Assumed responsibility for leading operational excellence initiatives within division’s operational and administrative functions. Responsibilities had been functionally delegated, creating competition for resources and inefficient implementation.

Led operational excellence steering committee, coordinating initiatives and linking them to division objectives. Prioritized allocation of resources to ensure efficient implementation of projects with significant impact on key business metrics.

Division received the Emerson Electric Company Chairman’s Award for Operational Excellence. Subsequently, resource allocation and metric linkage process was expanded to all project teams.

Division’s cost of quality was 3.5-4.5% of net sales, with product quality issues accounting for two-thirds of the total costs. Situation was influenced by lack of focus on impact to margin, customer retention, and future business, as well as reluctance by engineering to shift resources from product development to product improvement activities.

Developed business case for allocating resources to improve product quality through design and manufacturing activities. Championed teams to ensure achievement of objectives, schedule, and cost targets.

Reduced cost of quality to less than 1%, resulting in additional funding of approximately $250,000 for product development and operational improvement initiatives. Continued improvement led to application of more sophisticated tools, like Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, and support systems upgrades.

Senior managment had developed a negative perception of group’s Master Black Belt. He was perceived as abrasive, hard to work with, and more interested in the academic aspect of analyzing a problem than in producing quantifiable improvements.

Discussed perception with the individual and developed a plan to engage him in quantifiable, high-visibility projects to improve plant performance in key measurements.

Master Black Belt has received at least three official recognitions by plant managers and operations management for successful projects associated with plant process improvement, customer satisfaction, and key metric improvement.

Warranty return rates for high-volume products were creating unacceptable levels of expense and damaging brand reputation. Product line had just gone through an extensive redesign to improve cost position.

Established cross-functional team to determine cause for failure rate and implement corrective/preventive actions. Team identified products driving failure rates, causes for failures, and process failure that allowed marginal design to be implemented.

Reduced failure rates by 35% near-term and 20% long-term through containment actions and redesigning affected models.

Site metric review meetings with plant operational excellence/quality managers revealed long-term lack of progress toward goals and no action plans to address the lack of performance. Improvement was hindered because leaders lacked expertise in performance improvement tools (Lean, Kaizen, Six Sigma, etc.) and supplier quality organization, compounded by a historically weak functional metric review process.

Instituted metric and improvement review processes to ensure accountability and communication of roadblocks to attaining goals. Assigned plant and division resources, and ensured commitment of plant management. Initiated supplier quality activities.

Achieved a 10% improvement in stock fill rate within Costa Rica facility. Improved machine efficiency by 90% in Lincoln, IL, facility, eliminating equipment constraint for the line. Achieved 5% throughput improvement from improved supplier quality and on-time delivery within Puerto Rico facility.

Company needed to incorporate nine advanced quality tools into the ISO processes of ten manufacturing locations for two supported divisions by the end of 2005. Site management did not understand the requirements, and inconsistent experience and competing initiatives complicated the situation.

As Operations Quality Manager, clarified requirements for manufacturing locations while leveraging common efforts of overlapping initiatives. Established criteria to ensure compliance and a second-party assessment schedule to allow corrective action by the end of 2005. Executed periodic reviews to ensure completion of action plans.

100% of manufacturing locations were assessed and in compliance with no major findings in third-party audits. Next implementation is scheduled to include a training plan to ensure understanding and utilize the expertise of functional leaders within each site, as well as increase communications across sites to share ideas and improve teamwork.

Critical capacity project involving a purchase in excess of $10M was initiated with no supplier-quality plan. No organization or resources existed at the Electrical Group or Operations levels to assist the plant with supplier-quality activities.

Reviewed plan with project manager and identified purchased material gaps. Joined project as supplier representative and initiated supplier meetings with procurement and design engineering.

Improved supplier delivery by 15% and quality by 10%—resulting in equipment transfers achieving schedule—and developed processes for communicating requirements to suppliers.

Faced with pressure for material cost containment and outsourcing initiatives during a time of dramatic growth, the division needed a plan for evaluating current and future suppliers for ability to contribute to reducing total product cost. Online bidding models identified potential price savings without accounting for cost of transition.

Expanded the scope of Supplier Certification Committee to oversee low-cost country initiatives and material containment activities, including potential supplier changes. Implemented a process to review all key commodities for containment opportunities on a three-year cycle.

Reduced material costs by 25% during three-year review cycle while minimizing supplier turnover and expanding product offering. Cost containment continued, as well as opportunities for supplier performance improvement and providing additional value-added services.

Personally assumed responsibility of executing division’s customer satisfaction survey, which was not linked to improvement plans. Customer satisfaction measures included objective and subjective criteria for which assigning clear responsibilities and creating action plans was difficult.

Supervised improvement of the survey to more clearly define organizational responsibility for results. Created process for reviewing results, linking results to operational and administrative performance metrics, creating improvement plans, and reviewing progress on improvement actions.

Received customer’s supplier recognition award on second cycle of improvement activities. Expanded scope of the survey to include forward-looking information gathering and identification of customer operational/business trends.

Supplier defect in an electrical motor created an electrical shock hazard in company product. Faced difficulty of determining scope of product affected with a supplier involved, including unknown factors such as all possible customer applications for the product.

Quickly initiated actions to identify cause and determine scope with the supplier. Rapidly notified customer while evaluating their end-user list to determine the scope of notification necessary. Coordinated field campaign and contracted campaign administrator, minimizing cost and ensuring integrity of data collection.

Field campaign was closed with consumer protection office within six months (fastest execution for any division) with significant cost avoidance—$350,000 below estimated cost. Performed campaign debrief with customer and supplier upon closure, identifying improvements to include standard reporting formats and improvements to communications.

New product line was awarded prior to completing prototype phase of development. Lack of experience with application of product and manufacturing processes for critical components created significant hurdle.

Assumed leadership of product team, identified actions and resources required for accelerating introduction timeline, and instituted post-introduction improvement plans.

Improved product quality by 10% and on-time delivery performance by 20% over performance of the previous supplier. Successfully introduced product line per customer requested introduction date.

Upon assuming control of design engineering and test, budget reviews revealed overdue payments to suppliers in excess of $350,000. President and controller were unaware of the unpaid invoices and impact, including product certification status, penalty fees, and late submission fees.

Reviewed design engineering certification and new product development budgets to identify gaps in payments and savings in future spending. Contacted suppliers and agencies with overdue payments and arranged recovery plans. Added supplier status review to president’s monthly budget reviews.

Avoided $250,000 in penalty fees and returned all product certifications to "certified" status.