Peter Ward

Peter Ward is Senior Associate Dean at Ohio State University's Max M. Fisher College of Business, located in Columbus, Ohio, USA. Peter is also Professor of Operations Management and holds the Richard M. Ross Chair in Management at Fisher College. Peter participates frequently in executive education programs including developing several successful certificate programs in lean management. He is the founder of the Lean Education Academic Network (LEAN), a global community of university educators dedicated to teaching systems thinking in universities. Peter is Academic Director of Fisher’s Master of Business Operational Excellence (MBOE) program, an innovative degree program aimed at midcareer professionals involved in transforming their organizations through operational excellence.

Peter is Director of the Center for Operational Excellence at Ohio State, a consortium of forty organizations dedicated to excellence and thought leadership in operations. He has served as a member of the advisory board of Ford Motor Company's Lean Resource Center and as a judge for Industry Week's America's Best Plants Program. Peter has served as a consultant to a number of leading corporations. He currently serves on the board of the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI).

Dr. Ward's research has resulted in numerous articles which have appeared in leading operations management journals and he has been recognized with a number of awards, including the 2007 distinguished operations management scholar from the Academy of Management, Shingo Prize for research in 2004, and Fisher’s Pace Setters Research Award in 2003. He holds editorial roles for a number of leading journals, and his research focuses gaining competitive advantage through operations.