Manufacturing Director Operations, Site Leader P&L Operational Excelle

Steven Brent Middlebrook (Steve)

*** ******** ****, ******, ** 29642 Cell: 706-***-**** *************@*****.***

SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

Manufacturing and business operations executive who moves seamlessly across industries. I’ve flourished in textiles, safety, automotive, chemicals, and packaging serving the military, consumer, corporate, and government as customers. I bring a strong track record of P&L improvement, world class manufacturing processes, new product line growth, and optimized organizations. I have led multiple sites with a focus on results through utilization of all resources and inputs, proper alignment of systems, taking appropriate risks, and communicating clearly and often to all stakeholders.

I am a subject matter expert in leadership development, Lean strategies, Six Sigma, workforce engagement, Total Quality Management, Associate Managed Safety, and Total Preventive Maintenance tools.

EMPLOYMENT

6/17 - Site Leader, Fenner Dunlop Americas, Lavonia, GA

Textiles for Conveyor Belting. All business metrics at Lavonia are excelling. Individual KPI’s by operator are a way of life, we have completed ISO9001:2015 certification, delivery performance has jumped from 68% to 99.4% while increasing revenue by 83%. Gross Profit Margins for the facility are 50.2% higher, and Kaizen teams have eliminated major business bottlenecks

8/16 – 3/17 Manufacturing Operations Manager, International Textile Group, Greenville, SC

Automotive airbags, firefighter turnout gear, coated industrial substrates; weaving, slashing, beaming, and Finishing. Provided leadership and direction of all manufacturing and support functions for the Safety Components Plant. Productivity and market successes were achieved through new training, quality, and safety initiatives. The business grew margins 18%, introduced new products, acquired new customers and increased market share in multiple industries.

11/14 – 7/16 Vice President/Director of Operations, Duro Industries, LLC, Fall River, MA

Solvent and Aqueous coatings, continuous and piece dyeing for military and industrial markets. Increasing responsibilities in leadership of all manufacturing operations, facilities, and supporting functions across three plant sites. Driving the business turnaround with initiatives in Safety improvement, 5S, Continuous Skills Development, Preventive Maintenance, and Focused Improvement Kaizen teams; an 82% reduction in reworks; a 54% reduction in off quality; a reduction of 4 weeks in customer order-to-delivery lead times, and an 18% reduction in variable conversion costs.

(During this time I had the role of Managing Director, AirDye Solutions/IMBU, Charlotte, NC, relocating and consolidating digital printing operations; and construction and startup of a Greenfield world class digital printing and technology demonstration center in Charlotte.)

Milliken & Company (29 Years: 12/1984 – 11/2014)

Key Roles:

12/13 – 11/14 Senior Consulting Practitioner, Performance Solutions by Milliken, Various Locations

Tires, textiles, packaging, specialty chemicals. Utilized education, change management and facilitation skills to fully engage the client’s workforce and achieve organizational performance goals. The Milliken Performance System encompasses Zero Loss Thinking, Lean, TPM methodologies and DMAIC focused improvement strategies

10/06 – 12/13 Senior Commodity Manager, Milliken Global Purchasing

Managed all chemical purchasing and external chemical and packaging manufacturing for Milliken & Company’s textile and chemical divisions. Managed purchases of all capital equipment and worked with installation contractors. Managed 700 supplier relationships and contractual agreements. Regularly achieved annual project savings of 7-10% on $200+ million spend. Established Low Cost Region supply chains to achieve significant reductions in total supply chain cost.

08/03 – 10/06 Development/Technology Transfer Director, Milliken Research Corporation

Manufacturing equipment, Chemicals: Fabric formation, weaving, dyeing, coating, equipment, Research and Development. Pilot leader for new strategic position to improve the transitioning and commercialization of new products and technologies developed in Milliken's Research and Development labs. Accomplishments include the commercialization of a family of new patented protective fabrics, the implementation of a contract manufacturing model within the Division, and implementation of new technologies for continuous textile dyeing and finishing.

05/00 – 08/03 Manufacturing Manager, Polyester/Cotton Operations, Milliken Magnolia Finishing

Textile Apparel, Automotive fabrics: Dyeing, Finishing, Coating of apparel, military, industrial, automotive fabrics. Manufacturing logistics, supply chain, plant scheduling, manufacturing operations and quality control and order fulfillment. Provided daily leadership for 104 management and 370 production personnel including Engineering, Quality Assurance, claims handling, and customer satisfaction. Major equipment installations totaling $25MM were installed during my tenure. Key measures of Safety, P&L, Quality, Delivery, Innovation, Morale and Environmental all improved over this period while doubling productivity per labor hour and reducing order lead times to completion.

09/92 - 5/00 Plant Manager, Milliken Live Oak Finishing Plant, LaGrange, GA

Floorcovering. Provided Leadership for all aspects of operations and manufacturing. Also responsible for continuing manufacturing operations in 27 locations around the globe when the plant was destroyed by fire in 1995. Worked alongside CEO and 1000+ committed people to rebuild and startup an improved Live Oak Plant in record time while satisfying all ongoing business and customer needs. This was a key development period in my professional life.

12/84 – 09/92 Successive Advancing Roles at Milliken Live Oak Finishing Plant, LaGrange, GA

Progressive management roles through Process and Product Engineering Roles, Business Unit Leadership, Technical and Process Improvement Leadership

EDUCATION

Georgia Institute of Technology: Bachelor of Chemical Engineering, 1984

GPA 3.2

Emphasis: Polymers, Petroleum

Cooperative Education, Hercules Chemical, Brunswick, GA

Wharton School of Business: Finance for Manufacturing Leadership, Mergers and Acquisitions, 1994

Motorola University, Austin, TX: SPC/SQC and Six Sigma

John Deere & Company, Moline, IL: Lean Supply Chain, Value Chain Analysis

TRAINING

NetSuite, SAP, Bahn, and Epicor ERP Systems; Windows Office suite; Negotiation/Procurement Strategy/Purchasing skills and techniques; Statistical Process Control; Market Conferences; Six Sigma; LEAN; TPM; personnel management/development; culture change; and leading high performance teams.

ACTIVITIES

*Youth Leader, Anderson Mill Road Baptist Church

*Pack Leader, Cub Scouts/Webelos Boy Scouts of America; Eagle Scout mentor

*Automotive and Motorsports enthusiast

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