Hardware Podcasts

S7E29 Heylands Lowry| Building an Engineering Culture of Continuous Improvement

Being an Engineer · 10 Jul 2026 · 39m · Episode 29

What this episode covers

Heylands Lowry, a Lean Master Black Belt who has held leadership roles at Intuitive, Edwards Lifesciences, and Panasonic Avionics, discusses building engineering cultures of continuous improvement. He explains how Lean principles remove waste while Six Sigma reduces variation, using DMAIC as a framework, and emphasizes that cultural buy-in and morale are more critical than tools. Lowry shares specific examples, such as improving yield in heart valve manufacturing at a Singapore plant and reducing a surgeon payment cycle at Intuitive, to illustrate how embedding these practices into daily work drives sustainable results.

Most relevant to

large enterprises

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Intuitive, Edwards Lifesciences, Panasonic Avionics Corporation, ITT Industries, Toyota
Also
Bloom's taxonomy, Atkins two minute lean, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

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