Littlejohn-Founder and President
Upon completion of graduate school (Ph.D., University of Oklahoma, 1977) Ray began a teaching career at North Central College (Naperville, IL) where he taught for 5 years. During his teaching tenure he also did consulting work (Marketing, Marketing Research, and Forecasting) and lectured for The American Management Associations. He left teaching to engage in consulting full time in a company he formed with two teaching colleagues. The consultancy focused on forecasting and market research. After approximately 5 years of consulting, Ray went into industry as a statistician with Sealed Power Corporation. He subsequently served as the Quality Assurance Manager for Sealed Power Division of Sealed Power Corporation, a Tier 1 automotive engine components supplier. Subsequently he joined Luftig & Warren, International. His consulting activities at Luftig & Warren International involved the entire breadth of topics in the area of business and quality improvement including all of the components of a comprehensive implementation of TQM (Total Quality Management) as well as the training and implementation of Six Sigma Business Improvement methodology.
Ray has consulted and conducted training in the metal processing industries (Alcoa, Northwest Aluminum, Inland Steel, Olin Brass, Sealed Power, INA Bearing, Danaher Tool, Metal Container Corporation, Zapata Industries), in the food and beverage industries, both production and suppliers (Anheuser-Busch, Earthgrains, Sara Lee Bakery Group, Eagle Snacks, Ball-Foster Glass, Metal Container, Closure Systems, Inc.), electronics, semiconductor, high tech manufacturing and assembly industries (Alien Technology, 3D Systems, Sheldahl, Molex, AMP, MEMC Semiconductor), ink and chemical industries (Flint Ink, Sunoco, Elkem Chemical, Alcoa, Hunt Chemical), automotive, truck and aircraft supply industries -- both engine components and interior systems (Sealed Power Corp, Grupo Antolin, Trim Systems/ASC, Inc.), and other miscellaneous industries (Helix Medical - medical device manufacturer, Williams International - jet engine manufacturer). Ray's activities in these companies have involved many business areas and activities including: customer survey and customer satisfaction enhancement, supplier systems development, business planning, policy deployment, business system development and improvement; business, manufacturing and administrative product and process improvement; daily management; process control; statistical start ups and conducting training in all of these areas.
In addition, Ray has considerable expertise in Designing and Analyzing Experiments for advanced problem solving and process improvement, and is particularly good at advanced statistical analysis of research studies. He also teaches Experimental Design, Six Sigma Black Belt, Green Belt, and Champion courses and all of the support courses for Business Performance Improvement.
Dr. Joseph L. Madrigal-Senior Consultant
Dr. Joseph L. Madrigal has proven senior level experience in executive decision-making, policy direction, strategic business planning, research and development drawing on more than 30 years of consulting experience at the national and international level in private industry. He is an energetic self-starter with excellent analytical, organizational, and creative skills. He has distinguished for his talent for analyzing problems, developing and simplifying procedures, and finding innovative solutions.
His skills in Six Sigma [DMAIC, DFSS, Benchmarking, Process Management, Leadership and Top Level Indicators], lean, kaizen, quality improvement tools and methodologies, rational decision making, survey sampling, queuing systems, strategic planning, and market research have benefited numerous Fortune 100 companies, including transactional, manufacturing [including beverages], service, high-tech electronic, software, retail, aerospace, telecommunications, and communication industries.
Dr. Madrigal is a Master of Master Black Belts that has coached/mentored over 350 quality improvement projects. One of his Six Sigma teams won first place in the Defect Elimination category of the internationally recognized worldwide Six Sigma competition organized by the International Quality and Productivity Center, a London-based organization, in 2005. His consulting work has generated documented savings/revenue close to $450 million dollars. His projects have involved all functions of the value chain, i.e., planning, procurement, marketing, product development [Innovation, R&D], production, distribution, sales, customer service, and finance as a supporting function.
Dr. Madrigal is an experienced Black Belt trainer with in depth knowledge of the Black Belt curriculum including DFSS, QFD, and Benchmarking. He has developed Green Belt, Black Belt and Lean training material for several global corporations. He has also acted as the official BB trainer for several years at a global beverage company.
He has won several teaching excellence awards. He is a Fellow and Chartered Statistician of the Royal Statistical Society in Great Britain, a fellow of the operations management society, and a senior member of the American Society for Quality. He was recognized in Who's Who in Science and Engineering Millennial Edition and is a former member of McKinsey Executive Panel. He was the President of the Board of Directors for a non-profit organization (2000-2005) and has worked in private industry, government, and academic settings. Dr. Madrigal holds a Doctorate in statistics from Oxford University, England, and a postgraduate diploma in business management and statistics from Warwick University, England. He also holds a M.Sc. in statistics and computer science and a B.Sc. in applied mathematics. Dr. Madrigal co-authored the book Experimental Strategies for Quality Improvement in Industry. He has written several monographs and over 25 scientific papers in quality management, customer satisfaction, queuing systems, and biostatistics.
Joseph is also the Founder and President of the Oxford Worldwide Group.
Details of Dr. Madrigal's consulting experience are available here.
Michael V. Petrovich-Senior Consultant
Mike has worked with a variety of Fortune 500 companies for the past 14 years, at all levels and departments. He teaches many of our courses, and has been central to most of the courses' development. He works closely with companies in the implementation of improvement methods, including Six Sigma. He was educated as a mechanical engineer at Washington State University and is a Registered Professional Engineer. He also holds a Master of Business Administration from Portland State University, with an emphasis in marketing and management. Mike is also an accomplished programmer and web developer. He has written numerous excellent Statistical Analysis programs that are heavily used by Alliance members. The programs are MVPstats, MVPspc and PERFORM. A full description and documentation of these software programs are available at www.mvpprograms.com.
Mike is also an accomplished web developer. Links to a number of web sites Mike has developed are provided on the LINKS page of this site.
Mike is the founder of The Forefront Alliance, LLC.
Steven Ouellette-Senior Consultant
Steve earned a Bachelor's of Science as a Metallurgical and Materials Science Engineer at the Colorado School of Mines. He also earned a minor in the Guy T. McBride Honors Program in Public Affairs for Engineers. After graduation, he was honored with a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship and spent a year in Europe studying the "Evolution, Fabrication, and Social Impact of the European Sword." Upon completion of the Fellowship, he began working for Alcoa and achieved the rank of Senior Metallurgical Engineer. During his time at Alcoa, he was trained in the Quality Sciences by Luftig & Warren International (LWI) consultants. Eventually, Steve joined LWI and worked there for six years in a variety of industries, including primary metals extraction and manufacture, baking, distribution, assembly, and auto parts manufacturing, among others. During this time, he became an expert in both the realistic application and the intelligible teaching of a number of advanced business and statistical tools. He was principal in developing the Six Sigma materials for LWI. He has also received a Black Belt from Motorola University, a Master Black Belt from LWI, and a Master of Science in Engineering Management from the University of Colorado. In addition to his duties as President, he is an instructor at the Lockheed Martin Engineering Management Program at the University of Colorado, Director of the Statistical Division of the Center for Computational, Mathematical, and Statistical Solutions, and acts as an Advisory Board Member to Orion Registrar.
Steve writes a monthly feature article for InsideSixSigma called The Six Sigma Heretic.
Steve is also the President and Owner of The ROI Alliance, LLC. In addition, Steve is the Director of the Center for Business Performance Improvement at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
He lives in Colorado with his wife and two daughters.
Robert T. Pahlkotter-Senior Consultant
Bob has Senior Management and Consulting experience with diversified experience in both line and staff roles (ranging from Executive Vice-President to quality engineer). Industry sector experience includes metal fabrication, machining, annealing, melting and casting, rolling, heating, extruding, forging, painting, coating, chemical production, ink production, paper and printing, beverage, food, electronics, recycling, service and research and development. Bob has over 31 years of field experience in conducting and applying process improvement and cost-reduction methods in such firms as Alcoa, Flint Ink, Weyerhaeuser, Anheuser-Busch, Ispat-Inland Steel, Oldsmobile, DaimlerChrysler, Astaris LLC, Williams International and Akzo Nobel.
Illustrative Experiences
Activities and responsibilities have included teaching, engineering, operations and manufacturing, product development and research.
Led a number of strategic planning initiatives at the senior management level for several Fortune 500 firms.
Advised and counseled senior management (VP, CEO level) on a number of major initiatives such as cost reduction, continuous improvement and profitability initiatives which included path rationalization for one firm resulting in a $157 million savings.
Familiarity and application with numerous statistical tools including experimental design which was utilized to reduce scrap from 70% to 5% on an aluminum metal decorating and coating line.
Statistically started up a number of production lines including aluminum plate, slit and ink processes. Assisted and led a number of cost reduction initiatives which resulted in multi-million dollar savings including one which was in excess of $157 million.
Reduced the plant rejection rate for an ink manufacturer from 20% to 4% in six months, while increasing capacity 3% and reducing customer complaints nearly 50%.
Facilitated a $10 million reduction in inventory for a large distribution firm. Facilitated and led numerous teams and managed site engagements for small, medium and large firms.
Bob holds a MLIR from Michigan State University and a BS from Northern Michigan University.
Bob is the founder and Principal of R. T. Pahlkotter & Co., LLC
Doug Ward-Senior Consultant
Doug has 26 years of quality leadership experience with Alcoa and 8 years of senior consulting experience with LWI, and is currently the Principal of Ward & Company, LLC. His educational experience is in Metallurgical Engineering. He is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt, and has acquired considerable business experience throughout his career including working and living internationally. Doug has been deeply involved with solving chronic business related problems, and improving business systems, principally through the application of basic and advanced analytical tools and methods. Consulting experience includes working with approximately 15 companies representing various sectors including manufacturing, service, financial and others. He has led successful ISO, QS, and customer specific certifications with emphasis on improving the business systems, and not simply "getting certified." He has participated in various quality and business system benchmarking activities both domestically and internationally, and has designed and delivered analytical training with follow-up mentoring for senior company management . He has built customized business simulation models for companies that have enhanced product and facility profitability, capacity planning, and strategic scenario planning. He is skilled at data-mining using a wide variety of analytical software applications. Other experience includes forecasting, multivariate statistical modeling, TPM, TQM, and Lean Manufacturing.
In addition to being a Senior Consultant with The Quest Alliance, Doug is the Principal of Ward & Company, LLC a company he founded in 2002. Doug lives and works near Nashville, TN.
Dr. Michael J. Rowney-Senior Consultant
Mike has over 35 years of organizational experience, with the last 25 years devoted to formulating and implementing strategies to achieve world-class competitiveness, first as an internal change agent and then as an external consultant.
In the early '80s he played a key change-agent role at Omark Industries (now Oregon Cutting Systems of Blount Inc.), where he coordinated the planning and implementation of one of North America's first full scale efforts in Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma (to use the currently fashionable label), and Employee Involvement, reporting directly to the president. As a result, he was recruited to perform a similar role for the largest division of the Weyerhaeuser Paper Company.
As a foundation to his consulting career, Mike gained broad management experience in primary materials and manufacturing industries, holding managerial positions in production, R&D, strategic planning, marketing, and new product/new business development.
He holds a BSc (Hons) degree from the University of Birmingham (UK), a Master's from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Metallurgical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He speaks German and French, and has consulted and taught in those languages. He has been trained as a Lead Assessor for ISO 9000.
As a partner in The Deltapoint Corporation of Bellevue WA, Mike consulted for eight years in the planning and implementation of strategies for world-class competitiveness to Alberta Power, Boeing, numerous Boeing suppliers both in North America and Europe, Vitro (Mexico), SmithKline Beecham (UK and USA), Burlington Northern Railroad, Nabisco, Public Service Company of North Carolina, Britax Rumbold (UK), and Fairchild Fasteners (USA and Europe). Much of his recent work has been focused on helping organizations bring about rapid change successfully.
Prior to joining Deltapoint in 1992, Mike spent two years as a senior consultant in Quality Systems with Luftig and Warren International, Inc., a leading quality consultancy specializing in the application of statistical methods. His role there was to broaden the consulting practice to embrace Total Quality Management and Lean. He provided guidance in the implementation of principles and practices to improve competitiveness for major units of Fortune 500 companies, such as Alcoa, Anheuser Busch, and Chiquita in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. Mike leads the ETI Group consulting practice in Lean and related topics. Recent clients include The World Bank, VDO, Timberline Software, Esco (Formetal, Belgium), United Defense, Hewlett-Packard (USA and Ireland), ADec, and the University of Washington.
He is a Senior Fellow of The Center for Competitive Change at the University of Dayton, Ohio, for which he teaches courses and provides consultation for organizations implementing a Lean/Six Sigma transformation.
While continuing his work in "leaning out" existing manufacturing and office operations, Mike is extending his consulting capabilities into "lean product development." He has conducted several 3P (Production, Preparation and Process) Kaizen (Kaikaku) Events for A-Dec and Hewlett-Packard with the focus of developing production processes for new products that are lean from the outset.
In addition to being a Senior Consultant with The Quest Alliance, Mike is the Principal and Founder of Rowney Consulting, Inc. Mike resides in Canby, Oregon.
