Christopher Yates Email & Phone Number

Greater Seattle Area

Grove City, Ohio

Requested by leadership to take over Columbus distribution center (DC), the company’s largest in North America, to turn around underperforming deployment performance and negative employee relations issues. Coordinated with 2 additional DCs in line with best practices. Supervised 9 employees with dotted line accountability for 150+ employees, as 5th highest ranking manager in operations in US. Created labor cost budgets and managed monthly DC reporting to financial department for P&L. Accountable for inbound and outbound production, as well as value add department. Identified production issues and implemented process changes. * Trimmed $1.2 million YOY from annual labor costs through efficiency projects and turnover reduction efforts. Significantly reduced yearly employee turnover rate 180% to 40% within 1 year.* Implemented new processes that slashed monthly inventory adjustments 60% YOY (from $200,000 to $80,000). Closed gaps in process and collaborated with Quality Control and Packaging Departments to improve packing/packaging, inspection protocols, and shipping.* Created inclusive culture, reducing percentage of temporary workforce from 65% to less than 25%.* Reduced past dues from 18 months to 1 month, greatly improving customer satisfaction and resulting in increase in customer orders.* Implemented performance incentive program, credited with improving production by 30% in 3-month span.

Created and implemented training on advanced SAP functionality for 120+ sites across US and Mexico wholesale operations. Managed up to 25 concurrent projects involving identification and mastery of new system functionalities to improve end-user experience. Provided 1st tier SAP support to resolve issue for field. Worked with IS to provide requests, testing, and update deployment. Coordinated with IT to create reports to enable functionality for operations and sales teams. Collaborated with finance department and worked with audit group to ensure understanding of system and effect on functions. Wrote guideline for audit compliance.* Selected as SAP IM key user for North America, working directly with IS to request improvements, test, and provide information to field on system changes.* Contributed to implementation of new tax software that worked with SAP system to properly isolate and process taxes for Canadian shipments.* Received high performance review scores, as well as positive reports from field regarding knowledge and support.* Created and updated training documentation; maintained training portion of corporate intranet site.

Supervised 13 employees and 7 outside contractors in overseeing operations for 2 service centers and call center, with P&L accountability for 2 sites managed. Accountable for P&L management, budgeting, inventory management, safety awareness/reporting, and scheduling. Oversaw employee training and development, payroll, hiring/terminations, employee reviews, and performance issue resolution. Ensured adherence to audit compliance guidelines.* Took over operations of Kent Service Center, Call Center, and OE PACCAR operations (January 2010).* Reduced inventory adjustments for both sites to less than 0.15% of overall sales per month.* Assessed employee strengths and weaknesses to ensure placement to optimize productivity and success, credited with saving company $75,000 per year in labor costs. Improved employee retention by $50,000 per year between both service centers.* Re-organized rack layouts for service centers, improving efficiency and space, while reducing inventory adjustments.* Outsourced product delivery to third party, reducing liability.