Takahiro Kurata is Country Leader and Senior Consultant with Centre for Performance Transformation based in Tokyo, Japan. He is a certified Six Sigma Master Trainer. Takahiro specialized in Design for Six Sigma methodology in the area for Research and Development.

Takahiro spent nearly 14 years with Sony Corporation. The latter 3 years in consulting and teaching as a Master Black Belt. He has been involved in various Six Sigma Initiatives with Sony, notable accomplishment include:

Developing the Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) Curriculum for Sony. The DFSS approach is currently being patented.

Consulting over 300 projects in the R&D Division

Conducting training for Six Sigma Champions, Black Belts and Green Belts.

Developing Sony’s management of technology approach to Project Management for Sony Corporate Laboratories.

Takahiro has also two patents to his credits, one being the architectural model of MIPS R4000 micro-processor system. He is also the visiting researcher of Semiconductor Technology Academic Research Center (STARC).

Takahiro writes regularly as well. His latest paper was on “Applying and Deployment of Six Sigma in Sony R&D”. The paper can be found in the Journal of The Japan Society for Computational Engineering and Science (JSCES ¡V 2004, Vol 9 No 1)

Takahiro is fluent in both Japanese and English (TOEIC Score 905).. Takahiro graduated with a Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. He also received the Kohei Miura Graduate Fellowship, Ohio University for his outstanding performance.