Quality Manager, Production Manager

James R. Fitzjarrell, Jr.

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

Watseka, Illinois 60970

Home Phone: 815-***-**** Mobile: 815-***-****

E-mail: *******@*******.***

PROFILE

CAREER FOCUS

Seeking a Quality Manager Position utilizing a proven record of increasing productivity, reducing costs, and improving product quality by formulating effective strategic plans and implementing efficient operational processes.

QUALIFICATIONS

A proven production operations professional, one who owns and solves problems, increases productivity, builds strong teams, creates a collaborative environment and gets results. Demonstrated ability to focus in on operational issues and create and implement innovative customer focused solutions. Particularly successful at identifying operational inefficiencies, establishing improvement objectives, training and empowering teams, and developing procedures that will improve efficiency, drive revenue growth, increase customer satisfaction and ensure profitability.

• Over 15 years of engineering and management experience in complex process orientated environments.

• Implemented numerous manufacturing concepts including continual improvement, project management, training and development, and quality management.

• Received recognition from BiltRite’s Chief Executive Officer for project engineering services and successfully completing start-up of a new division.

• Skilled at team building and team leadership, facilitation and effective use of problem solving tools and techniques with particular success in driving production growth and performance improvement.

WORK EXPERIENCE and ACHIEVEMENTS

TOCA Enterprises USA

Quality Assurance Manager – 2008 – 2009

Joined TOCA to assist them in there efforts to increase business by successfully creating PPAP’S for one of TOCA largest customer’s. In addition initiated efforts to increase quality by improving communication with our foreign counterparts by implementing classes that involved hands on training. TOCA Enterprises imports a variety of products for the railroad and tractor trailer industries and is a sole supplier to several top trailer manufactures.

• Conducted hands on quality training at our suppliers with our Chinese counterparts, purpose to begin developing our staff in China to properly select and audit suppliers. Result – Reduced initial supplier Quality issues.

• Implemented complaint tracking system that coordinated large amounts of data from many departments into a single database. Result – Significant reduction in the amount of complaints that data had been lost which resulted in improved communication with our Chinese suppliers.

• Implementation and continued use of photographic information to enhance our ability to communicate issues to our Chinese suppliers. Result –This has resulted in expediting the corrective action process and reduced the time it takes to find root cause solutions from an three months to three weeks.

JAMES R. FITZJARRELL, Jr., Page 2 of 3

Work Experience and Achievements continues….

Homeshield Fabricated Products

Quality Control Manager / Senior Buyer Purchasing Department – 2004 - 2008

Joined Homeshield to assist them in there efforts to reduce Customer complaints and streamline quality related data processing to reduce both internal and external quality related issues. Homeshield Fabricated Products develops and produces products for the top names in the Window and Door industry.

• Streamlined Homeshield’s efforts to maintain ISO 9000-2000 compliance and help set the stage for obtaining ISO certification in the future

• Developed internal defect tracking in our newly created Marvin door department to pinpoint defects and with the information and Engineering’s assistance reduced quality related problems. Result: Quality related defects dropped by 51% within the first eight months.

• Improved our External Customer relations by establishing a plan to allow employees on a regular basis join with our sales force and meet with and discuss improvement plans with our top external customer. Result: Customer returns dropped 33% in six months, and improved our communications between us.

• Created a new database in conjunction with our top customer to allow us to more effectively analyze defect data and prioritize our efforts to reduce defects. Result: This was a part of the 33% reduction in returns.

• Developed Coatings to help both improve the quality of our Mutin products and reduce the inventory costs of having to carry two different types of coatings. Result: Reduced inventory costs over $50K.

• Transferred to Purchasing and streamlined there efforts to reduce purchase order errors by establishing an all electronic method of notifying our suppliers. Result: Reduced purchase order errors by 75% in six months.

• Worked with our suppliers to improve some of our major products, (Spline and Roller Wheels), to help improve the overall quality of our final products.

American Spring Wire Corporation

Quality Control / Inventory Control / Material Handling Supervisor, 2002 – 2004

Joined to assist their transition in achieving higher quality standards through best practices, SPC integration and ISO 9000 – 2000. American Spring Wire is a leading producer of wire products for the automotive, consumer and connector wire industries.

• Developed and oversaw team to reduce plant work in process inventory. Results: Reduced Work in process by 47% and promoted team approach to problem solving.

• Researched new equipment to increase inspection accuracy of our shaped wire products for the automotive industry. Results: Purchased Optical Comparator in late 2003, which increased inspection accuracy over 32%.

• Responsible for performing Performance Part Approval Process (PPAP) reports for our automotive customers.

• Implemented plan to computerize quality control records to reduce paperwork errors utilizing access database and coordinating those efforts by creating opportunities for quality control lead people to grow in their roles.

The Biltrite Corporation

Production Manager/Production Engineer, 1998 - 2002

Was recruited to manage the start up phase of the Biltrite Highway Tape Division (HTD), establish and streamline manufacturing operations, manage and control plant-operating expenses. Subsequently moved on to the Vinyl Line Division to assist in implementing change. Biltrite is a worldwide manufacturer of rubber and vinyl products.

• Organized a cross-functional team and facilitated team sessions in HTD to identify and prioritize production bottlenecks and developed a plan of corrective action. Results: Start-up completed on time and on budget.

• Organized and delivered training for all operations and production personnel in HTD. Results: Operational productivity, production yields, and product quality far exceeded theoretical. All having a positive impact on on-time shipments and customer satisfaction.

• Re-engineered drying equipment in Vinyl Line Division to reduce plant ambient noise level. Results: Decreased noise level by 95%, thus eliminated need for ear protection and mandatory hearing test. Increased productivity and reduced machine downtime 11% with annualized savings of $96.4K savings.

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Work Experience and Achievements continues….

• Engineered and implemented a new vacuum system in Vinyl Line Division to automatically load raw material into the thermoplastic resin product feed hopper. Result: Reduced labor costs by 22% with an annualized savings of $18K.

• Implemented and trained plant personnel on Kanban inventory system in Vinyl Line Division. Result: Reduced material outages by 97% and increased customer satisfaction due to on-time shipments.

Norcross Safety Products

Process Improvement Engineer, 1996 - 1998

Joined to apply process improvement techniques to streamline operations and upgrade product quality. Norcross Safety Products is a manufacturer and marketer of injection molded and rubber based safety protective footwear for a variety of industrial, work and general outdoor applications.

• Selected and implemented process monitoring controls for time, temperature, and power consumption in Banberry Mixing Area. Results: Reduced mixing variability by 29%, reduced batch quality errors by 16% and increased productivity by 13%. Annualized savings of $49.2K

• Implemented Data Stream, Inc. MP2 preventive maintenance system plant wide. Result: Increased overall equipment up time and reliability by 24%.

• Automated knife cutting and winding system settings on calendaring equipment to be guided by size of product. Result: Product set-up time reduced 12%, improved quality of finished product and reduced waste.

Valspar Corporation

Process Improvement Supervisor/Process Engineer, 1993 - 1996

Joined initially as a process engineer and subsequently promoted to Process Improvement Supervisor managing a staff of eight (8) filling operators. Headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, Valspar is the sixth largest paint and Coatings Company in the world. Our broad portfolio includes architectural, industrial, packaging, automotive, and flooring coatings, polymers and dispersions products.

• Improved batch yield on industrial product line by designing and implementing new pre-batch raw material flow, retrained personnel on material handling procedures, and redesigned portable paint container to decrease paint loss. Results: Increased batch yield from 96% to 98.7% yielding an annualized savings of $75K in raw material cost.

• Organized staff, facilitated brainstorming sessions, developed cause and effect diagrams (fishbone), created and implemented action plans to reduce customer rejections due to product variability in paint filling department. Results: Implemented a filtering technique that reduced customer rejections by 98% on high gloss products.

• Created efficient process flow and accompanying detailed procedures for quality control lab in accordance with ISO-9000 standards (elements 4.11, 4.15). Results: Received ISO-9001 certification.

• Operated in a dual capacity by managing both the filling operation and filling area process engineering.

EDUCATION

B.S. Industrial Technology, Illinois State University, 1987

CERTIFICATIONS

Short-Run Statistical Process Control and

Gage Repeatability and Reproducibility by Eastern Michigan University Center for Quality

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

ISO-9000 Internal Audit Training by Valspar Corporation

Class “K” license (Industrial Waste Operator) obtained from Illinois Environmental Agency

Waste Water Management by Resources Consultants

References available upon request

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