Operational excellence, one client company at a time.
We help organizations build a better working environment, and the growth and performance that follow, through Quality, Lean, employee engagement, and strategic planning.
Meet Jim Joyner
Jim is the founder and president of Joyner & Company, a boutique management consulting firm. His career spans manufacturing, quality management, sales, marketing, and executive leadership, and he has helped organizations on six continents improve their performance.
He began at 3M, advancing through roles in manufacturing, quality, sales, and marketing. He then joined Philip Crosby Associates, Inc., where he served as senior vice president and division president and expanded its Quality College Division into seven countries. After ten years with the firm, he founded Joyner & Company. He has also held multiyear, full-time positions with Federal Signal, Card-Monroe Corporation, and Astec Industries.
Jim has personally trained more than 20,000 people in Lean and quality management. An author, educator, and advisor, he has worked with dozens of organizations, served as an advisor to the Japan Management Association, and periodically teaches business and quality management at the college level.
- Credentials
- Six Sigma Black Belt. RAB lead auditor. Examiner for the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence. Judge for the Manufacturing Excellence (ME) Manufacturer of the Year award. Certified by the University of Tennessee's Lean Enterprise Institute.
- Books
- Quality Still Works and The Seven Myths of Total Quality. Featured contributor to the Journal of Concurrent Engineering.
- Education
- Bachelor's degree, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. MBA, St. Thomas University, St. Paul, Minnesota.
- Family
- Jim and his wife, Gretchen, have been married since their college days and enjoy spending time with their four grandsons.
The company
Joyner & Company brings decades of experience to organizations that want to perform at their best.
Our purpose
Creating energy and passion for operational excellence, one client company at a time.
Our vision
A better working environment within each company we are privileged to serve, resulting in growth and improved performance.
Our values
Always doing right by our clients: showing respect, demonstrating integrity and professionalism, providing value, and delivering on our promises.
Our approach
Your organization is unique and deserves more than a one-size-fits-all solution. Every engagement is built around your situation.
Assessment
How robust is your transformation strategy? Our assessment is a comprehensive analysis of your current state, with a customized roadmap of actions for both immediate impact and long-term success.
Strategic planning
Are you leading your customers into the future, or are they leading you? A shared vision and unified approach are among the strongest factors in leadership effectiveness, employee engagement, and even product innovation. Our strategic planning process builds them.
Quality
Nothing matters more than Quality. It is the single greatest predictor of an organization's success.
The Quality Education & Development (QED) Academy is our online eLearning platform. It is available to individuals and to enterprises, so one person can build skills at their own pace or a whole organization can train its people together.
The flagship course, The Individual's Role in Quality Improvement, is taught by Jim Joyner. It has eight on-demand, self-paced sessions covering quality, customer requirements, process analysis and improvement, workplace organization, and Lean thinking. Each session includes reflection and practical application activities, with knowledge checks along the way.
It's designed for employees, team members, supervisors, team leaders, managers, and anyone new to quality improvement.
Lean management
The benefits of Lean are too extensive to treat lightly. What is your organization's level of competence in Lean? Our proven approach draws on more than three decades of Lean leadership, and aims to help you amaze your customers every time they order or interact with your company.
Employee engagement
Engaged employees are more productive, higher performing, and more loyal. Our engagement surveys measure the enthusiasm and dedication your people feel toward their jobs and the company. The report that follows gives management actionable steps to improve it.
Onsite support
Transformation takes guidance, coaching, and encouragement from experienced practitioners. Every client engagement plan includes periodic onsite visits to observe and review progress.
Questions we hear from prospective clients
Don't see yours? Call or send a message.
What is Lean really about?
We teach and work with clients to embrace Lean as a growth strategy. Adopted strategically, Lean thinking can significantly improve overall business performance, including revenue growth.
Because much of Lean thinking is counterintuitive, many Lean initiatives never reach their potential. That's why expert guidance and support matter.
What can Lean do for my organization?
Lean brings greater efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity to every type of organization. We believe there are two reasons to learn and apply it: to delight your customers with unmatched performance, and to be better stewards of the resources you manage.
Where should we begin our Lean initiative?
It depends on your situation, but the answer is always to work on what matters. Focus on changes that are critical to the customer. Improvements the customer feels are always worthwhile. The key is finding the triggers that turn change into meaningful results.
Will you help us select the right projects?
Yes. If a project-based approach is right for you, we'll help you focus on the right projects. Often it's more valuable to change methods and practices than individual processes. We're skilled at analyzing value streams to decide where and how to begin.
How do we measure progress?
Getting this right makes all the difference. Becoming Lean should have a positive, significant impact on your organization. Counting people trained or projects completed means little if there are no operational benefits.
We measure what matters: productivity, throughput, waste, cycle times, and on-time performance. Improving those delights your customers and your owners.
What industries do you work with?
We have worked in banking and financial services, healthcare, transportation, and many types of discrete and process manufacturing. The concepts we use apply to any organization that wants to improve. That's why our tag line is Excellence@Work.
How do we get started?
Call or send a message. We'll talk through your interests and needs and work to understand your situation. If an onsite assessment makes sense, we'll agree on a plan and timeframe. The result is a detailed strategy for short-term and long-term improvements.
Let's talk about your organization
Call or send a message, and we'll start with your situation.
Joyner & Company