Alberta based, engineering consultant providing expertise in business turnarounds, productivity improvement, quality and process improvement, quality systems, bottleneck mitigation, cost reductions and a host of other skills gleaned from 39 years of experience in light manufacturing and repair services.For more information please visit: Burns Bridge Engineering

General management position with P & L responsibility for the business growth and development of the rotating equipment service repair and packaging group (Surrey and Edmonton repair shops). Built a cohesive team and Implemented processes and procedures to position the service repair department for growth. Setup an in house quality system from scratch and achieved a quality certification in 2016. Acted as the project manager to set up a new shop and relocate the Edmonton repair shop. Met or beat budget in 2015 and 2016, increasing bottom line profit by a factor of 6 over 2014 results.

General management position with full profit and loss responsibility for Sulzer Turbo Services Canada turbo-machinery repair facility in addition to continuing responsibility for Sulzer Pumps Canada Inc. pump repair facility.Responsible for the merging of the two separate business units and legal entities into one business operating unit.

General management position with profit and loss responsibility for a 35000 square foot facility involved in the repair of OEM and third party pumps servicing oil and gas, power, mining and industrial processing sectors.In six months turned around an underperforming API pump repair facility, achieving "best in 35 year" results through 2013 for sales and bottom line profit.Assembled developed and trained a highly skilled group of staff and tradesmen.Reduced cost of quality by 90% from 25% cost of sales to under 1%. Increased on time delivery from 0% in 2012 to over 75% in 2013. Cut all delivery lead times in half. Reduced quoting leadtime from over 50 days to under 20. Achieved 67% increase in throughput and sales while achieving a 47% real increase in productivity.Re-established credibility with all key customers as a go to solutions provider.

Managed 19 engineering and maintenance staff responsible for the process development and maintenance of a 60000 ton per year plastics recycling facility.Achieved 200% increase in HDPE grind line throughput in less than four months.Managed the successful installation and startup of a $7 million state of the art optical sorting facility.

Managed 35 engineering and quality staff responsible for the manufacturing launch and daily quality processes associated with the manufacture of a wide variety of aerospace and defense components and assemblies.Within three months helped drive the facility from 0% to a 100% on time delivery metric.Within 10 weeks increased throughput on Boeing Dreamliner latch beams (high speed aluminum machining) from from 0.5 to 6 components per week.

Managed a unionized precision pump component machine shop including final assembly and test, to achieve record levels of on time delivery (increased on time delivery for parts and assemblies from 35/55% to 95/98% respectively) through a challenging period when sales increased by more than 100%.Reduced cost of quality from over 6% to under 1%. As a member of a smooth functioning staff team, helped achieve record profits through three consecutive business periods.

As engineering manager of 13 staff achieved a 100% on time track record on all part launch activity, prototype timeliness and quote timeliness.Focusing on staff development and the use of bottleneck and problem solving tools and error proofing, drove the facility to 0 parts per million and 100% on time quality and delivery metrics.Achieved best in class speeds on fluid component bottleneck assembly and test processes.Drove an outcome which maintained a financial best dashboard, including bottom line performance of 17 Martinrea plants through a financially very challenging environment.

Responsible for 45 robotic technicians, toolmakers and millwrights and five supervisory and engineering staff in a modern side frame press shop and robotic weld assembly tier 1 automotive plant.In less than one year by fixing numerous bottlenecks and equipment downtime problems in both the press and weld shops, roughly doubled profit from 12 million to 23 million per year.Implemented a die protection program in the press shop eliminating 80% of die crashes, eliminating the press shop as a cause of late delivery. A side benefit was a 75k per month savings in die maintenance.Arranged key welding service providers to train engineering staff and robotic techs on standardized mig and spot welding processes. Implemented standard setup parameters for all mig robots and spot welding processes reducing rework from over 60% to less than 10% in six months.Increased on time delivery from an out of control 97% to 100% in less than six months saving 75k per month premium freight and 45k per month in weld consumables.

Managed an automotive tier 1 screw machine shop with 75 machinists and two staff making high volume transmission components.Increased blank production from 130k per day to over 200k per day by implementing pvd coated cutting tools on ferrous bar stock and eliminating aluminum bar supply quality problems (heavy oxidation). Both of these initiatives reduced screw machine downtime by 90% with an attendant overall improvement in dimensional quality.Set up a tool room for screw machine variables and a virtual tool crib for consumable inserts. These items roughly cut setup times in half.

As manufacturing engineer achieved the following in Permacast department (automated piston casting facility:1. More than doubled throughput from 6000 to 14500 pistons per day in a one and one half year period..2. Reduced process scrap from over 16% to less than 4%.3. Eliminated all productive and maintenance overtime in a shop which had worked chronic overtime for 25 years.4. Identified and corrected a number casting and cutoff problems which had been endemic to the shop for more than 25 years.5. Achieved 0 lost time 0 recordable injuries and 0 first aids three years running.6. Took an automated piston casting cell which had never run well in 25 years and turned it into a smooth running cell which was able to achieve all of its production targets in only 3.5 days per week.As manufacturing supervisor achieved the following in 9 months:1. Identified and corrected rod grinding process thickness problem which cost the shop about 2.5 million annually and had plagued the transfer line for more than 25 years.2. Identified and corrected a 3.1/3.4 liter cam journal grinding problem (out of round) which had been present on and off for 35 years.

Recruited, trained and managed 5 engineers and approximately 5 maintenance employees in a small aluminum jobbing casting foundry.Directly responsible for manufacturing engineering, quality management, tooling management and maintenance in a plant of 167 employees.Implemented cell manufacturing reducing the manufacturing footprint from 80000 square feet to 40000. Implemented standardized casting process controls for tooling and metal melting and pouring which reduced process scrap from over 80% to less than 10%. Achieved an increase in throughput of 100% increasing metal shipped from 1 million to 2 million pounds per year. Achieved a reduction in the work force from 167 to 67 employees through the same time period.Worked with perhaps 300 customers involving almost 1000 different castings to resolve a wide variety of quality issues.Reduced casting delivery lead times from almost six months to less than 5 days.Improvements made through five years, helped the plant maintain a break even bottom line through a contraction period in the foundry industry.

Turned the plant around twice, first in 1980 to 1982 and then a second time in 1986 to 1987.As the sole go to process improvement specialist, reduced productive lost time in a 600 ton per day glass container moulding plant from 18% to less than 2% helping drive the plant from 50% pack to over 90% achieving record levels of profit while roughly doubling throughput from $75 million to $150 million annually. Site manning went from over 1100 to approximately 700 employees. Gleaned experience with batch weighing mixing systems, compressors, pumps, vacuum pumps, air drying systems, dust collection systems, natural gas combustion systems and computer and programmable logic controller glass melting furnace process control systems.Worked on a wide variety of process issues typical of a 7/24 continuous process and acquired the knowledge that the vast majority of problems have elegantly simple solutions.