GA 639 | Putting the Customer First with Slaytor Baldwin

GA 639 | Putting the Customer First with Slaytor Baldwin

July 2, 2026 · 32 min

About this episode

Slaytor Baldwin discusses the lean transformation journey of SilencerCo and the key changes that led to significant operational improvements.

A suppressor manufacturer in Utah started its lean transformation about a year ago. Twelve months later, inventory turns had doubled, changeover time dropped from 3.5 hours to 9 minutes, and a rollout planned for a year got compressed to three months. Slaytor Baldwin, Director of Operations at SilencerCo, joined Ron Pereira to walk through exactly how that happened, including the five years of failed starts that preceded it and what finally changed. In this episode you’ll learn: How a single cell pilot compressed a year-long rollout into three months (0:00) What starting a career inside a lean company teaches you without knowing it (3:17) Why measuring resource utilization instead of customer demand creates invisible dysfunction (6:04) How one leadership change unlocked five years of stalled momentum (10:08) What the first two moves of a real lean commitment look like in practice (12:46) Why starting with your hardest product family creates conviction no training can replicate (14:51) What happened to inventory turns when the entire factory went cellular (17:43) Why lean is not an operations game and what that costs you when you treat it like one (19:59) Why picking the…

People in this episode

Host: Ron Pereira

Guest: Slaytor Baldwin

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: SilencerCo

Places: Utah

More episodes of Gemba Academy Podcast: Lean Six Sigma | Toyota Kata | Productivity | Leadership

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Gemba Academy Podcast: Lean Six Sigma | Toyota Kata | Productivity | Leadership podcast page.