Ron Kowalka

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

P.O, Box ***

Greenbrier, Tennessee 37073

Email: acuay3@r.postjobfree.com

Cell: 307-***-****

CAREER PROFILE

A quality assurance, control, program management, and purchasing professional well versed in the requirements for system launch, planning, project implementation, and engineering standards of APQP, PPAP, D & PFMEA, and warranty, CAPA with SAP, GMP, and 8D, submission requirements, continuous improvement, auditing, and supplier development requirements with or including NAFTA. Strong background in injection molded, plastic extrusion, as well as metal components machining. Excellent customer relations experience with strong emphasis regarding quality, manufacturing planning, and production requirements. WCM Pillar training and Kaizen project process improvements for cost, production, and quality improvements.

Professional History

Martinrea Fabco Metal Stamping, Springfield, TN (Contract Employee) March 2016 to Present

Quality Engineer: Manages and directs the Quality team and is the focal point for all quality matters with particular focus on: corrective actions, root cause analysis, documented procedures, statistical analysis, improvement initiatives and quality training. Provides critical leadership to the management team for the continuous improvement of business processes. Assists in formulating SOP’s, quality control procedures and work instructions and recommends revision of specifications when required. Responsible to maintain all processes to ISO certifications standards. Training of operators on the plant floor to meet customer and company specifications.

Case Construction (CNH) Equipment Burlington, Iowa (Contract Employee) July 2015 to December 2015

Organizing project manager after transfer of construction equipment product line move from another manufacturing plant. Fiat-CNH Industrial system of organizing to meet ISO 9001standard, and NAFTA for manufacturing this product line.

Lead Quality Engineer: Manages and directs the Quality team and is the focal point for all quality matters with particular focus on: corrective actions, root cause analysis, documented procedures, statistical analysis, improvement initiatives and quality training. Provides critical leadership to the management team for the continuous improvement of business processes. Assists in formulating SOP’s, quality control procedures and work instructions and recommends revision of specifications when required. Responsible to maintain all processes to ISO certifications standards. Training of operators on the plant floor to meet customer and company specifications. Working with Pro Planner and ALSTAR for configuring the manufacturing process and quality checks.

Layered audits

PPAP

DFEMA

PFEMA

Control Plans

Work Instructions creation

Launching new product from pre-build to OKTS

Monitoring Quality checks and screens for equipment for MQA/CQA

Poly Flow LLC Midland, Texas July 2014 to July 2015

Managing a Quality Assurance team consisting of one supervisor and there technicians for a 30 million a year pipe manufacturer for the Oil and Gas, Nuclear, and general piping industries.

Quality Assurance Manager: Responsible for three QA Technicians in the Lab and the plant and managing the day to day operations of the lab, maintaining the ISO documents and their conversion to API Q1 9th edition, and performing safety coordinator for both of our plants. Any internal and external customer issues or warranty claims that arose from production. On site field incident investigation and following up with the customer with 5 phase reporting using root cause analysis of incidents.

Training and verifying inspectors testing using API 15S standards and API Q1 9th updating our QMS. Design and set-up of our new Midland Texas plants Quality Assurance lab with, Burst Chamber, Moisture Analyzer, and Flow Analyzer.

Helped maintain ISO 9001-2008 registration at Corporate Head Quarters and the new Midland Texas plant. Assisted Engineering with process improvements decreasing costs of returns and customer complaints by use the 5 Phrase to determine root cause with use of CA/PA.

Working with Engineering for process controls with control plans, and proving out new equipment purchased to increase production capabilities and sales capacities.

Began API Q1 9th edition revising the current QMS of ISO 9001 and working to achieve certification by January 2016.

Trained Technicians to perform 1st piece inspection to approve start of production and continued inspection during the run so we knew where the clean point was if we found out of specification product.

Mercury Tube Products Englewood, Colorado January 2013 to July 2014

Managing a Quality Assurance team for a 15 million a year welded stainless steel tubing manufacturer for the heat exchanger, Oil and Gas, Nuclear, and general piping industries.

Quality Assurance Manager: Responsible for four QC Technicians in the Lab at the plant and managing the day to day operations of the lab, maintaining the ISO documents, and training for new standard updates and safety. Any internal and external customer issues or warranty claims that arose from production.

Training and verifying inspectors using ASTM standards and associated standards. Design and set-up of brand new Quality Assurance lab with, Tensile Tester, Load Cell Hardness Tester, Burst Tester, and Microscope.

Obtained ISO 9001-2008 registration within 6 months of hire. Assisted Engineering with process improvements decreasing costs of returns and customer complaints by 5% with a goal of that every year for the next three years.

Working with Engineering for process controls with control plans, SPC, and proving out new equipment purchasing to increase production capabilities and sales capacities.

Beginning ISO 14001 implementation for needed environmental standard awareness for US and foreign markets to assist in sales increases for forecasting expansion into new markets.

Trained Technicians to perform 1st piece inspection to approve start of production and continued inspection during the run so we knew where the clean point was if we found out of specification product.

Poly Pipe Inc. by Dura line June 2011-July 2012

Managing four Quality Control Technicians for 75 million in production a year of pressure pipe manufacturing plant for the oil, gas, and water industries.

Training and verifying using ASTM standards and associated standards of NSF and FM to test samples for specifications using Calipers, Micrometers, and Pi tapes, burst machine, ring tensile, ash, HMLI flow testing for incoming, in process, and or finished goods. Validating incoming material against vendor test results to facilitate production and ASTM standards matching for final products.

ISO Auditor for my plant and other plants in our system. External auditor for vendors and investigating customer complaints at their facilities to close out PCAR’s.

Quality Assurance Manager: Responsible for four QC Technicians in the Lab at the plant and managing the day to day operations of the lab, maintaining the ISO documents, and training for new standard updates and safety. Any internal and external customer issues or warranty claims that arose from production.

Data collection and use of Lean methods using mini-tab and excel to analysis data for Power Point presentations to Managers, Supervisors, and the Director of Quality.

Audited to the ISO-9001_2008 standard to maintain our certification for the plants and the main corporate office.

Traveled to customer’s facilities to investigate complaints and acquire findings to resolve warranty issues and or CAPA issued by corporate for production out of specification from my findings or customer submissions.

Complete reorganization of the Evansville Lab via equipment and documentation to streamline testing and thus helped reduce customer complaints to zero for our plant and others in our system.

Training QC Technicians and supervisors to the latest standards for pressure pipe, safety, and testing required for ASTM, NSF, and FM.

Trained Technicians to perform 1st piece inspection to approve start of production and continued inspection during the run so we knew where the clean point was if we found out of specification product.

SGD North America July 2008-October 2010 Employer of 160 non-union and 20 million a year for original bottle designs and decorations and bottle spray lines for the Global Cosmetic Industry for glass. Working from customer artwork they created, sampled, and produced customer approved bottles for fill and final shipment to the customer.

R&D/Lab Manager: Responsible for 6 team members including one graphic artist, one decoration technician and one spray technician, and 3 shift ink lab technicians. Managing the day to day operations of the Ink Lab and ordering supplies for silk screen production onto glass bottles.

Created a process to collect precious metal waste from the production process resulting in an 80K return yearly from the material being recycled.

Hired, managed, trained, evaluated, and disciplined 6 direct employees for launches into production for all jobs processed into the plant.

Imputed and maintained all technical data for all jobs in SAP for both the decoration as well as for the spray line production.

Correlated all aspects of vendor relations to include, price quoting, bulk discounts, and custom orders for the production floor including all bulk chemicals used in production and cleaning of the plant.

Managed all monthly, semi-yearly, and yearly inventories for financial reporting as well as reports for consumption compared to quoting for analysis for cost reductions for myself and senior management.

Spread headed converting all the paperwork such as color specifications, processing screens, etc. in the ink lab to an electronic database to assist and eliminate errors for set up and thus helped cut costs for machine downtime by a third.

Trained Technicians to perform 1st piece inspection to approve start of production and continued inspection during the run so we knew where the clean point was if we found out of specification product.

Fulton Bellows, LLC Knoxville, TN December 2007- May 2008

Employer of 65 non-union employees manufacturing Bellows for the aerospace industry with major components for Boeing and NASA.

Consultant:

Creation of Quality documents for Bellows manufacturer to obtain AS9001:2008 certification to be awarded new business and analysis procedures for purchasing new equipment for the plant as they came out of bankruptcy.

Transmission Technologies Toledo, OH/Knoxville, TN August 2005-October 2007

Manufacturer of Manual Transmissions and experimental transmissions with 130 non-union employees manufacturing metal components and NAFTA components for the Big 3 and global manufacturers of vehicles that use manual transmissions until the plant moved to Mexico.

Supplier Quality Engineer:

TS-16949 Lead Auditor and ISO-14001 auditor for the plant working toward certification and re-certification. Conducting layered audits, managing audit teams, and opening and closing meetings, and dealing with findings from the audit.

Checked all PPAP paperwork to the needed specification so projects could meet launch time

Quality Representative on 8D teams to analysis and find trends or errors to help speed up development times.

8D methodology to work through a mechanical issue we discovered in the build for a new transmission and used same methodology to help improve existing manufacturing.

Main contact with vendors, vendor audits to determine best practices and help calculate which vendors to choose to supply our production needs and any material issues that arose.

Procurement of Lab equipment and training for employees.

Creation of SOP’s, Work Instructions, and training of production employees.

Helped create DFMEA and then PFMEA and control plan for new transmissions for the new Challenger shift lever. From the PFMEA we discovered the necessary inspection critique for the welds that were critical for the lever to meet warranty specifications.

Trained Technicians to perform 1st piece inspection to approve start of production and continued inspection during the run so we knew where the clean point was if we found out of specification product.

Owens-Illinois/Plastic Division/Perrysburg-OH/Belvidere-NJ April 2001-September 2004

Employer of union employee’s manufacturing injection molding and blow molded containers in plants in the United States and globally. Produced PET plastic material containers for customers such as BBW, Johnson & Johnson, and Unilever.

SPC/Assistant Quality Manager/Quality Lab Technician:

Worked with Engineers to create DOE’s to reduce costs and simplify production and assist in data collection for review of trends, areas for cost saving.

Set up Quality Lab for remolding and new equipment to reduce time in checking parts and freeing up Technicians to work on improvements to existing product lines resulting in faster report times and cost reductions.

Preparing Budgets and maintenance costs for ongoing work and new equipment for project launches including FDA requirements.

Concentrating on SPC analysis to warn of trends to help reduce downtime and wasted production times and trends and costs.

Programming CMM with PC DEMIS software for testing parts from plants to validate SPC data collection at those sites.

SPC Coordinator responsible for set up and reviewing data collected in Infinity QS database and generating reports for customer specifications, engineers, and plant and corporate management.

Education Spring Arbor University Spring Arbor, MI

B.A. – Organizational Leadership and Management (2002)

Owens Community College Perrysburg, OH

A.A.-Associates Degree in Business Management/Minor Accounting

Certificate – Quality Control/Assurance

Skill Sets Standards and Auditing:

AIAG trained and experience, API Q1 9th edition, TS 16949 and ISO-9001-2008 Lead

Auditor, and ISO 14001 Auditor, plus GMP, and FDA auditing.

E.R.P Systems:

SAP- Glovia G2, and Visual databases

GD&T:

Programmable and manual CMM, Micrometers, calipers, and numerous other gauges and training of their use, Part operation and layout, blueprint reading,

Management:

Managed Supervisors and teams of Technical and QC/QA employees.

Costing and Budget creation for equipment, training for quality including the plant floor,

Safety and HSE training and Management:

Safety coordinator for multi-plant operations, Safety Committee Manager and Member.

ISO-9001 & TS-16949: APQP team member, Supplier PPAP validation and PSW submission, DFMEA and PFMEA, and Control Plans, Process Flow Charting and MSA requirements, Gage R&R’s, GMP, FDA, 5 Why and lean 5S, 8D team coordinator.

Field Incident Investigator: Travel to customer lease to investigate any incidents with our pipe or related equipment for our pipe. Work with our customers and engineering using the 5 phase format to determine root cause and CA/PA.

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