Our Beginning
Targeted Convergence™ was born when two people traveling somewhat different paths ended up converging on one target. First, a bit about each of our two Founders, and then how those paths came together to form Targeted Convergence.
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Michael N. Kennedy,
After TI, Mike moved into consulting, working extensively with the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences. Mike has consulted numerous major companies, including General Motors, United Technologies, Allied Signal, and Delphi. During that time, Mike collaborated with Dr. Allen Ward on a number of projects, and began to hone his ideas based on the lessons learned from the Toyota Product Development System. The challenge that both Allen and Mike faced was how to apply those lessons learned, recognizing that you cannot just thrust a system and culture that had evolved for 50 years at Toyota upon a typical organization. |
Brian M. Kennedy, Brian worked at Texas Instruments for 8 years as a software developer in TI's semiconductor division and then later in TI's research labs. Brian's next 12 years were spent at i2 Technologies where he became the Chief Architect of their Supply Chain Planner and Demand Fulfillment applications, where he applied Toyota lean manufacturing, Theory of Constraints, and advanced optimization to the planning and scheduling of the larger supply chain, helping to establish a new market space (Supply Chain Management). Brian became the first i2 Fellow and holds a dozen patents on the inventions that were the basis for those software systems. As i2 established itself as the leading software supplier of supply chain planning solutions, Brian began to look at many other opportunities to deliver huge value to manufacturing organizations. Huge value opportunities clearly lay in the design and development side of those companies. Not only were huge amounts of money made or lost there, but also that was where much competitive differentiation was gained or lost. However, when the market bubble burst, i2 pulled back and focused its energy on its core competencies: delivering value to the manufacturing side of the house. |
Mike
worked for 30 years at Texas Instruments, first as a lead engineer on
a number of development projects, and later as a development manager.
During his latter 10 years at TI, he led the integration of manufacturing
and development systems at a major TI facility. He also drove the design
automation strategy for the defense business sector, including a redesigned
product development environment for the engineers. During this time, Mike
was also active in a number of collaborative efforts and consortia across
the country.Although Mike and Brian had engaged in many dynamic debates on the problems in product development over the years, it wasn't until they locked themselves in a very small room (actually, a car) for several days in a row, that they finally invented solutions to the problems that they had been struggling with for years. By the end of that long road trip, they had developed an approach to the customer problems that was surprisingly straight-forward... not simple by any stretch... but clear enough that success was not in question.
There was no question that they would need to move forward, setting up a company to deliver that solution so urgently needed worldwide. The only question that remained was what that company should look like. Fortunately, Mike and Brian were in sync on their goals for the new company; goals which are further explained in the next few pages on Our People, Our Partners, and Our Customers.
