Thomas Drumwright

Mr. E. Thomas Drumwright is an Associate of TranSystems|The ACCESS Group with over twenty years of experience in automotive manufacturing including, assembly/ machining of engines, transmissions and castings. His manufacturing experience also includes experience in plastics molding, plastics assembly, vehicle body and plastics paint operations. Thomas has held positions as a manufacturing area manager, project engineer, lean integration advisor, lean subject matter expert and manufacturing systems corporate auditor as well as, having served in many lean integration support roles. Thomas has worked with companies such as Nissan Manufacturing USA, General Motors Manufacturing Division and Commerce Union Bank Data Processing Operations.

Thomas possesses strong lean integration skills, including kaizen facilitation, value stream identification and project engineering.  Thomas began his career as a paint technician, paint plant quality inspector before entering production management, thus he has a comprehensive knowledge of all aspects of the manufacturing shop floor. During his tenure, he has become well versed in numerous lean shop floor management strategies, lean tools and continuous improvement methods. Thomas facilitated cost savings specific to time required to start up new plant operations. He uses a meticulous lean planning, master plan development and a lean acceleration approach. Thomas has developed training material which covers standardized work, workplace organization, management by takt time, and visual management. Thomas has coached, trained and mentored manufacturing leadership salary and hourly on lean implementation. 

Thomas has been heavily involved in large-scale plant start-ups. His background includes production management, project engineering (plus leading lean integration projects, conducting lean manufacturing system audits and process trouble shooting). He has experience with improving shop floor management, process layouts, product flow, material presentation/flow, value stream identification, standardization, planned maintenance, continuous improvement, quality systems and constraint management.  He has experience in lean project engineering, preparing lean integration plans, coaching and teaching understanding/ implementation of lean at new and existing plants. Thomas has excellent cognitive, interpersonal and teaming skills. He is a seasoned professional who portrays both hands-on and leadership characteristics.

Thomas studies, at the collegiate level, were at Tennessee State University & Kennedy Western University. His major course of study was human resource management. He has also successfully completed many advanced training courses in the area of lean manufacturing management/ lean integration and lean shop floor management.