Meet the Team
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Juan Amador, Director
Juan Amador, Director, Continuous Improvement
UL Knowledge Services
Juan Amador is Director of Continuous Improvement with UL Knowledge Services, UL's training and advisory services business unit. Juan has 12 years of career experience driving and teaching continuous improvement to more than 5,000 individuals in 35+ countries.During his time at UL, Juan has helped develop more than 2,000 change agents across the globe for the organization's Language of Change initiative. He helped design UL's Global Lean Leadership program and created the Center for Continuous Improvement and Innovation. His contributions have allowed UL to increase Net Promoter Score by more than 100 percent since 2007 and customers have seen turnaround service time improve by more than 50 percent. UL's continuous improvement journey has enabled the company to increase profitability by 68 percent since 2005.
Prior to joining UL, Juan integrated and deployed Lean and Six Sigma for Medtronic. He is a certified Lean Sigma Master Black Belt, graduated from UL's Global Leadership Program, and holds a B.S. in Business Information Systems from the University of Phoenix and an A.S. in Electronic Engineering.
Awards & Recognition
- Helped lead Lean integration at Medtronic's ENT facility in Jacksonville, Fla., which was awarded the Shingo Prize for excellence in Lean results and identified as one of the Best Plants in North America by IndustryWeek.
- In Japan, led the transformation of Medtronic's distribution system for medical devices to a Lean management and distribution center earned high praise as a Center of Excellence from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW).
- Awarded Medtronic's Individual and Group Star of Excellence
- Served as a speaker at various industry conferences, including the Six Sigma Summit, Lean Six Sigma Conference and Association for Manufacturing Excellence.
- Completed GEMBA walks with Dr. James Womack, Dr. John Touissant and Dr. Sami Bahri, some of the top thought leaders in Lean methodology.
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Jerry Bussell, Executive Advisor
Jerry Bussell, Executive Advisor
UL Knowledge Services
Jerry Bussell is Executive Advisor to Knowledge Services, UL's training and advisory services business unit, and President of Bussell Lean Associates, a lean advisory service firm for CEOs and their executive teams. He has been formally recognized as one of the top lean practitioners and leaders in North America. Jerry has a strong track record in leading and advising others how to implement highly successful lean transformations in many different industries. He is respected as a lean thought leader and coach. Jerry is a highly sought after advisor and keynote speaker on a global basis.
In April 2011, Jerry completed a highly successful career in manufacturing operations with Medtronic. He served as Vice President of Operational Excellence and Vice President of Global Operations at Medtronic Surgical Technologies. Jerry was involved in successful public offerings and international and domestic manufacturing operations start-ups during his career at Medtronic, Bristol Myers Squib, Allergan, International Hydron and Kraft Foods.
Currently Jerry is Executive in Residence at the University of North Florida.
Jerry has completed a book tiled Anatomy of a Lean Leader as Illustrated by 10 Modern CEOs and Abraham Lincoln. This book can be ordered by clicking here.
Jerry received a B.A. from St John Fisher College and an M.B.A from Baylor University.
Awards & Recognition
- Received the prestigious Medtronic Wallin Leadership award for transforming Medtronic ENT's traditional manufacturing operation into a nationally recognized model of lean manufacturing.
- Under Jerry's leadership, Medtronic ENT was recognized as one of IndustryWeek's Best Plants in North America in 2002, received the Shingo Prize in 2003, and received a Shingo Silver Medallion in 2009.
- Acted as Founder and Chairman of the Jacksonville Lean Consortium.
- Served as Chairman of the Board of Governors for the Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence.
- Served as a Trustee of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce and Vice Chairman of the Jacksonville University Athletic Association.
- In 2005, inducted into the Shingo Academy for outstanding contributions to operational excellence.
- Current member of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence's Champions Club.
Additional Info
Bylined Articles:
- Jerry Bussell - "Lean ROI Comes Down to How It Helps You Grow Revenue Faster" (http://www.leanroi.org/archives/493)
Radio Interviews:
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Chuck Carlton, Associate Director
Chuck Carlton, Associate Director
UL Knowledge Services
Chuck Carlton is an Assoicate Director and certified Master Black Belt (MBB) with UL Knowledge Services, UL's training and advisory services business unit. He has more than 15 years of experience deploying Lean Sigma in manufacturing and transactional environments. In his current role at UL, Chuck devotes the majority of his time to developing and enacting strategy deployment and problem solving processes. He is also working to share his career knowledge with UL clients to help them create a culture of continuous improvement that will increase satisfaction among their customer base and positively impact the bottom line.
Chuck began his lean journey in 1995 as a team leader at Medtronic, where he directed and facilitated thousands of continuous improvement events. He served as Value Stream Manager for Operations and realized improvements in several areas, including service and repair, procurement, engineering and employee development. After succeeding in that role, Chuck took on a position as Lean Sigma Project Manager, where he worked with several facilities to implement lean systems and tools and improve business operations.
Early in his career Chuck spent four years with the US Air Force working in a hospital setting as a labor and delivery and emergency room technician. He holds a B.A. in Business Administration from Ashford University and in his free time enjoys woodworking and coaching his daughter's basketball teams.
Awards & Recognition
- Developed a visual workplace for Medronic that was featured during two AME conference tours.
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Val Liberman, Associate Director
Val Liberman, Associate Director
UL Knowledge Services
Val Liberman is an Assoicate Director and certified Master Black Belt (MBB) at UL Knowledge Services, UL's training and advisory services business unit. He has more than 12 years of experience deploying Lean and Six Sigma methodologies in manufacturing and transactional environments with global, multicultural exposure. As the first certified MBB at UL, Val played an integral role in UL's transformation, having trained hundreds of Green Belts and Black Belts. Since 2004, Val managed and executed numerous projects to help UL realize a 50 percent improvement in meeting customer deadlines, and double the number of customers promoting UL services.
Today, Val is shifting his professional focus to share important lessons learned during UL's internal transformation with the company's external customer base. The majority of his time is used developing and deploying effective and engaging continuous improvement service offerings that help UL clients generate improved customer satisfaction and positively impact their bottom line.
Val is passionate about helping customers unleash the true potential of their teams by developing leaders within their respective organizations. He does this following the old proverb of "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
Val holds Bachelor and Master Degrees in Material Science and Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology and in his free time enjoys amateur photography and spending time with his wife and two children.
Awards & Recognition
- 2003 Six Sigma Black Belt Certification from Whirlpool Corporation
- 2007 Lean Sigma Black Belt certification from UL
- 2008 Lean Sigma Master Black Belt certification from UL
- Value Stream Leader at 2009 AME Conference in Kentucky
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José Paredes, Associate Director
José Daniel Paredes, Associate Director
UL Knowledge ServicesJosé Daniel Paredes is an Associate Director at the Center for Continuous Improvement and Innovation, within UL Knowledge Services, UL's training and advisory services business unit. He comes with nearly 10 years of experience in process improvement in health care and is deeply passionate about improving health care delivery and outcomes.
He spent the last six years at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), a 927-bed Academic Medical Center and teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School serving as an internal improvement advisor for a variety of hospital change initiatives.
As part of the Process Improvement team, he strengthened the credibility of the department via the relationships established and the results attained and sustained. His projects spanned clinical and non-clinical areas as well as inpatient and outpatient settings, ranged in scope from local to hospital-wide, and entailed working closely with all levels of leadership and front-line staff. In addition to project management and team facilitation, his role in developing curricula, teaching process improvement including Lean and change management to clinicians and non-clinicians contributed to building the organization's capability for change.
Prior to working at BWH, José dedicated four years at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, an "independent not-for profit-organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, focused on motivating and building the will for change; identifying and testing new models of care in partnership with both patients and health care professionals; and ensuring the broadest possible adoption of best practices and effective innovations." During his tenure as improvement advisor, project manager, and project coordinator, he participated in many projects including the Institute's first international Collaborative with Partners-In-Health and the Peruvian Ministry of Health to spread treatment of multi-drug resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in urban Lima, Peru. He also taught hospital teams about the appropriate use of improvement tools, most notably the use of the Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycle, and how to go from a very small test of change to wider spread and eventual adoption of the change.
José obtained his Master's of Science degree from The Dartmouth Institute (TDI) focused on imparting the core competencies of value-based, patient-centered care and where he first was exposed to Lean thinking. His Bachelor of Arts degree is from Dartmouth College. His professional certifications include:
- Institute for Healthcare Improvement: Improvement Advisor Professional Development Program
- GE Healthcare Performance Solutions Applied Trainings at Brigham and Women's Hospital:
- Lean/Kaizen Leader
- Change Management (Change Acceleration Process) Practitioner
- Work-Out Leader
- Advanced Facilitation
Awards & Recognition
- Published: Applying Lean/Toyota Production System Principles to Improving Phlebotomy Patient Satisfaction and Workflow Stacy E.F. Melanson, MD, PhD,1, Ellen M. Goonan, MS, MT(ASCP)SH,1, Margaret M. Lobo,1, Jonathan M. Baum, MBA,2, José D. Paredes, MS,2, Katherine S. Santos,2, Michael L. Gustafson, MD, MBA,2, and Milenko J. Tanasijevic, MD, MBA1American Society for Clinical Pathology. 2009; 132
- Recipient of 2007 Partners in Excellence award for work in Outpatient Endoscopy Triage of Orders and Effectiveness of Patient Preparation
- Recipient of 2008 Partners in Excellence award for work in improving Clinical Laboratory Specimen Timeliness
- Recipient of 2009 Partners in Excellence award for work in Revenue Capture Enhancement with Finance team
- Recipient of 2010 Partners in Excellence award for work in Linen Utilization Project
