Project Manager Engineer

Alpa ‘April’ Cobb

**** ******** **• Schaumburg, IL 60173 • Phone: 847-***-**** • Email: *********@*****.***

Business Transformation

Highly passionate and results-driven leader with extensive organizational change management and process improvement experience within various industries. Ability to effectively transform organization’s culture through people, process and technology with sustainable results.

SKILLS

PEOPLE PROCESS TECHNOLOGY

• Organizational Change Management

• Team Building

• Enterprise Resource Management

• Conflict Resolution/ Negotiations

• Learning Development and Delivery

• Global/virtual team mgmt

• Facilitation • Lean Six Sigma Methodologies

• Process Reengineering

• New Product Development

• Transition Planning

• Metrics identification and base lining

• Financial Management

Knowledge Based Configuration/Mass Customization Microsoft Office Products

Lotus SmartSuite Products

Microsoft Project/Visio

HP Service Manager

Minitab

Various collaboration tools (i.e. WebEx, MS SharePoint, Yammer)

PDW Resource Management

EXPERIENCE

PROJECT MANAGER, PROCESS IMPROVEMENT, Rosemont, IL 2012 – Present

US Foods– Food Distribution

As part of the Supply Chain Replenishment organization, responsible for managing various projects. Work with functional leads to define requirements, tasks, dependencies, milestones and due dates relating to business projects and monitor the completion of each task, highlighting issues or delays to the appropriate management.

Manage complex, large scale ($3M+) modernization of purchasing system implementation

Mentor and coach process analysts on various tools and techniques to effectively manage process improvements

Launched companywide process excellence affinity group to network, develop and share best practices

Optimized a new hire orientation process that successfully onboarded large amounts of new hires on a monthly basis

Designed and launched department wide SharePoint site for more efficient collaboration & knowledge sharing between corporate and the field offices

DIRECTOR, BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION, Schaumburg, IL 2011 - 2011

PromoWorks – Marketing Services, In Store Sampling for CPG/Retailers

Reporting directly to the CEO/Chairman of the Board, identify, lead and implement all company wide transformation projects.

Utilized SharePoint and Yammer.com to help the organization collaborate more effectively in order to build a culture of social learning and sharing

Conducted several cross functional kaizen teams to optimize the Finance and Logistics processes. Develop and managed the implementation plans.

Redesign the entire field operations organizations to support the converting shoppers to buyers strategy.

Initiated and led volunteer teams to conduct quarterly Town Halls that received overwhelming positive feedback

Alpa ‘April’ Cobb

Resume, Page Two

PROCESS REENGINEERING ANALYST, Northbrook, IL 2008 - 2011

Allstate – Allstate Technology & Operations

Led process reengineering initiatives that support strategic technology initiatives. Utilize organizational change management principles to drive sustainable adoption of changes/improvements.

Utilized Six Sigma methodology to improve the efficiency of the Request for Estimate process which resulted in over $1.3 million/yr net savings. The culture shifted from siloed to collaborative via the new process

Led team of Sr. Leaders to define a specific organization’s restructuring to a matrix environment

Proactively participated in the largest known US organization transformation initiative to change the technology organization’s culture to be more engaged and focused on thrilling the customer as a member of the Transformation Operating Team that governs the initiative along with providing the voice of the organization

Assisted developing a Grassroots Evaluation of Leaders performance process in which all employees are empowered to voice their perspective on their leaders in a safe environment

Led the development of a technology wide dashboard that helps all employees connect to the line of sight to customers via metrics.

Successfully led several Six Sigma projects for one of IT’s operating strategies that involved legacy modernization. Analyzed and identified that the new technology platform will have 27% cost efficiency gains which was over $1.8 million/yr.

ENTERPRISE RESOURCE MANAGER, Schaumburg, IL 2005 - 2006

Motorola– Government & Enterprise Mobility Division

Implemented an Enterprise Resource Management process and technology to better forecast IT resource utilization as an input to portfolio prioritization. Utilized change management principles to help transition stakeholders towards a role based organization and to adopt new technology and processes.

Implemented a new resource management tool (PDW) to 300+ resources to easily allow project managers the ability to forecast and plan when skilled resources are available to start on projects

Reengineered the way IT managed resources and their portfolios by creating role based process workflows/training to assist in understanding how the new process impacted them and how it benefited them

SENIOR CONSULTANT/RESOURCE MANAGER, Road Warrior 2001 – 2004

Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) –Consulting for Product Lifecycle Management Solutions

Managed resources within the Product First Practice group that were responsible for creating new consulting service methodologies, maintaining existing services and managing outsourced development projects.

Managed 7 direct and 32 indirect resources by managing resource allocation, career plans, 360 performance reviews, and conflict resolution

Created a new organizational change management (OCM) consulting service offering from concept to proven implementation that resulted in added substantial revenue for every technical implementation project

Effectively trained various roles in the consulting group (implementers, trainers, client managers and sales) on the delivery of numerous service offerings by providing real life scenarios that may occur and how to manage them

Developed a process for automating product designs via mass customization

Received several “Excellence” Awards for developing innovative service offerings and for successfully managing client engagements that led to client references

Alpa ‘April’ Cobb

Resume, Page Three

DESIGN ENGINEER, Elgin, IL 1998 – 2001

Chicago Rawhide, SKF –Manufacturer of Automotive, Industrial and Aerospace rubber seals

Created innovative automated 3D design CAD models for various product lines and their associated mold designs using Pro/ENGINEER. Successfully managed resistance to the new automated models by fellow engineers by utilizing Organizational Change Management principles.

Minimized RFQ design time from 3 days down to 3 hrs by embedding 80% of the design rules into the CAD models so that they are mass customizable. Minimized 3 wks of mold design time down to 1 wk.

Solely responsible for creating, maintaining, training and providing technical support for the automated process to a group of 25+ engineers. Extensive change management planning and execution.

Chosen as winner of the “Technology TQC” award for developing and implementing the models and yielding an improved response time for quotes and quality to the end customers

PROJECT ENGINEER, Huntley, IL 1997– 1998

Duo-Fast Corporation (ITW) – Manufacturer of Nailers and Staplers for Construction Industry

Led a cross functional team to develop a new line of heavy duty commercial staplers while establishing company-wide New Product Development processes in order to improve time, cost and quality. Conducted several team building exercises to effectively improve relationships within cross functional teams.

PROJECT ENGINEER, Rockford, IL 1995 – 1997

Greenlee Textron, Inc – Manufacturer of Electrical Contractor Tools

Developed a new line of battery powered crimping tools from prototype to production. Worked with cross functional departments in order to produce a robust product. Trained production floor personnel on proper assembly of tools. Authored all end user and assembly instruction manuals. Participated in conducting marketing surveys and trade show promotions.

EDUCATION

Bradley University – Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, Peoria, IL May 1994

LaMarsh & Associates Managed Change June 2001

Motorola’s Organizational Change Management Mar 2005

Allstate Insurance Company Six Sigma Black Belt Certification July 2009

ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, Cert No. 9603 Nov 2009

ASQ LEAN training April 2010

LaMarsh & Associates Change Agent Certification Training Aug 2010

SolutionPeople Accelerated Innovation & Creativity Training Dec 2010

Nielsen Company Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification Mar 2011

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