$1B manufacturer of irrigation equipment had a fragmented technical service department. Duplicate technical service departments made any standardization or process improvements difficult.

As National Services Manager, devised and implemented plan to combine service teams from two states into one cohesive unit.

Realized $100K per year savings and a 28% increase in productivity as a result of this merger of teams, earning high praise from major customers like Bellagio Hotel and Casino as “five-star and five-diamond service.”

Existing manufacturing/distribution facility had recently lost its General Manager to main competitor. The facility had seen no investment in years, staff morale was low, and the plant faced possible closure.

As new Vice President and General Manager, implemented Six Sigma at the plant, trained on Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED), and secured approval for necessary capital investment. Listened to the customer, eliminated product outages, improved staff morale, and increased product quality.

Achieved significant results in less than 12 months: Sales increased by 15%, from $7.9M to $9.05M. Profit improved by 46%, from $1M to $1.46M. Productivity increased by 16%, from 44 to 51 cycles per hour.

Small company was developing and globally implementing a first-ever digital ad creation and ERP software system. Software needed to go live on three different continents without affecting production.

Created and led a team that developed the operational implementation plan, including training, infrastructure, testing, and offline production capacity. This first-ever software release happened without any operational issues on the first attempt and was key to eliminating $5M in production expense.

$12M manufacturing plant construction project was $0.5M over budget and four months behind schedule. Lead construction manager was never assigned to the project. Plans, budgets, and documentation were not available.

Assumed leadership of the project. Revised the timeline and value-engineered the facility with vendors. Held daily and weekly meetings to monitor progress on the project.

Finished construction on budget by eliminating $0.5M of cost overruns and crashed timeline to begin manufacturing only two months behind the original schedule.

Production and on-time delivery were falling below expectations. Customer was applying tremendous pressure to increase production and delivery. Successfully implemented Lean and Six Sigma techniques to identify and eliminate constraints and production issues.

Production increased from 200 to 2,000 units per day, and on-time delivery went from 79% to better than 99.4% in less than four months. This transformed a first-year loss into $1.2M profit on $12M revenue. Many of these changes are still being used today.

Operation was encountering poor product quality and scrap rates were running at 20-30%. Existing staff was not familiar with mix design, recent changes in chemical additives, or raw material vendors.

Brought in potential vendors to train staff on mix design and chemical additives. Collaborated with corporate leadership to gain approval for additional raw material vendors.

Reduced scrap rates to under 5%, saving $200K per year, and significantly increased customer satisfaction.

Corporation needed increased manufacturing capacity, but could not identify an existing business to purchase. Limited experience existed within the team in designing, building, and starting new manufacturing facilities.

Collaborated with regional presidents and general mangers to propose four locations in the US for new plant investments. $27M capital investment was approved by board of directors, and all three manufacturing facilities were operational within three years, adding $8M in annual profit.

Company’s Western division consisted of eight acquired plants that operated independently. Existing management was accustomed to operating as independent businesses.

Analyzed the independent systems, then engineered and implemented a central ordering, inventory, and distribution system to unify the eight plants.

Centralized system saved $1M in annual shipping/yard expense, and customer service increased as a result of unifying the eight plants.

Company had a new manufacturing and distribution facility with no established professional dealers or contractors. One new and one experienced salesperson relocated from another territory with no contacts.

Led the sales team in developing a plan to find and sign new dealers and contractors. Met weekly to update and revamp plan as necessary.

Signed five new dealers and five new contractors in this territory in less than six months and added $500K in sales.

Manufacturing facility was isolated from large markets and struggling to remain profitable. Recent corporate acquisitions made overcapacity in this area more apparent and negatively affected profitability.

Completed a thorough analysis of the market, pricing, competitors, capacity, and possible actions. Recommended closing one facility and transferring inventory, sales, and production to more strategically located facilities.

Consolidation and strategic relocation successfully eliminated $1M in fixed expenses directly impacting profitability.

Small European company was trying to develop global production capability and 24-hour cycle time for ad creation while competing as low-cost provider. Company had no experience with offshore production or developing facilities in low-cost countries.

Partnered with a global company in a related field to build production capacity in Bangalore, India. Designed entire infrastructure and implemented all processes, procedures, and standards for both operations. Hired and trained 125+ employees in US operation and managed complete build-out, hiring, and training of 125-person operation in India.

New capacity based on these partnerships eliminated more than $5M production expense and achieved the 24-hour cycle time goal.

Technical support revenue was only growing at 10% per year and customer renewal rates remained below 65%. Sales and distribution network was not actively involved in selling service and the support team was unsure of what customers felt was missing in the service.

Used Six Sigma principles to uncover customer needs, such as computer upgrades and prior problem knowledge. Utilized Lean Manufacturing principles to reengineer process and institute best practices, making customer issue information immediately available and assigning engineers familiar with problem resolution.

This resulted in revenue growth consistently above 25% and renewal rates exceeding 80%, which doubled the revenue for support services in three years.