Brussels, Brussels Region, Belgium
Mechanical Engineer with advanced management and technical skills developed during more than 30 years in the Pharmaceutical and Automotive industries, in the areas of General Management, Engineering, Maintenance, Production and Quality. Deep understanding of Operations & Engineering and its role in a broad business environment, creating high performant and flexible organizations capable to meet goals and to adjust whenever necessary to meet business needs and strategies. Specialties: Leadership | Lean Management | Engineering | Operations Management | Key Performance Indicators | Strategy | Production workflows | Coaching | Organization
Responsible for an exciting capacity expansion plan to produce cathode materials for electric vehicles in three continents and to lead the Global and Regional Engineering teams responsible to bring such plan to reality.
With a team composed of engineering and maintenance professionals, working in 4 sites across 3 continents, we give life to a very extensive capacity expansion plan to enable the company business growth. In the last years, I’ve managed the development of this team by organizing it in corporate and site teams to address both engineering and maintenance needs. I’ve personally selected and hired managers and professionals that are now working to design and build new facilities to support our customers in reducing development and time to market cycles. In parallel, we have successfully developed modular solutions that reduced considerable construction time to meet customer demanding timelines and revamped existent capacity, increasing its reliability.
Leading a corporate team of engineering professionals, I’ve built up an organization to face a company capacity expansion plan multiple times larger than in the past. New areas were created inside corporate engineering together with the implementation of new project management tools to manage big and complex projects of production and laboratory facilities. With an increase in headcount of 3 fold, we have been able to effectively deliver yearly projects of ca. 10 fold in Capex.
Benefiting from my past experience in the automotive industry, the challenge was to implement Lean Management tools in the operations of the largest company site. I’ve personally managed and coached this implementation with the area directors in a short time frame. Several lean tools were deployed with immediate effects in the organization of operations and in the efficiency of production. With a constant growth of sales, the implementation of these tools improved the efficiency and productivity ratios of the site. The application of Lean 6 sigma methodology in one of its main products allowed a reduction of 40% in cycle time with an immediate increase in its profitability. The success of these tools led to its deployment in other sites of the company being today a recognized good practice within operations.
Managing a site dedicated to the production of automotive parts & assemblies in JIT for Volkswagen Autoeuropa plant, the biggest challenge and achievement was the resize of the structure and the reduction of costs that enabled this site to recover its profitability and contribution to the group results. With a group of 14 area managers and 500 employees, the site has implemented key Lean Manufacturing tools during this period that improved its competitiveness and the successful acquisition of new business, diversifying its sales and making it less dependent on a single customer.