Chicago, Illinois, United States
As a seasoned, resourceful, and accomplished operations leader, I have 20+ years of experience and a comprehensive background in overseeing and leading global plant operations to drive efficiency and growth for leading food and beverage organizations. • I have expertise in strategic planning and execution, plant operations, supply chain, quality control, GMP, HAACP, compliance, budgeting, cost control, P&L management, resource allocation, policy and procedure development, customer service, and performance management. • I am also dept at analyzing operations, identifying weaknesses, and implementing improvements to increase productivity while controlling costs. • Next, I am skilled at planning, managing, and delivering high-profile initiatives or programs on time and on budget, as well as proficient at cultivating, building, and maintain strong and loyal business and client relationships. • In addition, I possess in-depth knowledge and background in Lean and Six Sigma methodologies and tools complemented by an understanding of food and beverages, medical, and packaging industries. • As a leader, I have built, trained, motivated, and directed high-performing teams. • A key driver to my professional success has been applying my communication and interpersonal skills to effectively interact with customers, senior leaders, associates, vendors, and other parties. • Finally, I am fluent in English and Spanish with basic level abilities in Mandarin and Portuguese.
This role is accountable for leading improvement initiatives that comply with Crescent’s best practices as well as with Federal, state, and local law and the regulations set by the USDA and SQF. This role supplies managerial leadership oversight of the food manufacturing facilities' including planning, guiding, directing, and managing a large or multiple business unit site consistent with the policies and procedures of Crescent Foods and R&D, NPI (new product introduction), strategy to market, supply chain and channels/platform optimization. Accountable for the high quality of all products produced, the profitability of the plant facility, the safety of employees, security of the facility, budget planning, management and control, human resource utilization and treatment, and the development of a total employee team. While ensuring manufacturing key performance indicators support the highest level of customer service and manufacturing efficiency.
In this role, I direct a team in manufacturing premium ready to eat snacks, fruits and salads for customers, including McDonalds, Subway, Aldi, Wal-Mart, Target, and other food services and retail leaders. Next, I develop and drive strategies while leading multimillion dollars projects for comparative advantage and speed to market. I also manage full P&L, polices, processes, practices, system, planning, operations, and execution of short and long-term strategies to improve customer experience, commercialization, and business growth. Last, I head and establish credibility through Lean Manufacturing, transforming traditional processes and operations to support current and future growth. My key achievements include: • Creating 3 and 5 years strategies to change culture, business growth, and operation excellence. • Building high-performing teams by hiring and developing highly qualified, achievement-oriented professionals through training, coaching, and motivating methods. • Developing modeling for all supply chain channels, warehouse optimization, and business commercialization practices. • Achieving and maintaining 99.5 perfect order completion and delivery. • Effectively implementing a strategic relationship with key customer and suppliers. • Increasing productivity for 70K cases daily to 120K using less space, time, and labor. • Passing yearly certifications and government/customer audits.
As a GM, I led operational in developing, manufacturing, selling, and distributing fresh (ready to eat), refrigerated, and perishable prepared foods and ensuring quality and safe execution of products, including fresh salsas, hummus, pesto, dips, spreads, sauces, deli salads, entrees, side dishes, and other ready to eat products. I also established and sustained high standards of co-packing services and negotiating private label agreements; commercializing products from concept to mass production, as well as developing and implementing necessary processes for the introduction of new or customized products. Several of my accomplishments included: • Directing relocation of two facilities into one without disrupting orders fill rate. • Managing P&L, operations, business growth, R&D launches, NPI, commercialization, and customer service. • Enhancing supply chain processes through collaborative partnership plans for product seasonality, inventory turns, warehouse optimization, supplier certification, and inventory cost management • Converting a 24/7 operation into 24/5 while increasing productivity by 40%. • Introducing and implementing a high-pressure processing and cook chill system. • Hiring and developing entire operation team, including 3 directors, 2 managers, and 4 supervisors. • Planning and executing strategies, including transformation, operations modes, 3 years operations plan, new product introduction, safety (I AM), quality (zero defects) and maintenances (TPM). • Achieving cost reductions, including 34% decrease in labor cost by implementing Lean and mix mode EE, a33% reduction on equipment and maintenance cost by re-negotiating leasing contracts/rental and equipment innovation, and a 40% reduction in equipment downtime by implementing TPM and Autonomous Maintenance (CIL & CL). • Driving strategies and projects for comparative advantage and speed to market.
As Director, I managed P&L while planning and executing strategies to improve customer experience, commercialization, and business growth. Next, I directed and implemented Lean-manufacturing initiatives at a corporate level for sister companies. I also supervised 12 business unit leaders, 2 operations managers, and 780 employees in fully delivering exceptional customer service, Lean thinking, and waste elimination. Finally, I served as an expert in monitoring and maintaining food safety programs focused on safe quality food (SQF) level 3, Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP). My key accomplishments included: • Effectively managing business units from different locations, including: BU- 1: A build-in high-speed equipment with capacity to run 54,000 PPM and up to 5 feeders capacity; with customers including Quaker, Truvia, Nestle, Kraft, and Skittles; BU- 2: Comprised of Bartelts, Baggers, and stick-pack machines with an average speed of 60-500 PPM and customers including Starbucks, Conagra, Ocean Spray, Ferrara, and Purina; BU- 3: Equipped with cartoners and ovens to repack, multi-pack, and perform secondary packaging with versatile processes capability, handling Sprouts, Kellogg’s, Really, and Quaker as customers. • Executing Lean-manufacturing techniques to current manufacturing processes to increase productivity and inventory turns as well as to decrease cost and inventory. • Leading closing of 8 warehouses to establish a distribution center. • Re-engineering supply chain processes to optimize turnkey processes and control inventory levels • Implementing the I AM Program to promote safety, decreasing recordable events from 54 to 4. • Successfully establishing Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), decreasing downtime by 40% in over 58 production lines, Poke-Yoke, reducing quality defects by 30%, and Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED), decreasing set-up time by 50%.
With this company, I served in various roles with this organization, including as Plant Manager tasked with directing two facilities in two states and managing P&L responsibility, engineering, production, production planning, quality control (QC) and quality assurance (QA), maintenance, shipping and receiving, and new product introduction; I also served as Process Engineering/Manufacturing Manager in Zhuhai, China 2005-2007, as Senior Manufacturing Engineer in Chicago, IL 2004-2005, as Central Engineering, Process Control/Lean Manufacturing Engineer in Chicago, IL, 2003-2004.