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His manufacturing experience began as an engineering Co-op student with Briggs & Stratton exposed to Design, Quality, Test and Manufacturing. On graduation Tom migrated to South Carolina and took a position with Michelin Tire as an Industrial Engineer. While time study was a large part of that job, Manufacturing Engineering might be a more appropriate title. Mechanical design and improvement of manufacturing equipment played a larger role than the traditional I.E. designation implies. During this time, Tom became involved with APICS in an effort to more fully understand the Just-In-Time philosophy and the widely used alternatives. The material available from APICS as well as seminars on production and inventory management introduced a lot of three letter acronyms (TLA's) to Tom's vocabulary, but failed to bring all the ideas together into a unified strategy or model. The fragmented approaches to all the TLA's in the literature and the associated fragmented approach used in manufacturing led to the development and presentation of Tom's unified manufacturing model under the title "Competitive Manufacturing".

Model in hand, Tom left Michelin to join Vermont American as Division Engineering Manager. There he applied his manufacturing model and developed a strong appreciation for the tenets of Synchronous Manufacturing used in combination with JIT principles and an existing MRP system. Creation of a user friendly Maintenance and Preventive Maintenance system, combined with Synchronous Manufacturing and increasing Employee Involvement led to a dramatic improvement in production capacity and customer service level at a total cost of well under $10,000. Two years later, Tom took the GMAT's & GRE's and six months after that entered graduate School where he earned his Masters degree in Industrial Management. While studying he taught college seniors Operations Management I & II as well as teaching the APICS module workshops at the chapter level and on site company training. Tom enjoys teaching but keeps his hands dirty by consulting in the JIT, MRP, Synchronous Manufacturing and TQM areas including Statistical Process Control. Tom lectures at the college level in all these areas and conducts training and implementation with shop floor personnel.

Tom's presentation style is lively, entertaining, interactive and informative. Frequent use of shared experiences, anecdotes and clippings punctuate key points for easy recall later. Tom speaks with authority on competitive manufacturing and modern manufacturing management. He's spoken to many APICS chapters as well as IIE, ASQC and DPMA.

Tom has been active in APICS for many years and has served at the chapter level in newsletters, awards, librarian, treasurer and president. Tom is currently Region XI VP and serves on APICS's BOD.

Thomas J. Krupka CFPIM, is President of Forward Technologies, a Manufacturing Management Consulting firm specializing in Simultaneously reducing lead times and inventory while improving Due Date Performance. Tom's background includes a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters in Industrial Management. Experience includes Industrial Engineer with Michelin Tire and Engineering Manager at Vermont American. Consulting clients range from heavy hitters such as General Electric to small textile companies. Tom routinely instructs the CPIM exam workshops and is a frequent speaker at APICS, ASQC, DPMA and IIE events. Constraints Management, the newest SIG, is an area of special interest for Tom as he is Jonah Certified by the Goldratt Institute. Tom has served on the Board of Directors of the Industrial Crescent Chapter and the Blue Ridge Chapter in a number of roles including President. He has also served on the APICS Board of Directors as Vice President of Region XI.