Engineer Quality Control

John W. Grunden

**** ******** *** #****

Houston, Tx 77046

PHONE: 832-***-****

FAX: 281-***-****

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

A highly skilled, results-oriented, and dedicated ceramic engineer with extensive process optimization and trouble shooting skills. Possesses a demonstrated ability to reduce costs and variability, increase yields, and increase production speeds. Combines logic and creativity to develop realistic and pragmatic solutions to problems.

Work History and Experience

PILKINGTON NORTH AMERICA, Ottawa, Illinois

Batch/Furnace Manager Responsible for daily operations and process improvements from batch unloading through

2004 – 2009 furnace. Supervised 13 employees.

￠ Defect Reduction: By the addition of new raw materials (carbon) and modifications to the furnace, the numbers one and two defects were reduced. Seeds were reduced by 35% and Tridymite scale defects were reduced by 97%. This reduction reduced the PPM level down from 6500 to 5000 resulting in $100,000.00 annual cost avoidance.

￠ Customer Qualifications: Installed new XRF machine to control base glass chemistry. New controls were necessary to for customer’s color specification. Burner adjustments/batch changes were necessary to achieve and control the new color specification. The new controls helped achieve $150,000.00 cost avoidance in transportation.

￠ Project Management: Lead for multiple projects, including three bypasses, oxygen lancing, port conversion from gas/air fire to oxygen/gas firing, and new 265' natural draft stack and multiple hot repairs. These projects were to maintain the furnace in production mode until a safe time to take down the furnace for a cold repair.

PHILIPS LIGHTING COMPANY, Bath, New York

Engineer II Held responsibility for 5 separate production lines including ceramic discharge metal halide (CDM), quartz metal

2001 – 2003 halide (MH), high pressure sodium (HPS), and mercury vapor (MV) lamps, hand mounting, seasoning, packing, and

the base room.

￠ Cost Reduction: Through use of statistical engineering (SE) and the MEDIC approach, the amount of phosphor coating on virtually all the MH and MV lamps was reduced by 30% resulting in a cost reduction of $0.05/coated lamp. By modification of the base wheel; a new, lower cost extended eyelet base was accepted resulting in a $150,000.00 yearly cost reduction.

￠ Efficiency Improvements: By small design changes in the HPS mount, a 90% reduction of broken bulbs was achieved. By changing out raw materials, process changes were made which reduced the lead polarity holds by 60%. Through communication, education, and updating the specification codes, the number of quality holds was reduced by 10%.

￠ Supplier Relations: Through communication and team work, containers and sleeves were redesigned for use in new automatic packing equipment. This led to a 75% reduction in rejected packing and a 15% increase in packing production rates.

WORLD KITCHEN, INC. f/k/a CORNING, INC., Corning, New York

Glass Technologist Responsible for all chemistry related issues for the production of Corelle glass. Supervised chemistry and

1997 - 2001 tank maintenance for three separate cold crown melting tanks and seven glaze tanks. Responsible for all glass transitions between white and tint glass. Approved all new and existing raw materials for batch matching daily consumption over 650,000 lbs.

￠ Efficiency Improvements: Through the use of the Six-Sigma Black Belt process improvement skills, the variability of the NiO levels was reduced by 600% during tint runs and the transitions became more predictable. This equated to a cost avoidance of $275,000 per tint run.

￠ Cost Reduction: Chemistry Process Improvement (CIP) team leader. Identified new raw materials and material handling equipment which resulted in cost reductions of $250,000.00 yearly.

￠ Variability Reduction: CIP team significant results included a 30% reduction in variability of the incoming raw materials. Through use of other Black Belt skills, the variabilities of the Boron and Fluorine in the core glass were reduced by 600%.

FULLER COMPANY, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Commissioning Engineer Responsible for the start-up and operation of new cement factories around the globe. Instructed indigenous

1996 - 1997 operators in the proper use of the new equipment to achieve the guarantees which included production rates, the quality of the cement and the energy consumption. Extensive travel world-wide to trouble shoot and/or optimize existing equipment.

￠ Quality Control: Commissioned two separate X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) machines and sample preparation equipment for 7,800 MTPD cement factories. Responsible for analysis of the raw materials, including fuel, hourly batch changes, and the quality of the raw meal and cement.

￠ Equipment Optimization: Performed Energy/Mass Balance calculations on all the major pieces of equipment including kilns, coolers, raw mills, and finishing mills. Also performed air flow measurements as well as gas sampling and analysis of gases to achieve customer acceptance during final testing.

OSRAM-SYLVANIA, Springvale, Maine

Engineering-Coop Responsible for all aspects of production of ceramic heaters.

Spring 1995

￠ Production Optimization: Commissioned a new propane-fired kiln resulting in a capacity increase of 150% and a 30% less energy consumption.

￠ Quality Control: Wrote the pass/fail criteria for the ceramic heaters and installed a repair station which increased yield by 25%. Reformulated the slurry and the glazes for easy formulation for the operators.

Education:

New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University

Alfred, New York

Bachelor of Science with a Major in Ceramic Engineering,

Minor in Chemistry (May 1996)

University of Texas

Austin, Texas

Six Sigma Black Belt Certification (January 12, 2001)

Technical Skills:

-Extensive knowledge of Kaizan, Kaban, PLC and SLC.

-Computer languages (Fortran77, Pascal, Basic).

-Computer literate on IBMS and Macs.

-Extensive use of hydraulics, pneumatics, compressors, regulators, and heat exchangers.

-Extensive batch controlling techniques and controlling chemistry for specific characteristics.

-Trained on PID controllers and many other unique control systems.

Awards: The President’s Volunteer Service Award

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