James E. "Jim" Kasper Email & Phone Number

United States

Responsible for managing and building the strategic supply relationships for supply chain, manage costs into manufacturing and help lead implementation of ATX products into our suppliers and contract manufacturers.

Smyrna, Tennessee, United States

Nashville Metropolitan Area

In this role I managed the strategic, product-level cost with a third-party manufacturing services company for our electronics products (approximately $50 million in materials), including new product introductions. I also managed the Environmental Compliance Program for all Ribbon products. Primary responsibilities were:• Cost Analysis. Worked with cross-functional teams and systems (SAP, Oracle, Agile) to meet demand needs by performing detailed cost analysis and reporting and identifying opportunities concerning material cost reduction at the product and sub-component levels, including “should cost” evaluations.• Cost Reduction. Identified, developed, and implemented plans and projects to achieve P&L targets relating to component cost reductions. Achieved 2-4% annually.• Cost Monitoring. Managed process for all cost/inventory variances at the factory level to ensure contracted costs were implemented, and to ensure all market-driven issues were resolved at the lowest total cost (PPV/Excess Inventory). Saved $7.5 million in PPV and Excess Inventory over the last 3 years. Also managed Finished Goods and RMA/Out-of-Warranty Repair pricing with Ribbon’s primary contract manufacturer.• Cost Reporting. Key participant on Cost Reporting for Corporate Procurement (Cost Reduction Database; CRDB); developer and administrator. MS Office tools expertise (Excel, Access, PowerPoint, etc.).• Project Management. Managed various projects related to cost reduction and cost management to achieve business goals, such as key supplier identification and management, program implementation analyses, obsolescence mitigation, revenue-impacting shortage resolution, etc.• Environmental Compliance. Managed identification of obligations, registration, and reporting obligations with global jurisdictions requiring RoHS, WEEE, and Batteries handling compliance.

Nashville Metropolitan Area

In this role I managed the strategic, product-level cost for enterprise-level telecommunications products (approximately $1 Billion in materials), including new product introductions. Primary responsibilities were:• Cost Analysis. Performed detailed cost analysis and reporting to identify opportunities concerning material cost reduction at the product and sub-component levels, including “should cost” evaluations.• Cost Reduction. Identified, developed, and implemented plans and projects to achieve P&L targets relating to product cost reductions. Achieved 5-7% annually. On new product introduction work I achieved an average of 30% cost improvement.• Sourcing. Material cost expert on sourcing team to select the supply chains to build finished goods, including ongoing monitoring and cost improvement initiatives.• Cost Implementation and Monitoring. Managed the company’s contracted pricing implementation at third-party electronic services manufacturer’s global sites and ensure that pricing flows through to the product-level pricing monthly.• Reporting. Managed the collection, analysis, and reporting of cost reduction performance metrics to the business monthly, using advanced skills in MS Office tools, as well as Oracle and proprietary engineering tools like Agile.• Consulting. Advised the business on supply chain cost for current and future product developments for the business.

Nashville Metropolitan Area

I managed an international program team of six people who enabled and supported Global Commodity Management Teams (CMTs) in their daily management of and interaction with the supply chain. These high-quality commercial processes supported over $10 billion in raw materials acquisition, achieving 20-30% in annualized savings.• Global Contracting. The team project-managed all contract generation and completion between Nortel and the supply base, supporting the collaboration of the Global Supply Management, Legal, Logistics, and Operations groups.• Demand Forecasting. The team, following the processes they developed and optimized, consolidated the manufacturing plants’ demand across all categories, allowing the 30+ individual SRMs to see their individual categories, on demand.• RFQ Administration. The team, using demand data and business strategies specified by the SRMs, generated, distributed, collected, and analyzed all corporate RFQs. They also assisted the SRMs in developing negotiation strategies for each category.• Supplier Performance Monitoring. The team administered the program whereby SRMs managed their category suppliers cost performance to contract.• Process Development. The team provided consultation to the development of business processes (business rules and specifications) at the Corporate Supply Management level, ensuring that such processes could be supported by existing systems and human resources.• Information Consolidation. The team provided the consolidation point for all information by which cost management information was generated, collected, and published for use in cost planning, contracting, cost reduction, and cost-performance activities. • Systems Administration. The team provided consultation to the systems development organization regarding business rules (specifications) driving information requirements for both legacy and evolving systems.

Nashville Metropolitan Area

The Comprehensive Materiel Supply Program (CMSP) supported the multinational, company owned manufacturing facilities in the acquisition of production raw materials through relationship management, negotiations, contracting, and automated forecasting and demand-fulfillment (logistics) technologies.• Program Development. Defined the opportunity to reduce Nortel’s operating costs by employing automated demand-fulfillment processes and technologies. Conceived and developed this major program from scratch.• Supply Chain Management. Managed relationships, cost, and fulfillment of approximately $140 million in raw materials into Nortel’s global manufacturing facilities (US, Canada, Mexico, England, Ireland, and France). As a Supplier Relationship Manager (SRM), I managed 400+ suppliers; approximately 50 “key supplier” relationships, including processing of contracts documenting such.• People Management. Managed a global team of professionals to implement this program in their locations locally (US, Canada, Mexico, England, Ireland, and France).• Cost Reduction. Managed the supplier relationships and negotiated all program and component costs and the contracting of these terms. Saved Nortel approximately $3 Million annually in materials management costs, in addition to material cost reductions of 3%-5% annually.

Mba, Marketing & Global Economics

Activities and Societies: NoneGPA 3.97

B.S. Business Administration, General Business; Major: Economics

Activities and Societies: Adult Learner