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SAM SITTERDING

Director, Operations Practice

Sam is a battle-tested operations leader with three decades of experience driving lean transformations in complex manufacturing environments. His leadership track record spans industries like Hillenbrand (HillRom), Herman Miller, and JELD-WEN Windows and Doors, as well as a private equity-backed business like Watlow Electric, working extensively in the Queretaro, Mexico facilities.


Sam’s career is defined by his hands-on approach to building and sustaining high-performance operations. From electronics assembly to heavy machining—union and non-union—he’s led teams through the trenches of daily management, material flow improvements, and frontline Kaizen. The results speak for themselves: on-time delivery gains, lead time reductions, inventory turns up, and efficiency metrics moving in the right direction.

Over the years, Sam has partnered with leading companies such as Lockheed Martin, Duracell Batteries, Gillette, Sealy Mattress, General Electric, Spirit AeroSystems, EnerSys, Ingersoll Rand, IU Health, and Cone Health Systems, helping them implement lean principles and deliver measurable operational improvements.


A student of the craft, Sam’s approach has been sharpened through years of mentorship from original Toyota Production System sensei, embedding Lean as not just a toolkit, but a daily leadership discipline.


He holds a B.S. in Administrative Management from the University of Cincinnati and has completed advanced leadership and Lean training through Hillenbrand and Herman Miller, as well as the Toyota study mission in Japan.

Sam Sitterding’s Industry Experience

ELECTRONICS ASSEMBLY

LIGHT AND HEAVY MACHINING

UNION AND NON-UNION ENVIRONMENTS

DISCRETE MANUFACTURING

MULTI-SITE OPERATIONS

& MORE