Andy Brophy

Andy Brophy is a Lean & Innovation Improvement Advisor. He has been working in the Lean field for the last 15 years in a diverse range of domains including manufacturing, government, services, software development, and hospitals.

Andy is a professional engineer and holds a 1st Class MSc in Lean Operations from Cardiff University and is Six Sigma Black Belt certified.

In May 2010 he published the co-authored book Innovative Lean with John Bicheno of the Lean Enterprise Research Centre in the UK. This work is primarily based on the power of harvesting and implementing an employee idea system and creating an innovative and engaged workforce. He has coached teams to implement high performing idea management systems in numerous sites throughout Ireland. One pilot organisation of 200 people has implemented over 2000 ideas in a 2 year period.

In 2011 he was selected to write The Financial Times Guide to Lean. The book is translated into Spanish, German, Dutch, and Japanese. It is currently undergoing assessment for The Shingo Prize Award in the USA.

In 2016 he co-authored a book with three USA based authors. They are API’s Improvement Advisor Cliff Norman, Yedda Trawick of Care Oregon, and Jane Norman of PKP Inc. The book is titled Lean Healthcare and The Science of Improvement. This research explores Lean Healthcare with emphasis on Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge using the internationally adopted Improvement Model within healthcare and advocated by The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). This pioneering book aims to alloy these two potent improvement philosophies to advance the accomplishments already realised through the application of Lean to healthcare.