Manager Quality

PATRICK K. KIEFER

**** ****** **** *****, ***** *5025

C 214-***-**** *********@*******.***

SUMMARY

A forward-thinking and results-driven process and quality control manager with extensive experience in supply chain processes, various manufacturing environments, process improvement, product testing and inspection, Lean Six Sigma, procedural compliance, team leadership, production operations and compliance auditing. Meets or exceeds customer requirements by offering key quality strategies. Promotes the continued success of an organization by ensuring the highest quality of products and facilitating consistent improvements. Blends technical and business expertise to enable the execution of the corporate vision through cost-effective solutions, laying the foundation for both short and long-term success.

EXPERIENCE

Conifer Health Solutions

Manager, Process Black Belt, Frisco, Texas DEC 2013 to OCT 2015

Lean Six Sigma Black Belt used as part of process improvement team to work projects to enable capacity in fast pace and growing Revenue Cycle Management portion. Lead several Kaizen events resulting in major reduction in non-value added steps. Current project expected to save $750K plus in 2016.

Texas Instruments

Quality Control Manager, Dallas, Texas 1995-2013

Lead the effort with Far East suppliers to improve quality systems for a $500K business with product life-cycles exceeding 20 years. Developed a process of monitoring out-of-box quality through inspection and analysis of field returns from customers and used data mining techniques to uncover trends, and assess the merits of various courses of action that were reported to and monitored by upper management. Decreased out-of-box quality errors from five-digit defective parts per million to low of two-digit defective parts per million. Created a program management office in supply chain that provided two project managers to oversee new product releases and work with cross-functional team to ensure on-time execution of supply chain objectives.

Worked with internal customers, product development teams, and product line management to ensure delivery of desired quality requirements to distributors and end-users.

Created a process within the Supply Chain to funnel new requests for work to the leadership team on a regular basis allowing for better prioritization of projects in a more efficient manner and the assigning of project managers and team members given the constraint of limited resources.

Led a Lean Six Sigma project to streamline demand and supply-planning process within end-to-end planning function. The team made significant reductions in process steps and overall time needed to complete tasks.

Developed a plan to transition the responsibility for evaluation of outgoing quality to an in-house, supplier-led function. The plan streamlined the function by eliminating three external inspection functions, including three quality control supervisors and 12 inspectors while improving outgoing quality by reducing the number of defects to next to zero.

Converted the manual consolidation of inspection data to a webform feed using Oracle ERP and data warehouse at all of our Far East suppliers. This conversion eliminated errors associated with the manual consolidation of multiple Excel sheets and provided secure data retention and provided for easy generation of standard and special reports. Subsequent reporting improvements allowed for extensive cost savings and quality impact through “personnel efficiencies” and data assimilation.

Lead Bi-Annual Compliance Audits with Far East Suppliers to Company Requirements and National Standards. All suppliers used multiple Surface Mount Technology lines.

Total Quality Manager, Lubbock, Texas 1990-1995

Generated annual quality policy deployment strategies in alignment with division goals. Tracked progress toward goals and recommended necessary adjustments. Led inspection and process monitoring of surface mount, board assembly, and final assembly processes on multiple shifts. Led teaming effort for site, training teams on effective interaction and problem-solving skills. Established process capability measurements on surface mount lines to help maintain high quality levels.

Main interface with established and new customers to explain overall quality systems and establish cooperative working relationships.

Served as custom manufacturing service (CMS) site-management representative for ISO-9000 QMS implementation. Led nine-month effort to obtain ISO-9000 registration for Lubbock CMS site.

Led all manufacturing sites with fewest none conformance findings on 3rd Party ISO-9000 audits.

Directed annual continuous improvement effort and provided management support for ongoing training on quality function and general knowledge.

Quality leadership assisted in winning new business and establishing good working relationships with customers, including Apple, Cisco Systems, and IBM.

Introduced process improvement measure of board cleanliness through use of ionagraph and established threshold limits to prevent contamination.

Offered management support for method improvement reporting program, allowing employees to become engaged in work through submission of improvement ideas.

ADDITIONAL EXPERIENCE

Quality Control Engineering Manager, 1990. Managed site quality system for all products produced in Lubbock, Texas. Managed more than 120 inspectors on three shifts across multiple production lines. Drove numerous decreases in inspection test time and improvement in quality effectiveness by reducing number of inspectors needed while maintaining all quality goals. Improved outgoing quality levels by discovering various manufacturing flaws and assembly escapes through product acceptance inspection.

EDUCATION

Wayland Baptist University, Lubbock, Texas

B.S.O.E., Business and Engineering Technology, 1989

CERTIFICATIONS

ASQ Certified Quality Auditor, 1989

ASQ Certified Quality Engineer, 1985

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

ISO 9001:2008 Lead Auditor Training, AQS Management Systems Inc. April 2013

ISO 9001:2008 Internal Audit Training, AQS Management Systems Inc. September 2009

Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, University of Texas at Arlington, 2005

Extensive business process development/training, Hammer and Company

AFFILIATION

American Society for Quality, since 1984

SIG for Lean Six Sigma (and SIG for TL in 2006)

MILITARY SERVICE

Army National Guard and Army Reserves, 1970-1976

COMPUTER SKILLS

Microsoft Office Applications, SharePoint, Minitab 17

Contact this candidate