Opglabbeek, Flemish Region, Belgium
Executive with international experience in the Steel Industry for the last 4 years, on top 20 years in the Automotive Industry and 10 more in the Household Appliance Industry, specialized in Business Management and Operations with an ascending career and wide interaction working with multiple cultures. Team-player, target-oriented, energetic, responsible, and highly motivated professional focused on finding optimal solutions from an administrative and operational point of view that can add value and improve performance across multiple industries.
Leading Company producing sensors and continuous measurement systems for the steel making industry. Direct responsible for the operation of 26 plants worldwide. Major achievements are as follows: ● Directed the optimization of inventory levels, minimizing waste while ensuring product availability, which reduced the total DIOC from 91 down to 82 days in two years. ● Coordinated cross-functional teams to streamline supply chain workflows and improve operational performance. ● Led crisis management efforts during COVID supply chain disruptions, minimizing impact on business operations. ● Led strategic planning and implementation of supply chain operations to enhance efficiency and reduce costs. ● Implemented sustainability initiatives, reducing carbon footprint and waste in the supply chain. ● Implementation of 15-20 LSS projects per year since 2022 with a net saving of 500K Euro respectively per year. ● Defined and executed around 25 automation projects per year in different plants which resulted in a cost reduction of 3.8 mio Euro per year. ● Realization of 8 key in-sourcing projects where business cases were meaningful with a total cost improvement of 2.7 mio Euro per year. ● Soft transition in Global Supply Chain for SAP-S4 HANA
Directly manage the operation of eight manufacturing plants worldwide that produce high-tech aluminum and steel pistons for combustion engines to international customers in the automotive industry. On top, leading the different Headquarters' functions serving our internal and external customers, including Industrial Engineering, Capex & License, Logistics and OPEX. Oversaw the creation of a highly automated - state of the art - piston manufacturing plant in Chongqing, China. Restructured several manufacturing plants with excellent outcome and in the benefit of the financial result of the Business Unit. Business Unit EBIT improvement from 2.4% upto 6.4% being above our peer group, within the first three years of my responsibility.
Managed and was responsible for the operational and financial performance of three manufacturing plants in the Americas, located in Marinette, Wi. USA; Celaya, Gto. Mexico and Nova Odessa, Sao Paulo. Brazil. Through an effective implementation of Kaizen workshops, value stream mapping and other Lean methodologies me and my team managed to increase the productivity of the Brazilian plant by 50%, as well as increasing the production capacity by 20% of our plant in Mexico. We also achieved a big turnaround of our plant in Marinette, Wi. from negative EBIT to a positive level.
Supervised the Financial and Operational results of our manufacturing plant in Mexico. Through excellent Teamwork and a continuous increase in the motivation and engagement of our Employees we achieved an outstanding turnaround of the Company from negative financial figures to highly positive ones within 2 years. We achieved an increase in sales from 33.0 Mio USD up to 131.0 Mio USD and an increase in Ebit-ROS from -7.2% to +17.6% in a sustainable way in the period of my responsibility. This level was sustained in a solid way during the following 10 years, which speaks for the achievement of a systematic improvement. We also created more than 500 new jobs during the time of my responsibility in the Piston plant. On top, oversaw and coordinated the creation of two new enterprises in the same site for other Business Divisions (Hydraulic/water pumps, emission controls and bearings), around 250 new jobs were created. The project included the construction of two new plants from greenfield to fully operations.
Managed the Operational performance of the manufacturing plant in Celaya, Mexico. I was accountable for the entire supply chain, which included the areas of Production, Quality, Logistics and Maintenance. Through the successful transfer and implementation of the best worldwide practices within the Group and solid investments in the equipment technology, I obtained an improvement in scrap reduction from 8% to less than 4% plant wide, and an increase of efficiency from 70% to 79%. We also promoted a shift in the maintenance mindset from corrective to preventive/predictive which helped in the above mentioned increase in efficiency.
Supervised the operations in our piston (automotive and truck) manufacturing plant in Celaya, Mexico. One of the major achievements was the deployment of a solid Quality System that fulfilled the expectations of our customers, improved our Customer ratings and also the internal Quality performance of the plant. Aided and participated in the Due Diligence process necessary to sell the company to KS Kolbenschmidt GmbH.
Oversaw and managed the performance of the Foundry plant, implementing deep problem solving techniques, Ishikawa diagrams, 5Whys, A3 sheets, etc. that turned the plant from a high scrap, low efficiency, low output, to a low scrap, high efficiency and high output factory. Achieved a decrease in scrap rate from 40% down to 8%, an increase in efficiency from 60% up to 80% and an increase in internal customer delivery from 75% to 100%. This translated into a stable product delivery experience, lower manufacturing costs and full customer satisfaction.