Rama Shankar

Rama has over 40 years of experience in a variety of industries, including aerospace, automotive, OEM, discrete manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices. She has worked in many disciplines in the quality and manufacturing engineering fields and has expertise in the application of QMS standards to ISO and the aerospace and medical device industries, problem solving, Lean Six Sigma applications, and project mentoring.

Rama has been consulting since 1998. She has mentored/coached over 170 projects with a total savings audited (after project completion) of $286,247,258. Projects spanned disciplines like operations, marketing, R&D, supply chain, and finance. Rama holds a master’s degree in Engineering Management from Northwestern University and received lean training from NIST and Principal Auditor certification from Exemplar Global. She was also an Examiner for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and is a Certified Quality Auditor and a Master Black Belt through ASQ. Rama has served on the board of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) Chicago Section in various capacities; as the Chair 1999–2000, Section Director, Training Institute Director, ASQ Chicago Section and Regional Councilor—Quality Management Division. She is an adjunct professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology—Chicago and visiting faculty at the Great Lakes Institute of Management, India.