STEPHEN C. ARMSTRONG

P.Eng, MA, C.Eng, FIMechE, HonDSc, FCGI, FCMC, FRSA

  • Professor of Innovation in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering  University of Toronto
  • Founder of Armstrong Management Group Inc : AMGI1
  • Founder of  AMGI Innovation Institute : AMGI2
  • Broadcaster – Innovation Nation Radio1

Stephen Armstrong has over 35 years of success, leading C-level strategic change and business transformation initiatives, with an initial pedigree in tier 0 and 1 aerospace and defense industry companies, and then spreading to other sectors.  Included are over 20 large-scale enterprise-wide operational turnaround assignments, in technologically complex environments.  In 2010 Armstrong began teaching as an Adjunct Lecturer in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering, Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, at the University of Toronto, and in 2014 he was appointed Professor of Innovation in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering.

Born and raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Armstrong built his leadership capability on a practical foundation as an aerospace manufacturing engineer after serving a 5 year higher technical apprenticeship at Short Brothers and Harland (Bombardier Aerospace)-Belfast.  His engineering specialty was the design and development of manufacturing processes and tooling for aircraft production including advanced aerospace composite materials.  After earning a BScEng honors degree in mechanical engineering he went on to qualify as a Chartered Mechanical Engineer (CEng, MIMechE) – Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London, UK.  He later qualified as a Provincially licensed Professional Engineer (P.Eng) in Ontario, Canada.  

After a 3 year period as a Aerospace contract design and manufacturing engineer (advanced composites in aircraft parts production ) he joined ABB -power distribution division initially as an Industrial Systems Engineer on a team to implement the Honeywell ERP system, and later as manager of manufacturing engineering.  He changed career direction and joined Honeywell as a manufacturing systems consultant in the marketing department support the sales campaigns.  This led to a move into the management consulting industry in 1988 with KPMG becoming principal in charge of the advanced manufacturing systems practice in Canada being responsible for numerous ERP / MRPII and CAD/CAM/CAE implementations in a variety of manufacturing companies.  

In 1992 he qualified as a Certified Management Consultant -CMC Canada sponsored by KPMG. At KPMG he pioneered the development of business process management, and business transformation services in large scale engineering driven enterprises with a deep speciality in aerospace engineering and product development management (McDonnel Douglas, Boeing Dehavilland, Bombardier, Safran, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Avcorp). This led to the development of an enterprise wide systems approach to deploying transformational change initiatives driven, and owned by the C-Level executives.  This approach balances the adaption of technology, business psychology and organizational politics to achieve business process improvements. One notable achievement was as the initial lead inventor and developer of the Bombardier Aerospace Engineering System that reduced the time it took to launch an new aircraft programme (Global Express) by 50% – for this among other achievements he received a Medal of Excellence Award from Professional Engineers Ontario in 2010.

His first entrepreneurial venture was in 1993, founding AMGI Management Inc, an Innovation Management company specializing in leading long term Strategic Transformational Change Initiatives, initially in the aerospace and defense sector.  These initiatives were long term retainer based initially in operations management, enterprise wide systems implementation, engineering and product development management, and Company wide Business Transformation Initiatives.

He has led over 30 senior executive steering committees and built over 300 plus self-directed work teams in every functional business discipline to achieve dramatic improvement results. Initiatives have spanned companies in size from family owned businesses, start up businesses with 5-10 employees to large multi-division enterprises with 20,000 – 100,000 plus employees.

The bottom line results include:

  • product development time-to-market reduction of up to 50%
  • revenue growth (20-400%)
  • cost reduction (30-50%);
  • sustainable performance improvement.

This expertise led to Armstrong receiving a teaching appointment in 2009 at the University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. He was appointed as an Adjunct Lecturer, then Adjunct Professor in the department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and in 2014 Professor of Innovation, in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. In 2015 he was appointed as professor in the Toronto Institute for Advanced Manufacturing (TIAM). In 2017 he received an appointment to teach the first ever course on Aerospace Manufacturing Operations and Engineering Management at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS).
In 2012 he received an appointment as Visiting Professor at the University of Westminster, London, Department of Business Psychology.  He is an academic advisor in the department of Business Psychology at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.

He is pioneering the development of new graduate level courses for Engineers and Applied Scientists delivering to over 2,500 graduate M.Eng students. These are industry career oriented courses in the fields of the Managing Business Innovation and Transformational Change, Applying Innovation in industry, Operations and Production Management,  Aerospace Engineering and Operations Management, Management Consulting, and the Engineer in Society Ethics, History and Philosophy.  These include subspecialties in Business Process Management, Engineering and Product Development Management, Organizational Design, and Manufacturing Systems. Industry partners include PWC, KPMG, Deloitte, CMC-Canada, ICMCI,  Guidenhouse Consulting, Bombardier Canada, Bombardier UK, Pratt and Whitney, DeHavilland Aircraft, Safran, Samco Machinery, Bruce Nuclear, Schneider Electric, Celestica, Siemens, Del Equipment, Hatch, George Brown College, Town of New Market, and many others.