Frank George Woollard

Frank George Woollard (1883-1957) was a British mechanical engineer who spent nearly three decades in the British motor industry and became an early advocate of flow production, the approach later called lean manufacturing. Born in London, he apprenticed from 1899 at the London and South Western Railway, then worked as a designer in the motor trade. At E. G. Wrigley and Co. he rose from chief draftsman to production engineer and assistant managing director, reorganizing component production from batch to flow. After Morris bought the Wrigley business in 1923 he became general manager of Morris Engines Limited, where engine output rose from under 300 units a week to 1,200 units by December 1924. He later led Rudge-Whitworth, taught at Birmingham, and wrote Principles of Mass and Flow Production in 1954.