Lean Master Certification | 2026
Event Location:
Manufacturers Resource Center, 7200A Windsor Drive, Allentown, PA, 18106, USA
MRC’s Lean Master Certification Program emphasizes strategic Lean transformation through cultural engagement and help prepare your team to manage your organization’s Lean journey.
A Lean Enterprise is more than a collection of improvement tools, a Lean Enterprise aligns an organization’s purpose with its people and its processes.
Lean Master Certification is delivered by MRC and Mike Hoseus, former General Manager at Toyota. The program features blended learning through a mix of classroom instruction, instructor-led exercises at host companies, and one-on-one coaching for each participant.
MRC’s Lean Master Certification is earned through the successful completion of a Standardization or PDCA project.
In Lean Master Certification, participants will learn how:
• Value stream mapping can help visualize improvement opportunities
• The Scientific Method of Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) can proactively and reactively eliminate the root cause of problems
• Lean Daily Management Systems can share performance information and prioritize improvement work at all levels
• Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) can create a shared ownership of equipment to maximize the operation by reducing downtime
• Understanding the Yellow Belt Six Sigma problem-solving approach of Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control (DMAIC) can help your collaboration with Green and Black Belt Improvement Leaders
• Lead and sustain change management by proactively minimizing resistance, building readiness, and equipping individuals to embrace and adopt Lean-driven improvements
Price: $4,750 Early registration discount price $4,250 by March 10, 2026
• 12 days (2-3-day sessions every 3 weeks)
• All sessions run 8:30 AM – 4:00 PM
• Includes course materials, light breakfast, lunch, snacks, and beverages
• Includes offsite session(s) hosted at local manufacturers as available*
• Prerequisite: Foundations of Lean Certification
*Contact Nicole Pierce if interested in hosting opportunities at your manufacturing facility.
*Subject to change
• Week 1: April 7-8, 2026
• Week 2: April 21-22, 2026
• Week 3: May 4-6, 2026
• Week 4: May 19-20, 2026
• Week 5: June 2-3, 2026
• Week 6: June 9, 2026
Gene Kaschak, VP, Continuous Improvement & Leadership Development Strategy
Gene has seen first-hand how the best improvement ideas usually get started by the people doing the work every day. His early projects in continuous improvement were focused on bringing these ideas to life by listening to small suggestions or comments and designing the proposed solutions for various manufacturing, operations, maintenance, product development, and information technology projects. As a Lean Coach with MRC since 2014, Gene’s focus now is to develop the scientific thinking skills in the local manufacturing community to bring these improvement ideas to life through daily experiments.
Janelle Rabenold, Director, Leadership Development and Training Strategy
Janelle brings over 15 years of expertise in Leadership and Organizational Development to MRC’s Operational Excellence Program. Renowned for her ability to guide individuals and teams toward their goals, she is a trusted partner, coach, and facilitator. Janelle holds a BS in Business Administration from Albright College and an MS in Human Resource Management & Learning and Performance Management from Moravian University. Her extensive certifications in assessment tools and methodologies, including Everything DiSC, MBTI, CPI, TKI, FIRO-B, and Prosci Change Management, reflect her commitment to using cutting-edge techniques to foster growth and success for colleagues and clients alike.
Mike Hoseus, Author, Executive Director Center for Quality People & Organizations (CQPO), Lexington, Kentucky
Mike is Executive Director for the Center for Quality People & Organizations (CQPO), an organization developed in 1999 as a vision of Toyota Motor Manufacturing to share Lean Quality philosophy and human resource practices with education, business, and community organizations.
Mike is an adjunct professor with the University of Kentucky’s Center for Manufacturing, and a member of the faculty of Lean Enterprise Institute. Prior to CQPO, Mike was a corporate leader for 13 years at Toyota Motor Manufacturing’s Georgetown, Kentucky plant both in Human Resources and Manufacturing. Mike currently supports organizations with Lean Culture transformations focusing on the roles of Executive Management and Human Resources and how the quality people value stream connects to the production value stream.
Richard Titus, Jr., Ph.D. Titus Consulting
Richard Titus, PhD, is a Master Black Belt who spent nearly 20 years at Ingersoll-Rand in a variety of positions including operations management, IS, materials management, and manufacturing and design engineering among others. Dr. Titus is certified as a Black Belt and Master Black Belt by Six Sigma Qualtec where he also received his Lean training. Rich received his BS in industrial engineering and MS in manufacturing systems engineering from Lehigh University where he has been a lecturer and adjunct faculty member since 2000. In 2019, he earned his PhD in industrial engineering from Penn State University focusing his research on supplier selection. Dr. Titus has supported over 350 Lean Six Sigma projects in over 60+ companies resulting in over $50 million dollars of real savings.