Meet the People Behind the Process

Jim Dillingham has spent more than 30 years solving the problems that surface when a shift schedule stops working — or was never quite right to begin with. His work spans distribution centers, mining, and discrete and continuous manufacturing operations of every scale. The common thread across every engagement is a methodology built on two things most schedule changes skip: rigorous operational analysis, and genuine workforce engagement that produces lasting buy-in rather than short-term compliance.

Jim is a frequent speaker at industry conferences on shiftwork best practices, safety, and operational efficiency. He brings to every client the same standard he applied during his operational leadership years at PepsiCo Bottling Group — decisions have to work on the floor, not just on paper.

His passion is project work — working with a company and its employees to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome. Philosophically, Jim believes a collaborative process with well-informed participants will lead to a positive outcome that stretches beyond the boundaries of any single project.

Jim holds a degree in Mathematics from the U.S. Naval Academy, a Master’s in Management from Purdue University, and an MBA focused on International Finance from ESC, one of the top business schools in Rouen, France. He is based in San Rafael, California.

Dan Capshaw has spent more than 32 years helping companies redesign shift schedules and work systems — to achieve operational excellence and improve employee engagement. He has worked across virtually every industry that runs continuous operations — food processing, distribution, mining, refining, chemicals, manufacturing, and more. His focus is the part of schedule change that most technical approaches underestimate: the human side.

Dan’s process centers on clear communication with every stakeholder group — management, supervisors, and the workforce itself. He believes that people accept difficult changes when they understand the reasoning and have had a genuine voice in the outcome. His track record on complex, high-resistance change situations reflects that conviction.

Dan focuses on change management and collaborative decision-making. He knows that the business needs must be met, and that things run best when the workforce is satisfied.

Dan graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in Chemical Engineering, completed post-graduate work at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and served as a nuclear submarine officer in the U.S. Navy before moving into operations and consulting. He is based in Ivins, Utah.

Ethan Franklin has worked with more than 100 companies over 28 years to design and implement labor strategies that improve both operational performance and workforce morale. His work spans manufacturing, healthcare, food and beverage, automotive, chemical, electronics, pharmaceuticals, power, call centers, banking and insurance, distribution, telecommunications, mining, and government. He approaches each engagement as a data-driven problem with a people-centered solution — and holds himself to both standards simultaneously.

Ethan’s background is unusually broad for a workforce consultant. He holds a BS and MS in General Engineering and an MBA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Juris Doctor from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. He is a licensed attorney in Illinois. That combination of engineering rigor, business strategy, and legal literacy gives him a distinctive vantage point on the policy and compliance dimensions of schedule change.

Ethan believes that a company’s labor process must be as strategic and well-planned as its manufacturing, supply chain, or customer service processes. Through almost three decades of experience, he knows that people are the most critical part of the labor process, as they will determine how well the enterprise will succeed in the long term.

He is based in Indiana.