John Proud

John F. Proud is a retired principal with Oliver Wight. Prior to joining Oliver Wight, John spent several years working in the manufacturing industry at Xerox, Century Data Systems, and Burroughs (Unisys) Corporation. His assignments included manager of just-in-time/lean manufacturing; national customer education manager; western region manufacturing consultant; manager of information systems; production control specialist, and material control analyst.

John is lifetime-certified in production and inventory management by APICS at the Fellow level. He has presented several papers at the organization’s international conferences and has held many APICS posts including International Conference Chairperson and Chapter President.

An internationally known speaker, John has been involved in a variety of master scheduling, material and capacity management, production activity, and just-in-time/lean manufacturing seminars. He wrote the first definitive book on Master Scheduling – Master Scheduling: A Practical Guide to Competitive Manufacturing, now in its third edition. He has had numerous articles published by APICS, Auerbach, and other publishing houses. He obtained his BS in mathematics from California Polytechnic State University and his MS from West Coast University specializing in Management Sciences.