Benjamin Keefer Email & Phone Number

Richmond, Virginia

Pittsburgh

I left Manitowoc to pursue my MBA and began working for Richmond Engineering in Pittsburgh, PA as a Project Manager. My project manager position covers a breadth of functions from the project’s inception to its full completion. As a project manager, I develop quotes for potential customers as well as work with the customer to determine what all their needs and wants are. Working many projects at once with overlapping schedules necessitates that I manage my time well and plan resources appropriately. The project design is cooperative between myself and the designer/drafters, but I carry out associated the engineering calculations. In addition to design I also manage the project schedule and the sourcing of components and the installation. Insofar all my projects have been completed within the budget and timeline constraints. Positive feedback from customers and working with them after the project completion has resulted in additional business for Richmond Engineering from these customers.In addition to my duties as a project manager, I also perform inspections of customer equipment in order to diagnose issues and develop solutions. This involves in-depth inspection and documentation of the equipment’s condition, how it works, circumstances of the failures, and interviewing key personnel with intimate familiarity with the equipment. During my time at Richmond Engineering I also initiated and spearheaded the implementation of 3-D modeling and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software. The implementation of this software has led to improved ability to create complex designs as well as saving time developing and revising designs for the designer/drafters. It has also greatly reduced the time spent completing engineering calculations. These tools also serve as a marketing improvement when presenting solutions to customers. Using excel and the built in visual basic module I have developed spreadsheets that increase the efficiency of processes and calculations.

My time at Manitowoc Company began as a Design Engineer and I was tasked with completing engineering change orders (ECO) for both new design and quality improvements. I quickly became familiar with both the ECO process and the 3-D design software (Pro-Engineer) and sought more responsibility. I became involved in more complex design changes, investigating “green” solutions, and the cost savings initiative. As a cost savings group leader we were able to achieve $100,000 in cost savings per year, well exceeding the $25,000 goal.After a year, I moved to the newly created position of reliability engineer. My goal was to improve the reliability of existing and new product for the RT and TM product lines. To ensure that reliability was considered in all future designs, I served as a liaison to all New Product Development (NPD) for RT and TM products. This involved working with team members from other departments and compromising such that neither department’s goals were sacrificed.To measure the current reliability, I analyzed large pulls of data from the warranty database. With this as a baseline, I recorded and tracked improvements from the NPD process to run regressions and predict the expected reliability improvements over time. To validate these improvements, I developed reliability tests that effectively simulate realistic usage and track the results of these tests. With this data, I put together a weekly presentation to be sent out for major products as well presenting it monthly in meetings to management.I was also tasked with making sure issues were fully resolved to prevent reoccurrence. Finding a root cause often involved in depth investigation and working with other departments. Once the cause was found I worked with the pertinent department to develop a resolution. For the departments to truly coalescence in improving reliability, I had to serve as a mentor and give educational presentations to key employees in other departments.

Master Of Business Administration (Mba), Operations Management, Strategy, Finance, Quantitative Analysis

Activities and Societies: Consulting Club, Operations Management Club, Soccer Club

Bachelor Of Science (Bs), Mechanical Engineering

Activities and Societies: Pi Tau Sigma (Mechanical Engineering Honor society), Intramural soccer and flag football, Ron Finafrock Memorial.