Plant Operations Manager/Process Engineer

CHARLES PACHOLCZAK

N**** GENEVA AVE. LAKE GENEVA, WI. 53147

PH: 262-***-****

EMAIL: *********@*****.***

Qualification Summary: Experienced and result driven professional with proven expertise in maximizing manufacturing facilities, without compromise in performance, cost, safety or quality.

The development and evaluations of new methods, processes and cost saving ideas.

Critical decision making and troubleshooting practices, working cooperatively with all manufacturing operations in optimizing efficiencies and product quality.

Inventory and materials management, promoting full resource utilization.

Development of proposals and estimates, for all capital equipment needed for facilities in any new or existing joint ventures with clients.

Manpower planning and strong team building leadership and motivation.

Prioritize workflow process on projects, to expedite on time completions. Project Management.

Capacity and production planning, forecasting, scheduling, control and logistics.

Responsible for the selection and coordination of outsourced services. Such as toolmakers, trucking services, machine/equipment manufacture technicians or automation houses if needed.

Compliance and Quality Management liaison between company and customers.

Preparation and verification of all associated documentation needed between company and customer’s requirements and to make sure they are followed in production.

Ability to sit and negotiate with customers, both pricing and quality expectations upfront for a win-win for little to no surprises, once the project hits production.

Customer relations: Either by phoning, emailing visiting in person and working closely with all their departments to help them rest assure they project is in good hands.

Experienced working with all common and engineered resins, including over-molding and insert molding.

Training of trainers on using proper techniques and time to help new operators feel comfortable in what they are doing. Thus explaining reasons why things happen and importance why all company procedures are followed for the safety of themselves but also the importance to the company.

Ability to work with all types of people. To know when people are here for the company or just a paycheck.

Help others by passing down my years of experience to individuals, who want to learn and grow with the company.

Not afraid to work out on the floor. I have always believed you cannot know what is going on looking at documents without actually being down there to see what is actually happening.

Respect all employees in return earn their respect. Any employee can make or break or project or program, so I believe they are very important to a company and don’t treat them like robots. Gain their trust and respect and most of all…Listen.

Professional Work Experiences:

PRT LIDS Bensenville, IL. Jan. 2014 – Present

Consultant for waste industry equipment manufacturer of dumpsters

Traveled to current customers, to investigate any issues with our company’s product and resolve. Then report back to Owner and report rather it was a simple fix or we need to redesign something.

Currently working on a new design of a plastic dumpster lid. This project consists of both the redesign of the tooling and the part itself. This will resolve capacity issues and allow the running of multiple style lids in one tool.

Working with the toolmaker, due to the size of this tooling and part to fit into smaller machines than current models. This then allowing the opportunity, for the company to outsource to other locations. Currently design of current lid, is only capable of running in very large machines which leave only a few companies in the US to be able to run. The new design will be able to run in a more common size machine without sacrifice to quality.

Designing new fixtures for this lid. With the new design, we are using same secondary operations, however we need the fixtures to have different hold-downs than before and using new cutting devices.

Along with this new secondary operation of the new plastic lid, I am developing safety cages for the robotic cells.

Redesigned the older style lids hinge line, which is now patented. This was done because of warranty issues and product failing at times and not standing up to company’s warranty.

Sample of different types of materials. Reducing of weight and the strengthening were key factors. We also are always looking for ways to cut cost to not only help the company but the customers as well.

With new lid designed to run in smaller machines. I am currently sourcing new custom molding houses.

Will be responsible for training of new custom molding house personnel. This will involve company policy of quality specifications, along with the programming and setting up of secondary equipment and all tooling.

Looking at automating new metal fabrication facility. This will involve the use of the same robots for safety reasons and consistency of the product.

Second part of this project then, will involve not only the actual handling of the heavy sheets but also place them into a cell to do all operations from cutting to welding. Safety is the first most factors but the repeatability of quality and less work force is part of the ROI.

Design and build leveling tables to hold larger amounts of sheets. This will eliminate the need for the fork truck to visit cell every half hour with a goal of every 4 hours.

PYRAMID PLASTICS ROCKFORD, IL. AUG. 2010 – NOV 2013

Operations Manager of an injection molding facility

Successfully refined company-training program, to protect expensive molds and turnover of employees.

Influenced the importance of Customer Service by visiting with customers and discussing any issues with product or our company. This not only developed and trust and team but reduced quality discrepancies thus allowing future growth with them. Basically became the right of first refusal on jobs.

Responsible for any corrective actions and conducted weekly or daily meetings on assignments to set-up technicians on filling out ISO documentation properly and consistently.

Wrote and maintained a company red-tag procedure. Tools red-tagged were logged into a program that all Supervisors, tool room personnel and scheduler checked daily. This was designed for tools to not make it back on to the shelf, if something was in need to be fix before next run. This helped scheduling the most to not schedule molds if work was not preformed. Eliminated putting tools in and pulling right back out.

Spent a lot of time on the floor helping and motivating the entire staff with sincere dedication to treat and make everyone feel important but instilled the understanding of professionalism and the requirements for success.

Executed decisions for further outlook, profitability and company goals. Sticking to ISO standards by conducting weekly management meetings to discuss any issues and assign responsibility to resolve.

Trained set-up personnel on FMEA/PFMEA procedures and the importance on how they approach issues daily for the benefit of the company to help eliminate the reoccurring fire fights and trust that it will help make their job easier and the company more profitable.

Weekly production meetings to discuss scrap and variances. Jobs that ran negative were flagged and also team members had to answer for what happened if not out of their control. Thus resulting in a 4% scrap reduction.

Look at unnecessary steps in reducing set-up times. Was discovered based on time studies that it was more sufficient to set up a workstations at each machine for the proper tools for them to do their jobs. In some cases pending the tools, job set-up time was reduced by 50%.

Took over shipping and receiving department. There were a lot of orders not being shipped on time, our on time shipping went from 100% to 94%. Looked at personnel and decided who was doing what and eliminated the people not dedicated after discussing our goals. Also had an offsite warehouse to watch which inventory was all over. So I worked with shipping Supervisor and set up rows so that product was easily inventoried and became a first in first out policy. On time shipping score returned to 100% within 3 months.

Responsible for yearly reviews of entire staff and pay scale for hourly. However, if issues were arising or becoming a habit it was discussed with that individual right away. This was not done to scare them or threaten but to help them grow rather it be here or at any other company.

If customers did have any issues with our product, I would meet with them discuss a viable resolution and at times found it was someone else’s issue, another supplier at times and would resolve it for them anyways.

PolyFlex Inc. Walworth, WI. Jan. 2003 – July 2010

Custom blow molding and injection molding facility

President – Plant Operations Manager – Customer Service/ Sales – Assistant Manager

Helped turn a $8mm company in sales, into an over $14mm in just 2 years.

When I first started the company, it was actually loosing $50K a month. The past owner took me aside and said I have 6 months to turn it around. With working with the customers and reducing inventories we were able to make a profit. He then brought two family members in and after a few years sold it to us.

I redesigned the current tooling we were using to double up the capacity of each machine on proprietary product, which doubled our profits. With the new design, not just only allowing more throughput with double capacity but actually designed cooling racks and reduced cycles times by 50%. Orders could then be filled in a 24-hour period versus up to a 54-hour period. This then allowed our sales to go up because our current customers did not have a need for a secondary supplier.

Made the decision to purchase 3 large blow molding machines which allowed us to make the dumpster lids for PRT. So with a $750K dollar investment we were given a $4mm a year in sales contract and was still growing when I left.

Used and trained other key members of the team, my knowledge of DFMEA/PFMEA/FMEA on all new projects. This way, we just did not take on a new job and learn as we go. Turn around on start ups of new projects were down to one day versus at times up to a week.

Customer was complaining of losing spacers while shipping their garbage cans that we supplied the wheels to. They stated the spacers cost them $.02 apiece and each can took two. I then incorporated a spacer into our wheel. The tooling cost was $2000 for the modification and we added the cost of $.02 to each wheel we sold them. They didn’t lose any more spacers but for $2000 they sure respected our approach to Customer Service and actually brought sales up because all their satellite plants then had to buy from us. Increasing sales from just that one customer of over $1mm.

Set up safety teams to do a walk through and then would meet with department heads and assign responsibilities.

Trained the right personnel to grow from within the company from operator to either maintenance or a Supervisor role.

Development of proposals and estimates, for all capital equipment needed for facilities in any new or existing joint ventures with clients.

Manpower planning and strong team building leadership and motivation.

Prioritize workflow process on projects, to expedite on time completions. Project Management.

Capacity and production planning, forecasting, scheduling, control and logistics.

Responsible for the selection and coordination of outsourced services. Such as toolmakers, trucking services, machine/equipment manufacture technicians or automation houses if needed.

Compliance and Quality Management liaison between company and customers.

Preparation and verification of all associated documentation needed between company and customer’s requirements and to make sure they are followed in production.

Ability to sit and negotiate with customers, both pricing and quality expectations upfront for a win-win for little to no surprises, once the project hits production.

Bardon Rubber, Union Grove, WI. Jan. 2001 – Dec. 2002

Production Engineer for a rubber molding manufacturer

Daily troubleshooting of all aspects of the facility. Areas like rubber prep, molding, secondary operations and testing of materials.

Responsible for the trialing of all new tooling and designing of the rubber prep configuration for that job.

Work with customers on any complaints they had or suggestions of improving their product.

Work on reducing of scrap by 2% by designing prep configurations or proper training of personnel on the importance of maintaining cycle times.

ISO compliant and in-house auditor. Maintain all proper paperwork and made sure everyone else did.

Company was sold to a company in Indiana and closed. I was a select few that were asked to help with the transition but the only one who was asked to stay on with the new company once transition was complete, but could not move at the time.

Fiskars Wausau, WI. Jan. 1989 – Oct. 2000

Manufacturer of scissors, hand tools and lawn and garden tools

Senior Manufacturing Engineer – MFG Engineer – Process Engineer – Supervisor

Part of an elite group of Engineers, which were assigned to oversee any projects in their field worldwide. I was assigned all plastic injection molding projects. This responsibility, consist of being Project Manager on multiple projects worldwide, by the prioritizing and organizing these projects, I was able to maintain deadlines and projective budgets from the design concept, to production, at any of our divisions.

Managed the Engineering staff at our Spencer, Wi. Facility, where I developed a custom vertical rotary molding machine, with the help of company in DePere, WI. This allowed us to turn the Spencer, WI. Facility into a cell concept, in which the steps to making a pair of scissors was done in one location instead of 3. This eliminated not only scrap but also reduction of the workforce needed by 25 people to do this process. Was also responsible for assuring a project was on budget and time.

Specified materials for product working with marketing team. This is when development of the “soft Touch” scissors came into reality. I had my own molding machine for trialing and worked with material suppliers on the types of materials to put this idea into our product line but changed the way we produced a lot of product line. With this idea, it opened many of opportunities for other divisions to use on their product.

Took our insert molding process to the next step and was able to develop a method to insert the blades into the handles afterwards using conventional horizontal molding machines and two shot machines.

Responsible for the training of all set-up and process technicians when new molds hit production floor.

Monitored outsourced supplying facilities, for our other divisions to ensure compliance with our quality and training of their personnel.

Brought in a complete material handling system at two of our molding divisions. This was to help buy material less expensive because of bulk and more consistent molding process using weigh blenders to eliminate scrap and stability of the process

Lavelle Industries, Burlington, WI. 1986 – 1988

Night shift Supervisor of custom rubber and plastic molding manufacturer

Responsible for production scheduling, assignment of personnel and troubleshooting processes.

Maintain a safe yet efficient production facility with working in a union shop environment.

Make sure all employees were knowledgeable and aware of company policies and enforce compliance with these policies.

Troubleshoot any issues in production and resolve or make the decision to stop until Management could decide in the morning, what they wanted to do with it.

Maintain evaluations of each employee and review with them. Discuss potential things with them I see could benefit not only the company but themselves as well.

Albert Trostel and Sons, Lake Geneva, WI. 1979 – 1986

Process Technician – Supervisor – Machine Operator of rubber molding company

This is where I first learned of my ability to troubleshoot processes. I was first hired as an operator for 3 months. While running this machine, I noticed a lot of issues and discussed with Supervisor. The Supervisor was then promoted and I was asked to take his place.

The machine I was running, always ran non-fills. I noticed one day it was consistently on one side of each mold. Process Technicians would just then come up and turn up the shot size. When I discussed with the Plant Manager What I noticed and discussed a resolution too, he then assigned Engineering to it. What it was the machines were big shuttle Injection transfer presses. Each time the machine would shuttle the weight of the other mold wore the Gibbs and mold would not close straight. Working with Maintenance and engineering, we developed a counter balance system with a $150k year material cost savings per year on that one job. Thus becoming the beginning of my troubleshooting career. I was then assigned jobs daily by Plant Manager to go watch and fix if possible or get Engineering involved and report back to him my findings.

Before then, I was responsible for 3rd shift. These responsibilities included scheduling of personnel, making sure things were ready for the following shift when they came in and discuss any issues that arose throughout the night, with the first shift supervisor.

Education:

Northcentral Technical College 1990 – 1992

Business Management Degree

Gateway Technical College 1986

Supervisory/Management Development and Techniques Certificate

Contact this candidate