Jeffery W. Groenke

***** ***** **** ****** *****

Santa Clarita, CA 91390

Email - ac3e27@r.postjobfree.com

818-***-**** (cell)

818-***-**** (office)

SUMMARY :

Accomplished business leader who improves performance by inspiring innovation and championing creative thinking throughout the organization. Consistently lowers cost and improves quality by implementing better processes and key metrics. Expands markets and revenue by launching new products whose performance and cost lead their industry. Extensive business and management capabilities backed by a strong technical background that includes Bachelors and Master’s Degrees in Engineering

EXPERIENCE :

JBL Professional, 2001-Present

A division of Harman International Industries (a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.)

8500 Balboa Boulevard, Northridge, CA 91329

JBL Professional designs and manufactures loudspeakers for musicians, entertainment venues, architectural applications, audio production and high-end home use. In fiscal year 2016 JBL Professional revenue was $270 million and Samsung was $174 billion.

Director, Program Management (Jul 14 - Present)

Duties and responsibilities

Lead New Product Introduction for all products sold to global markets. Utilize a phase based process to manage new products from initial market concept to final distribution. Define and improve the New Product Introduction process to ensure new products launch on time, meet the cost targets, perform to specification and achieve the quality requirements.

Major accomplishments

Lead an international Project Management team that brought 21 new loudspeaker product lines from Marketing concept to mass production.

Improved accountability and status visibility by implementing a new Project Management process based on the Project Management Institute process standard.

Launched $60M worth of new products and improved the New Product Introduction KPI from 20% to 90% in 9 months by implementing a phase based new product development process.

Launched a new product family that became the companies highest revenue line and achieved 150% of the forecast production rate in the first 3 months.

Reduced the failure rate on the highest volume product line from 1.5% to .1% by implementing concurrent engineering and early design verification testing.

Director, Manufacturing and Advanced Manufacturing Engineering (Jan 11 – Jul 14)

Duties and responsibilities

Lead the manufacturing organization with a 565 employee, 240,000 square foot manufacturing plant in Mexico and a 165 employee, 150,000 square foot plant in China. Budget oversite responsibility for the manufacturing organization with an annual COS of $95M and capital budget of $10M. Direct reports included the Mexico Plant Manager and Advanced Manufacturing Engineering department. Manage the construction, startup and initial production phase of the China plant in a corporate matrix reporting structure. Develop the manufacturing strategy and annual capital investment budget. Identify, champion and implement new manufacturing technologies. Drive the broad adoption of advanced manufacturing methods including Lean, DFM, FMEA and 5S to continuously improve quality and lower costs. Identify and specify new manufacturing tools, equipment and processes required to bring new products on line in the factories and at Contract Manufacturers.

Major accomplishments

Went from bare ground to first production in thirteen months and achieved $1.1M COS per month production rate in the seventeenth month in a new manufacturing plant constructed from the ground up in Northern China. Designed the factory, sourced the equipment, installed the equipment, hired and trained the staff and qualified the processes.

Improved the manufacturability of all new product designs by developing and implementing an algorithmic-based manufacturability assessment system. Designed the algorithms, implemented in Excel and validated the system on production products.

Increased capacity in the Mexico factory by 25% in six months.

Started production of JBL loudspeakers from CKD kits in Harman’s Manaus, Brazil factory.

Director, Engineering (Feb 05 – Jan 11)

Duties and responsibilities

Lead all new product development, project management and research. Manage a multi-site global product development team. Recruit the staff; define the organization and optimize the work procedures for the engineering department. Define the company research initiatives and manage resources to support them. Lead loudspeaker research and development; publish technical papers and patent filings to sustain JBL Professional’s technical leadership in the field. Plan and manage the $8 million annual engineering budget. Collaborate with the Vice President of Marketing to create and execute a multi-year product roadmap to support the revenue growth objective. Meet mandated regulatory requirements for international sales on all new products. Evaluate and qualify contract manufacturers and negotiate manufacturing contracts.

Major accomplishments

Introduced twenty-two new product lines in five years. Each new product line met the specified technical performance specifications, quality requirements and cost targets. New product releases were consistently on schedule and never missed a trade show or marketing launch.

Reduced turnover from one or two resignations every month to one in two years by re-structuring the engineering organization into focused product teams based on market categories and implementing an employee evaluation process based on defined objectives and job performance.

Started up a new loudspeaker engineering team in Shenzhen China and completed the first new product family design and launch in eighteen months. Hired the team, defined the development tools, test and measurement equipment and specified the lab design.

Designed and built the new US engineering center, defined the requirements and managed the construction and set up of labs and testing facilities.

Director, Manufacturing Operations (Jun 01 – Feb 05)

Duties and responsibilities

Lead the manufacturing organization with 530 employees and 200,000 square feet of manufacturing space in the United States. P & L responsibility for the factory with an annual COS of $91M and capital budget of $7M. Direct reports included the Production, Planning, Manufacturing Engineering, Warehousing, Quality, Sourcing and Purchasing departments. Manage the Finance, Human Resources and IT departments in a corporate matrix reporting structure. Define and implement programs and business processes that continuously improve product quality, customer service, cost competitiveness and inventory turns. Create and execute a multi-year manufacturing strategy that included employee development, efficient material sourcing, facility enhancements, equipment upgrades and contract manufacturing partnerships.

Major accomplishments

Converted the manufacturing system from batch type production to a lean system utilizing work cells and Kan Ban material handling. Trained workers in lean manufacturing and utilized Kaizen events to increase labor efficiency by 8%.

Re-structured the organization and implemented more efficient work procedures to reduce manufacturing overhead. Overhead was reduced from 29% to 26% of Cost of Sales.

Implemented Value Engineering and Offshore Sourcing programs to reduce material costs. Contribution margin improved from 44% to 50%.

Increased the output capability of the manufacturing facility and developed contract manufacturing partners to support a 45% growth in sales revenue from the same facility while simultaneously reducing overhead and indirect headcount.

Improved factory scheduling, material planning, warehouse management procedures and utilization of the SAP MRP system to reduce inventory 57%, from $21M to $9M. Turns improved 30% in 6 months.

Employed Total Quality Management (TQM) processes to reduce the warranty failure rate by two thirds. The warranty rate was reduced from .51% to .17%.

Instituted a quality system, quality teams and employee training programs in root cause failure analysis and continuous improvement. First pass yields improved to over 99%.

Implemented a safety and training program that reduced injuries and lost time. Workers compensation costs were reduced from $1.5M to $300K per year with a 10% larger work force.

Completed an implementation of SAP R3 Manufacturing software with complete MRP and ERP capability.

Axiohm Transaction Solutions, Printhead Division, 1989-2001

15070 Avenue of Science, San Diego, CA 92128

Axiohm designs and manufactures specialty printers for the Retail, Gaming and Industrial markets. In 2001 Printhead Division revenue was $22M and total revenue for Axiohm was $194M.

General Manager (Jun 97 – Jun 01)

Duties and responsibilities

P & L responsibility for the division with offices in the US and Manufacturing in Mexico. Lead the manufacturing, development and sales of Matrix Printheads and Printer Ribbons. Provide repair and contract manufacturing services to OEM printer manufacturers and internal business units. Define and implement business unit strategic plans including annual financial objectives, market analysis, new product programs and sales targets. Full responsibility for profitability, asset management and new product releases. Directly manage all operational functions including Manufacturing, Engineering, Quality, Materials, Information Systems, Human Resources and Customer Service. Manage dedicated Finance, Marketing and Sales departments in a corporate matrix reporting structure.

Major accomplishments

Redesigned the manufacturing system from batch type production to a lean demand flow system based on work cells. In 6 months on time delivery increased from 20% to 90%, first pass yields improved from 65% to 96%. Average quoted lead time was reduced from 12 weeks to 9.5 weeks.

Created and executed a Product Development, Marketing and Sales strategy to diversify the printhead customer base. Foreign sales rose from 30% to 70% of revenue in four years.

Used Value Engineering and Offshore Sourcing to reduce material costs 4.5% per year for three consecutive years.

Implemented Oracle Manufacturing software, running on a Sun server, with complete MRP and ERP capability.

Employed Total Quality Management principles and procedures to reduce defects over 80% in three years. Defects went from 15,000 PPM in 1998 to 2,500 in 2001.

Achieved and maintained ISO 9001 registration for San Diego and Tijuana plants.

Established a $ 4 million per year contract manufacturing operation within the existing Mexican Maquiladora facility to support TPG printer assembly divisions with high quality, low cost precision electromechanical assemblies. Went from start up to full operation in six months.

Exceeded budgeted operating income by 5% for seven consecutive quarters.

Manager, Engineering (Aug 89 – Jun 97)

Duties and responsibilities

Manage New Product Development, Sustaining Engineering, Documentation Control, and Prototype Production. Responsible for the engineering budget and new product development plans. Interface with customers and participate in marketing products to new customers and markets. Provide cost and schedule data in support of new product quoting. Define the structure and organization of the Engineering Departments and recruit the necessary staff.

Major accomplishments

Introduced three new product families comprised of sixteen individual models. Products included the highest performance 24 pin and highest reliability 9 pin printheads on the market. These new products met their quality, cost and schedule requirements. Recruited and managed the engineering team that achieved these results.

Introduced CAD, Parametric Solid Modeling, Rapid Prototyping, mathematical modeling and magnetic finite element modeling tools to the development process. Achieved significant improvement in design quality and integrity while reducing the product development cycle.

Implemented an in house reliability testing lab which increased the quality and decreased the time to market for new matrix printhead products.

Implemented a TQM system and ISO 9001 registered Engineering Quality System.

Hewlett Packard Company, San Diego Division, 1980-1989

16399 W. Bernardo Dr., San Diego, CA 92128

Mechanical Engineer

Manufacturing Engineer

EDUCATION:

MSME - San Diego State University, San Diego, CA

BSME - University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN

Additional Education

Harman Production System (HPS) – Harman’s implementation of the Toyota Production System

Certified Project Management Professional - Project Management Institute (PMI), Newton Square, PA

Factory Physics – Lean manufacturing processes at Northwestern University, Chicago, IL

Quality College - Crosby Associates, San Jose, CA

LAMP (Leadership and Management Program) – UCSD extension, San Diego, CA

Patents : U.S. # 4,598,298 Plotter with Automatic Sheet Feeder (shared patent)

U.S. # 5,975,776 Dot Matrix Printhead with Unitary Armature Assembly

Operations Lean Manufacturing Engineering R&D Quality ERP NPI Six Sigma Sourcing Supply Chain Purchasing Project Management Program Management Leadership DFM PFMEA DFMEA Consumer Electronics Cost Reduction PMI Loudspeaker Audio Electromechanical Mechanical Engineering ISO 9000 ERP system SAP

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