Principle Investigator

Dr. Durward Sobek of Montana State University

Dr. Sobek has extensive experience with qualitative research methods, and is intimately familiar with TPS and with classical industrial engineering methods for process improvement.  He also has 4 ½ years of instructional experience involving significant course development.  He is a participant-observer of weekly TPS meetings; leads the data collection, analysis, and documentation activities; supervises graduate and undergraduate industrial engineering students; and co-leads training materials development.

Co-Principle Investigator

Cindy Jimmerson of Community Medical Center

Cindy is a registered nurse with 30 years experience in trauma care.  She is now a member of the Quality and Risk Management department and plays an instrumental role in CMC improvement initiatives.  She also has over 20 years experience developing workshops on designing systems to treat acute trauma cases, and has delivered them at numerous locations in the US and Central America.  She is the facilitator of the TPS implementation team at pilot units; mentors the units as managers and charge nurses transition to facilitator roles in their respective units; leads collection of assessment data; provides additional observation data; facilitates access to hospital data and personnel; and co-leads training materials development.

Resume (MS Word document)

Graduate Research Assistant

Manimay Ghosh of Montana State University

Manimay comes to MSU with over 15 years of manufacturing experience.  He holds an MS IE degree from MSU and an MBA from Bloomberg University.  He is interested in operations management, specifically enabling organizations to learn how to learn, and how organizations can self-sustain continuous improvement.  He also has an interest in applying lean manufacturing and other IE principles to health care.