Our Team

Principal Consultant
Terry S. Mercer
Lean and Six Sigma

Terry S. Mercer is a seasoned consultant, manufacturing executive and project manager with over 20 years of industrial experience and 12 years of consulting experience in a variety of industrial, distribution and medical environments.  He has managed business turnarounds and start-ups and led a number of organizations through significant restructuring using Lean and Six Sigma Methods.  With skilled leadership, Terry helps organizations and project teams identify significant profit building and efficiency opportunities. He is adept at developing and implementing robust solutions to achieve result in new levels of performance improvement and revenues achievement.

His special competencies are in Lean Manufacturing, Lean Six Sigma techniques, Shop Floor Control systems, Performance Measurement, Factory Scheduling Systems, ERP Implementations and Supply Chain issues.  Consulting engagements and executive roles have focused in 100 to 1500 person organizations in a variety of industries, including medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, food and grocery distribution, metal working, injection molding, newspapers, equipment assembly, process industries, food manufacturing, and PCB assembly with aerospace and electronics firms.

Highly experienced as a former VP of operations, general manager, and senior consulting executive, examples of Terry’s accomplishments include:

• Turning around a $20-million semiconductor equipment business.  He achieved 30% sales growth, eliminated a 6 week backlog of past-due shipments, reduced lead times from 18 to 3 weeks, and introduced a new generation of instruments. (Refer to this documented case study in the Handbook of Supply Chain Management. by JB Ayers)
• Developed and implemented an improvement plan for a $100-million contract assembly and distribution warehouse that included a new distribution warehouse layout that resulted in a 40% increase in capacity and a 50% increase in picking and packing productivity. 
• As project manager, led a Lean conversion and crisis resolution at a $150 million PCB assembly plant consolidation, utilizing Blitz Kaizen events.  Revised the Kanban strategy, plant layout, and shop floor scheduling practices, and instituted 5S methods, resulting in 27% productivity and 16% throughput increases.  This was a failed consolidation, of three plants, that had created a crisis in the airframe business worldwide.
• Reduced $3.5 million in annual operating expenses for a medical equipment manufacturer by consolidating a $25 million product line in a sister facility, including consideration of offshore manufacturing options.
• Assisted a food manufacturer, distributor, and retail operator through a Business / Enterprise Improvement engagement, affecting the entire operation and involved tying-out process improvements, gross margin increases and costs savings to improve cash flow and profitability.  Restructured management systems, performance reporting, manpower planning and shop floor control systems.
• Providing Lean expertise and manufacturing concepts for an analysis team developing options for a $1.2 million square foot gaming industry facility that would consolidate 11 separate warehouse, fabrication and assembly operations.
• Creating and implementing a management reporting system to measure the transportation cost performance of three grocery chain distribution centers that compared the three modes of transportation for three different store groupings.  Targeted savings were $2.5 million.
• Improving productivity using Lean methods at a $600 million pharmaceutical facility. 

Terry holds a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a masters of business administration from Cornell University.

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