Earl Kline is a professor of wood products manufacturing systems. For the past 25 years at Virginia Tech, Earl’s main priority has been to teach and mentor students for the next generation of wood products business managers and leaders. Subjects taught include computer control applications for forest products manufacturing, lean manufacturing, production operations management, and systems engineering design principles. Earl is currently faculty director of the Wood Enterprise Institute, a student-owned and managed production enterprise that offers a vehicle for “hands-on” learning and experience that only come by leading and managing real day-to-day production business operations. Earl also has extensive R&D experience resulting in over 75 peer reviewed journal articles in the area of industrial engineering and process control technologies to improve upon wood products manufacturing systems. Work in this area has involved developing and applying new automation technologies such as machine vision and computer integrated manufacturing to optimize manufacturing systems. Recent work has utilized industrial systems engineering concepts such as lean manufacturing and supply chain management to help link critical production operations more closely to market demand.
