Engineer Six Sigma

Ram Mahipal Kouda, Ph.D, CSSBB.

*** **** **., ***. ***

Glendale, CA 91202 479-***-****

www.linkedin.com/in/ramkouda ****************.*****@*****.***

SUMMARY

Accomplished Chemical Engineer proficient in manufacturing process optimization using lean and six sigma methods, driving continuous process improvements, process validation, process scale up, process design and pilot plant product development. Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, with rich expertise in process improvement of savings more than $2 Million in manufacturing industry and process troubleshooting in bulk drug manufacturing, food and pharmaceutical industries. Experience of working in a GMP environment. Process Improvement and capital project experience in food and paper plant. Project manager able to see a task through from beginning to end while retaining responsibility for design, resources, financial investment, maintenance, and return on the investment. Certified Clean Room Professional. Adept and project management experience in process alarm management, process control, APC and MPC, root cause analysis, process event prediction, Hazop studies, HMI display, and 3D CFD models.

CORE COMPETENCIES

● PROCESS IMPROVEMENT & TROUBLESHOOTING ● FOOD AND PHARMACEUTICAL MANUFACTURING

● DOE,SPC, GAGE R&R, AND LEAN SIX SIGMA ● PROCESS AND EQUIPMENT DESIGN

● WATER TREATMENT, MEMBRANE PROCESS (UF, MF, & RO), AND AOP ●PROCESS VALIDATION AND CGMP (GOOD MANUFACTURING PRACTICES).

● CFD MODELING AND SIMULATION ● PROJECT MANAGEMENT

● PSM, PHA, AND HAZOP

●CAPITAL PROJECTS ● PILOT PLANT PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

● PROCESS CONTROL, AUTOMATION, & SIMULATION

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Firmenich Inc., Anaheim, CA 2011 - Present

Food Flavor Company (www.Firmenich.com)

Process Improvement Engineer

Leading the continuous process improvement in increasing the plant yield, quality and throughput. Troubleshooting the process issues, analyzing the process data for process bottlenecks and for increasing the product yield and quality performance.

• Process studies of sugar chemistry and flavor micro-encapsulation, and also involved in assisting new flavor development for clients such as Hersheys, Kraft, Cadbury and Proctor Gamble.

• Successfully lead and implemented Six Sigma project of modified sifting process and increasing the yield by 3-5% ($ 600k per annum) based on individual product.

• Successfully lead the Six sigma project in reduction of rocks by 3% ($700K per annum) in rotary dryers by investigating the root causes such as dryer tuning, control valve issues and controller programming.

• Reducing the unaccountable losses by 5% ($ 750k per annum) with six sigma project on optimization of rotary dryer process conditions.

• Designed and optimized air flow interrupter for rotary dryer to reduce the product loss by 5% per batch.

• Successfully reduced the product rework by increasing RFT (right first time) of batch process from 75% to 90%.

• Six sigma project in reduction of Unaccountable losses by 30% ($ 600K per annum) by optimizing the dryers flows and Implemented the bi-weekly dryer ranking of 38 dryers based on data analysis for maximum utilization of best performing rotary dryers by operators.

• Designed and developed a RCA (root cause analysis) tool in Access for logging the production issues their root cause and corrective actions.

• Champion of the plant in leading the yield improvement of large volume products portfolio of 20 products, and increased the average yield performance above 80% from below 75%.

Prosys Inc., Baton Rouge, LA 2008 - 2011

Engineering Services Company (www.prosys.com)

Associate Engineer

Supported chemical/petrochemical manufacturing plants in process optimization using APC, MPC. Analysis of control system performance KPI, Alarm Management and root cause analysis. Provided operators with reliable action event notification interface and maintained proper Hazop documentation.

• Designed, developed, and improved software for alarm management, control system performance, KPI, root cause analysis, and event prediction.

• Led Alarm Management projects to dynamically manage, optimize, and rationalize alarms and Hazop documentation in petrochemical refineries.

• Designed, tested, and validated HMI Interface using Honeywell Experian Graphics, GUS graphics, and Native graphics in chemical and petrochemical plants.

• Designed and Implemented advanced process control, simulation and automation for chemical manufacturing process

• Performed DOE using MINITAB to analyze relationship between process variable and built the model in the implementation of Model Predictive control. Successfully implemented in the hydrocracker delta temperature across the bed of the reactor and in the optimization of the FCC process.

• Designed Six Sigma DMAIC implementation in Alarm Management projects.

Georgia Pacific, Crossett, AR 2007- 2008

Pulp and Paper Manufacturing (www.gp.com)

Process Engineer

Performed troubleshooting and process improvement. Estimated costs of new capital projects, tested process units, and filed for environmental compliance permits. Championed quality control and process performance analysis.

• Designed and installed a Reverse Osmosis Plant with investment of $500,000. Generated a return of $200,000 after analyzing financial viability of the project.

• Design and scale up of 2000 GPM Reverse Osmosis plant after analyzing Pilot plant operation.

• Analyzed and controlled soda loss across the plant streams.

• Increased the steam efficiency of 5 stage evaporator by 30%.

• Optimized causticizers and increased caustic efficiency by performing tracer test.

• Increased steam production of boiler furnace by 20%.

• Spearheaded capital projects for boiler furnace tubes replacement, boiler feed water system, and pre-evaporation filter design project.

• Successfully implemented Six Sigma DMAIC project in moisture control of the paper.

• Performed Gage R&R using ANOVA Minitab to evaluate the variability in performance of paper moisture measurement equipment for inconsistency with operators’ evaluation.

• Performed DOE for moisture control of the paper for optimum performance of the paper machine, by analyzing the process variables dryer rotation speed, steam feed pressure and temperature.

• Performed DOE for causticizers performance analysis, optimized the agitator speed for maximum performance of the causticizers.

Trident Pharmaceuticals, Hyderabad, India 2002- 2004

Bulk Drug and Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

Process Engineer

Supervised operations of production of pharmaceutical drug manufacturing plant to follow cGMP practices. Maintained training records to comply with site operations and engineering standards. Involved in process scale up, process design and process simulation.

• Involved in the process scale up of the drug manufacturing process from pilot plant operations, and process simulation using HYSYS.

• Successfully investigated product quality failures and non-compliance using root cause analysis.

• Spearheaded new equipment installation and designed process flow and instrumentation diagram (PFD&PID) using AUTOCAD.

• Supervise the operation of coal Boiler Furnace and control optimization.

• Involved in the validation of the design (DQ), Installation (IQ), operations (OQ) and performance (PQ) of the process and laboratory equipment.

Virchow Labs, Hyderabad India 2001- 2002

Bulk drug and Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

Chemical Engineer Intern

Complied with site operations and engineering standards by maintaining training records, carrying out process design, scale up and designing process flow and instrumentation diagram (PFD &PID).

• Design and scale up of packed bed columns used in the manufacture of Sodium Methylate from pilot plant study.

• Designed the distillation column for methanol-water separation, packed bed column, heat exchangers.

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 2004- 2007

Research Assistant

Designed a novel photo catalytic (an advanced oxidation process) reactor for water treatment using UV light, Nano TiO2 Film and CFD (computational fluid dynamics)

• Successfully coated nano thin films of porous TiO2 on the quartz rod using sol gel method using self recipe of Solgel solution and ESA(Electrostatic self assembly) and doping the TiO2 film with iron. Tested the film in Congo red and KI degradation.

• Performance DOE to analyze the photocatalytic reactor performance for maximum performance based on the relationship between variables flow rate, baffles, no of lamps.

• Simulated 3D model of novel photo catalytic reactor by using COMSOL (Femlab). The flow rate and reactor configuration of the model was optimized by relating the flow field from the model with the physical model of the reactor and the model can be used for future reactor scale up.

EDUCATION

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR

Ph.D. Engineering, emphasis in Chemical Engineering

M.S. Engineering, emphasis in Chemical Engineering

J.N.T. University, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India

B. Technology Chemical Engineering

CERTIFICATIONS

• Six Sigma Black Belt Certified.

• Engineer Intern Certification from Arkansas State Board of Professional Engineers, Certificate No.: 7063

ADDITIONAL SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

• Instrumentation: UV-VIS spectrophotometer, gas chromatography.

• Software: PI, AUTOCAD, Maple, TK solver, MINITAB, Honeywell display builder, Control Builder, TDC3000, Honeywell Experion, Native Window, GUS system, Delta V.

• Programming Languages: C, C++, Pascal, Matlab, COMSOL (Femlab), Fluent.

• Thin Film Coating: Sol-gel, ESA, Sputtering, chemical vapor deposition (CVD).

• Simulation: COMSOL (Femlab), Aspen Hysis, Honeywell

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