Robert E. Fox

Co-Author of The Race, The Theory of Constraints Journals, Blue Light!, and his latest release; Profitability with No Boundaries, Optimizing TOC, Lean, Six Sigma Results, Robert Fox is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on Continuous Improvement practices.

With over 50 years of industry experience, Mr. Fox's career has been divided between management and consulting roles. Receiving an Engineering degree from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from Carnegie-Mellon University. Mr. Fox started his career as a foreman; then holding positions of increasing responsibility including Vice President of Manufacturing, General Manager, and President in several organizations.

As a Vice President with the international consulting firm of Booz, Allen & Hamilton in the late 70’s, Mr. Fox conducted some of the most incisive and thorough research on Japanese manufacturing methods of the time. His studies were published in numerous journals and the subject of a number of presentations to professional societies. Awarded for his work by the American Production and Inventory Control Society, the validity of his conclusions have stood the test of time as supported by the rise of JIT and now Lean Manufacturing.

In 1981 he joined forces with Dr. Eli Goldratt to utilize his insights from the East in combination with Dr. Goldratt’s breakthrough theories. The result was the creation of the Theory of Constraints (TOC), taking the best principles from Japan and expanding them into a more powerful, focused and effective methodology.

Mr. Fox and Dr. Goldratt co-founded the Goldratt Institute in 1986 to aggressively develop and spread this know-how. During this time they jointly expanded the scope and application of TOC so that the principles could be applied far beyond the factory floor to supply chain management, project management, finance, product development, marketing, education, and more.

In 2005, the need for an award to encourage awareness, and the application of throughput-focused strategies was apparent. Organizations in America continued to flounder, gaining some improvements, but not realizing the significant results expected from their continuous improvement efforts. Studies strongly suggest these less than expected results are due to miss-aligned priorities—a cost world mentality--that is focused on the reduction of operating expenses rather than placing priorities on the long levers of increasing throughput.

A committee comprised of academic, business, government, and community leaders, chose to recognized Mr. Fox for his lifetime contributions by naming these awards of recognition, the Robert E. Fox “Race to Excel” Awards.

A highly respected “Quiet-Giant” of the continuous improvement world, Robert Fox has never been one to seek recognition for his contributions. It is with great pleasure that we honor this humble, open minded, man for his contributions, by attaching his name to this prestigious award.

We chose to honor Mr. Fox not only for his contributions to break-through ideas, but also for his personal traits that typify, what history has shown, are necessary conditions that organizations or economies must possess to break existing paradigms and achieve exponential lasting improvements:

* A lack of pride or arrogance
* Open-mindedness
* Integrity
* Ethical standards
* Respect for people and society

Mr. Fox continues to support our efforts by participating in these events and supporting our mission to “Raise the competitive level of our economy and provide a better life for our children and grand children”.