KED Leadership
Jill Kelby
Jill Kelby, president and owner of KED, LLC, Minneapolis, MN, leads her business clients through a process designed to change operations to not only solve problems related to efficiency, performance and safety but also to help increase their bottom line. Through KED, Ms. Kelby focuses on developing and delivering strategic solutions to today’s productivity, efficiency, and safety issues through training and consulting services.
Ms. Kelby has over 23 years of lean, process improvement, human factors/ergonomics and change management experience in a wide variety of industries and geographies including manufacturing, healthcare, lab, pharmaceutical, construction and office settings. Uniquely, Kelby integrates those key business improvement and engineering methodologies into her practice by bringing a holistic approach to solving clients’ workplace performance, process and safety issues by combining her experience as a Lean/Six Sigma green belt, certified human factors/ergonomist, licensed physical therapist, and certified PROSCI change management practitioner. She respects and integrates the discipline of engineering tools like Lean and Six Sigma, but also stresses the need to incorporate programming that addresses the abilities or limitations of humans – physically, cognitively and socially. This 4-pronged approach gives her a unique insight when dealing with business issues to find effective and practical solutions.
Kelby is an experienced and animated speaker who presents regularly for companies, and at local and national conferences, industry associations and community groups. During her talks, she points to the fact that she oftentimes challenges her clients who are resistant to change or want to only make superficial modifications that there is a oftentimes a real need and cost benefit to make changes operationally to solve problems related to poor design, efficiency, productivity and safety. Kelby makes her point by emphatically quoting Albert Einstein – “Doing things the same way over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.”
Kelby holds a Bachelors of Science degree in physical therapy and is a Certified Ergonomics Associate (CEA) through the Board of Certification of Professional Ergonomics (BCPE). She holds a green belt in Lean/Six Sigma and is a Certified PROSCI Change Management Practitioner. Kelby is a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), BCPE and American Society for Safety Engineers (ASSE) and American Foundry Society (AFS). She is the past-chairperson of the ASSE’s Health and Wellness Branch.