Professor Peter Hines, is the Co-Founder of the Lean Enterprise Research Centre at Cardiff Business School. He holds a BA (MA) in geography from Cambridge University and an MBA and PhD from the University of Cardiff. Peter followed a successful career in distribution and manufacturing industry before joining Cardiff Business School in 1992. Since that time he initially led the Materials Management Unit and then chaired the Lean Enterprise Research Centre within Cardiff Business School. 

He has undertaken extensive research into Lean Thinking and Supply Chain Management and has pioneered a number of key concepts, methods and applications in Europe and Australia, including: Supplier Associations, Value Stream Mapping and the Lean Business System. He has written or co-written several books including "Creating World Class Suppliers" published by Pitman in 1994, "The Lean Enterprise" published by AMACOM in 1997, "Value Stream Management" published by Financial Times Prentice Hall in 2000 and "Staying Lean" first published in 2008 which won a Shingo Research and Professional Publication Prize Recipient for 2009. 

Peter is Chairman of S A Partners, a specialist consultancy organisation that assists companies to apply Lean. S A Partners has grown rapidly to over 50 employees working with large multi-national firms such as Corus (Tata), Wartsila, Mars & Arla together with many smaller companies. It now has operating companies in the UK, USA, Ireland and Australia. 

Peter also has an extensive LinkedIn network as well as a range of LinkedIn group with total membership approaching 100,000 people. These groups include:

Lean Business System

and 

Lean & Green

Peter also continues his academic links with his Adjunct Professorship at the University of South Australia and visiting roles in Universities across Europe and North America.