Phillip SlaterPhillip Slater has more than 22 years of business improvement experience. While the last 12 of these have been spent in operations and management consulting, the first 10 were spent 'hands on' in industry learning by direct experience. It was uring this time, and by learning from both his successes and failures, that Phillip developed many of the approaches that his company, Initiate Action, applies today.

Based on his experience, Phillip has authored a number of management books including A New Strategy for Continuous Improvement and Smart Inventory Solutions. Over the course of his career Phillip has worked in at least a dozen countries and across most industries. He presents training courses for APICS, is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and The National Speaker's Association of Australia. Selected operational improvement achievements include:

• As a manager, taking an underperforming manufacturer to be the profit leader in its group of companies
• Assisting a client to achieve more than 20% in operational cost reduction
• Assisting other clients to achieve tens of millions of dollars of operational improvements
• Assisting a client to achieve a 42% reduction in inventory
• Assisting other clients to release millions of dollars in cash from excess inventory