Manager Project
Resume:
MARK K. CONNOR
Crescent Springs, Kentucky 41017
*******@*****.*** linkedin.com/in/mark-connor
SUMMARY
A proven Information Systems manager with over 20 years of experience leading IT projects and managing medium to large software application development, enhancement, support, and maintenance teams. Project management skills includes estimating, planning, budgeting, organizing, executing, monitoring, and reporting phases of the project life cycle. Client-focused multifaceted information systems professional with strong leadership and technical experience. Outstanding team management, leading by example and employing a participatory approach to leadership. Excellent communication skills. Intuitive ability to insure customer goal attainment and satisfaction. Creative and visionary approach to problem solving. Reputation as a strong problem solver, very collaborative, high team engagement, fair- mindedness, and good communicator.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
THE KROGER CO. (Cincinnati, Ohio) 2014 – 2017
Technology Manager 2 – Payroll & Benefit Systems
Evaluated and selected a Managed Service provider for several Application support areas and Infrastructure areas with the Kroger Technology department.
• Developed RFI / RFP requirements for the Payroll and Benefits area sent to the potential Managed Service providers.
• Documented support ticket volumes and hours by incident priority as well as enhancement hours.
• Participated in oral demonstrations from 11 different Managed Service providers bidding on the work.
• Visited India headquarters for site visit for top 5 selected candidates (Infosys, Wipro, Cap-Gemini, CSC, Cognizant).
• Final provider selection process resulted in savings of over $13 million over the five-year term of the contract.
• Successfully completed the knowledge and support transition from previous incumbent to new provider.
Managed a team of Kroger associates, on-shore and offshore contract programmers / analysts. Performed the following Administrative Manager functions.
• Quarterly performance reviews (PED – Performance Evaluation Documents)
• Annual performance reviews (PED)
• 1-on-1s with team members
• Budget management ($3.5 million)
• Vendor management
• Team meetings (communication dissemination)
• Performance management
• Managed the SOX audit tracking on applications
• Track vacation and health & wellness days for associates
• Approved OneView (i.e. Clarity) timesheet tracking
• Write Period status notes
• Celebrated team success; recognize and reward significant contributions Added newly acquired Roundy’s division, headquartered in Milwaukee, WI and operating primarily in Wisconsin and Chicago, IL areas onto our HR, Payroll and Benefits systems. MARK K. CONNOR 513-***-**** Page 2
• Analyzed application landscape and built a plan to transition Roundy’s onto the Kroger Enterprise suite of HR, Time & Attendance, Payroll, and Benefits systems.
• Completed the work on schedule (approximately 9 months, a record time) and within budget.
• Included 135 stores, 2 DCs, 1 Food processing facility and 23,000 associates.
• Experienced very few post-conversion issues and received very strong user satisfaction ratings. Initiated the Payroll Optimization process. Payroll accuracy had dipped to low of 99.28%, of which 67% of the errors were the results of IT introduced errors. Issued a total of 13.9 million paychecks or direct deposit notices annually impacting 99K payment errors.
• Championed a Six Sigma analysis project to improve to Payroll Accuracy.
• Six Sigma Analysis output - Root Causes of “Undesirable Effects” were primarily: Testing, Release Management, Communications, Manual Processing and Change Control.
• Implemented plans to address these primary areas and committed resources to completing the plans.
• Changes resulted in improved payroll accuracy to 99.985%. Enhanced our Benefits module for Patient Protection and Afford Care Act (Obamacare). This was a mandatory regulation required by all major US organizations.
• Developed stability and measurement periods to determine new eligibility for associates.
• Completed and delivered the system capability to the Kroger enterprise by government mandated date.
Technology Manager 2 – HR, Payroll & Benefit Systems 2011 – 2014 Implemented a SaaS Talent Management solution from SuccessFactors (later acquired by SAP) coined KnowMe within Kroger. Partnered with Deloitte as our system integrator for this project. Implemented and rolled out various functionality in the below sequence over the course 2+ years.
• Phase I Associate Profile & Succession Planning.
• Phase II Performance and Compensation (Established a common comp/performance date enterprise- wide).
• Phase III Recruiting.
Participated in a Solutions Modernization effort for Software Solutions department. This included hundreds of legacy applications across the entire Kroger Technology Department landscape.
• The output of project has become the roadmap for future project funding priority.
• Kronos Time & Attendance application identified as a critical application soon to need attention. Initiated Brightview Replacement project off the corner my desk because no official funds were allocated for this effort. At completion eliminated significant Microsoft support charges.
• Replaced old Windows based front-end screen scrapper software that was obsolete and no longer being supported and did not work beyond Windows Server 2003.
• Rewrote over 120 screens in a new Ivory Visual Connect. Project Manager – Manufacturing Mainframe Systems 2007 – 2012 Led and Managed the Kroger Manufacturing Mainframe Systems team.
• Managed a team of 10 Mainframe programmer / analyst.
• Ensured team provided 24x7 quality support for the Manufacturing (BSC, KBB, MAD, MFG, MLI, MIR, MRS, MSH) systems for approximately 40 Manufacturing facilities.
• Converted King Sooper’s Bakery in Denver, CO onto our Manufacturing Enterprise systems.
• Built interface and provided data to the Oracle PLM Data Migration team to enable loading Enterprise data for ingredients, packaging, formulations, nutrition facts, and trade specs (pallet, case, and each) for each one of the Manufacturing plants per the rollout schedule for the PLM project.
• Completed the process of planning, organizing, staffing, and kicking off the ESM (Ordering, picking/packing, shipping, billing/invoicing system) project for the five western manufacturing plants. MARK K. CONNOR 513-***-**** Page 3
Completed five of five ESM implementations during the year according to plan and within the allotted funding without impacting shipping during the critical holiday season. Project Manager – Manufacturing Distributed Systems 2001 – 2007 During this timeframe prior to having a PMO (Project Management Office) I spent significant portion of my time managing the entire life cycle of projects in my space.
• Dairy Planning & Scheduling (Dairy Forecasting, Advanced Planning, Advanced Scheduling, Adage) for eight east dairies. Timeframe: 2000-2003; Budget: $4,700,000; ROI: 35%
• Managed the development of Raw Milk Receiving Java application used by all 17 dairy manufacturing plants. Timeframe: 2003; Budget: $80,000; ROI: 20%
• Directed the development of the Capital Appropriation requesting, planning and tracking systems (i.e. CARS, CAP, CAT, and CAP) for IS&S applications. Timeframe: 2001 and 2004; Budget: $235,000;
• Managed the team to replace LOP, Bulk Orders, KMS, and other miscellaneous systems used on the plant IBM System/36 with the corporate suite of enterprise applications (i.e. SKOPE, PID, TCS, MIR, etc.) Timeframe: 2002-2006; Budget: $2,297,000; ROI: 16%
• Replace the Cost Accounting System for Manufacturing. The driver for this project was the elimination of IMS database licensing and support costs. In addition, provided new functionality not available in the existing legacy mainframe system. Timeframe: 2005-2007; Budget: $5,057,000; ROI: 13%.
• Lead the pilot, install, and rollout PRISM in eleven Manufacturing plants. This included six Full PRISM plants (Kenlake, State Ave., Pontiac, Crawfordsville, Rochester, Tara) and seven Base PRISM plants. Included up to three separate rollout teams, and a technical support team. Timeframe: 1999; Budget:
$500,000 to $1,900,000 per plant; In-total ~ $10,000,000; ROI: 15% - 35%. EDUCATION
Master of Business Administration, Concentration in Information Systems, GPA 3.65 Xavier University (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science
Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics
Thomas More College (Crestview Hills, Kentucky)
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING
PMP Certification, September 2017
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification, Cincinnati, OH -2017 Leading SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework), Kroger, Cincinnati, OH – 2016 Java 101 for Leaders Certification, Kroger, Cincinnati, OH – 2015 ITIL Fundamentals Certification, Cincinnati, OH – 2014 Kroger Leadership Academy Certificate, Kroger, Cincinnati, OH – 2013 COMPUTER SKILLS
Platforms / Operating Systems: z/OS, iSeries, Windows, LInux Software Applications: Kronos, Infor Payroll / Personnel, JD Edwards, Success Factors, PRISM, Adage, Advanced Planning and Scheduling, MS SQL Server, DB2, IMS, Retek Demand Forecasting. Business Objects, MS Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Project, Visio, Clarity, SharePoint, VMware Service Mgr, Jira, HP Quality Center.
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