David Harless Email & Phone Number

Plant 22, Thomson, Ga

• Leading a plant of 520 associates in the production of polyester and nylon-6 fiber • Directing operational excellence through inclusive leadership teams in EH&S, HR, Quality Assurance, Manufacturing, Maintenance, Production Planning, Technical, and Financial departments• Developing leaders through growth in behavioral competencies that lead to results• Steward for an operating budget of $200 million/yr. Demonstrating year over year improvement in process operating variances• Delivering cost reduction of $3 million/yr. through associate engagement to a shared vision and strategic plan• Sustaining a culture of continuous improvement in all functional areas through Lean/Six Sigma• Driving daily results to target through a tiered accountability process from the shop floor to the leadership teams

Plant 22, Thomson, Ga

• Responsible for leading a 233-person department in the manufacture of polyester yarn• Saved $1.3 million/yr. by developing frontline associates to be Lean Leaders to execute Kaizen, Standard Work, and 5S initiatives, and developing Process Engineers to be Lean/Six Sigma Leaders for continuous improvement initiatives• Reduced conversion cost by $0.02/lb. through improvements in efficiency, waste and rate increases

Evergreen Nylon Recycling Plant, Augusta, Ga

• Executed a $25 million rehabilitation and start-up of the plant by collaboration with a multifunctional team. The plant successfully converted used carpet into a first quality raw material for nylon-6 polymerization.• Increased the output of the plant by 20%, saving $6 million/yr., by collaboration with contract engineering to execute capital process improvements.

Plant 22, Thomson, Ga

• Reduced cost by $2.5 million/yr. by providing leadership for engineering teams in continuous improvement and fiber product development• Saved $1.3 million/yr. by developing and implementing a twin screw extrusion process capable of producing fiber with 95% recycled nylon-6 content• Increased fiber production by 42 million lbs./yr. by leading the process and product development teams to select and implement new spinning/drawing/texturing technology

Plant 70, Bainbridge, Ga

• Responsible for leading a 323-person extrusion/drawing/texturing department in the manufacture of polypropylene fiber production• Reduced fiber off-quality by 46% by implementing continuous improvement initiatives

Plant Wm, Dalton, Ga

• Responsible for leading a 133-person spinning/drawing/texturing department in the manufacture of nylon-6 and polypropylene fiber• Implemented best practices to assure safety, quality and productivity compliance. • Reduced equipment downtime from 13% to 3% by leading manufacturing and maintenance teams in reliability improvement

Palmetto Plant, Darlington, Sc

• Reduced the OSHA incident rate from 3.2 to 1.1 by the implementing an associate driven behavior based safety process• Saved $635k/yr. in material cost by leading manufacturing and production planning teams in fiber inventory optimization• Reduced fiber waste by 34% by leading instrument and electrical technician teams to optimize product change-over processes

Palmetto Plant, Darlington, Sc

• Increased output by 11% and eliminated $980k/yr. in crude glycol disposal cost by leading manufacturing and engineering teams to optimize the purification processes• Increased output by 32% and reduced conversion cost by $0.07/lb. by leading technical and manufacturing teams to develop and operate new polyester fiber spinning technology

Kent, Oh

• Responsible for operating development lab including pilot mill and pilot extrusion line.• Developed custom dry rubber compounds including silicone, nitrile, EPDM, viton, neoprene, and natural. • Optimized additive fractions to achieve desired cure rates, tensile strength, tear strength, product density, and compression strength. • Interfaced with large-scale compound suppliers in order to transfer quality criteria, process and product requirements to their operation.• Developed extrusion processes for the dry rubber compounds. • Optimized die tooling, extrusion speeds, die head pressures, screw design, screen filter requirements, and salt bath cure conditions. • Scaled pilot extrusion processes to manufacturing lines