Damon Colston Email & Phone Number

Southfield, MI, US

• Exercise technical skill and leadership to train, mentor and manage engineering technicians and interns
• Manage tooling and equipment vendors to determine specification and performance standards
• Achieve profitability goals thru project completion while maintaining quality, cost and delivery
• Coordinate process startup to ensure components attain quality and performance specification
• Develop and adhered to budget constraints by monitoring and managing tooling and capital expense
• Engage with product engineering during the design cycle to ensure design for manufacturability

Southfield, Michigan, US

• Retooled and launched multiple high-volume automated manufacturing production cells
• Decreased tool cost by.50 Cent per part equating to $1.44M over 6years
• Reduced production cycle time by 90 secs equating to $1.6M over 6 years
• Reduced unscheduled down time by implementing a preventive and predictive maintenance program
• Apply lean manufacturing and ergonomic principles to design process layouts assuring safe practice
• Assure product and process quality through testing, statistical process controls, audits and training

• Launched new high volume dial and transfer process producing 750K rear axle knuckles per year
• Lead a continuous improvement team focusing on scrap, tooling, capability, efficiency and lean
• Reduced scrap from 1.2% to.4% by robot and machine modification, chip control and training
• Decreased tool cost per part from $1.10 to $.60 by program and regrind process alteration
• Reduced part variation by improving fixture design resulting in 15% increase in overall capability
• Improved process efficiency from 70% to 95% by layout improvement and bottle neck removal

Auburn Hills, Michigan, US

• Validate and implement new engineering product and equipment design
• Design and build tooling for increase capacity and new generation assembly processes
• Analyze, develop and validate process for sub assembly, full assembly and glass setting design
• Manage and conduct transfer of existing high volume assembly lines to new facility
• Authorize design plans and requirements by customer or supplier for next generation assembly process
• Communicate with customer and supplier to drive and eliminate internal and external quality concerns

• Used lean manufacturing principles to design and implement new efficient plant layout
• Supervised and managed engineering team to successful process improvement reducing inventory locations by 35% and creating new production system
• Planned and managed multiple lean improvement projects providing proposals, costing and solutions
• Identified and reduced labor, inventory, over production, defects, transportation and lead time
• Lead all Kaizen events focusing on cost, throughput and quality improvements
• Balanced value added and non value added processes

• Participated on APQP and launch team of new CNC automated manufacturing machining programs
• Responsible for and assumed all scheduling duties for 25 employees (Set up, Line Leads and Operators)
• Developed and trained employees through evaluation and action plans for required performance
• Formulated and implemented operation budgets including production and labor cost
• Championed standardized work initiatives across multiple plant operations
• Implemented team structure and work rotation of daily assignments to improve relief and gain versatility

Dearborn, Michigan, US

• Projects & Status
• Pinion / Flange Assembly Fault Reduction Project Closed - Reduced PPM by 76% and received $382,000 in Throughput / Labor savings
• Plant Wide Air Test Leak Detection Improvement Strategy Closed - Reduce PPM by 70% and receive $1.2M Warranty, Throughput & Labor savings

Van Buren Township, MI, US

• Front Wheel Drive Axle Shaft Machining Process
• Improved CNC uptime using Six Sigma Black Belt techniques
• Installed new Axle Shaft elevator and conveyance systems managing a cost budget of $300K
• Modified CNC turning programs resulting cycle time reduction of 18 sec.
• Identified and reduced tooling cost on CNC machinery
• Interacted with supplier and customer to identify and correct issues driving process variance

Six Sigma Black Belt, Six Sigma

Bachelors Of Manufacturing Engineering, Manufacturing

Associates Of Applied Science In Manufacturing Engineering Technology, Manufacturing