James Wells Email & Phone Number

Knoxville, Tn, Us

Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Research Director, responsible to help position LNS Research for continued growth.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

LNS Research is a leading membership-based research and advisory firm focused on driving Industrial Transformation success for our clients. LNS Research provides research and advisory services to guide industrial companies through digital transformations.James-Advises leading manufacturers on topics related to Quality 4.0, -Contributed new thought leadership on Digital Performance Excellence, Economic Uncertainty, Quality 4.0, and Change Management.-Advises leading software providers on trends in Industrial Transformation.

Developed, maintain and deliver content on 20 courses within my Lean Six Sigma catalog.Deliver training and coaching through a local community college network in the Chicago suburbs.Published author in various publications (IndustryWeek, Quality Progress, iSixSigma, Quality Digest, Process Excellence Network).Speaker at various conferences and webinars.Coached a Lean Strategy session with executive leadership of a Department of Energy Contractor.Customized training package for a client with a specific Lean Six Sigma need.

Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States

Lead 8 week Leadership Workshop to improve teamwork, collaboration, and communication culture..Developed databases to manage training related activities.Converted content ahead of Adobe Flash phase out at end of 2020.Developed innovative approaches to deliver training safely and effectively.Maintained qualified Nuclear Site compliance above 95% for 2 years including through COVID-19 Pandemic.Improved processes associated with training. Removed 4 hours per month from reporting processes, Eliminated hundreds of keystrokes and errors by automating data entry steps.Coaching organization through developing Lean Process Improvement Strategy.

Knoxville, Tennessee Area

Lead the Quality organization at this provider of protective products for the telecommunications industry and natural gas distribution industry.Accomplishments include:• Developed and deploying integrated three part digital transformation program to reduce cost of quality by 50%, worth $32 million a year in hidden costs and improve throughput by 8%.• Deployed Digital Monitoring Technology that resulted in 75% reduction in related defects.• Reduced quality returns by 58%, against 26% growth in sales over a 3-year period. Saved $1,000,000.• Reduced Customer Complaint Response Time from 358 days to 53 days, 86% reduction.• Reduced repeat complaints from 44 in 2016 to 21 in 2017, a 52% reduction over 2016.• Reduced customer complaints by 32% over 2016 and 31% over 2017.• Improved plant capabilities from CPK of 0.6 to 1.0• Reduced scrap by 2.5 mm pounds in 2017 from 11.7% to 8.3• Launched Lean Six Sigma program. Worth over $5 million in productivity savings.• Designed four low code automated processes to convert manual paper based or non-existent process into digital automated process flows. Processes were developed in Office 365 and Salesforce. Processes developed were: Engineering Change Control, Deviation Request, Customer Complaint 8D Process, Corrective and Preventive Action

Aurora, Il

Led the global quality team of 54 including 4 plant quality teams around the world as well as the headquarters’ quality staff of 11 in process modernization, problem solving and development of Quality Systems.● Employed HALT, Product Development Scorecarding, and Regression Testing to predict product performance and drive improvement over product development lifecycle. ● Established Software Quality practices including security auditing, cloud load testing, regression, and “in The Wild” consumer experience testing.● Achieved "Best-in-Company" performance from suppliers of less than 1500 DPPM. ● Reduced warranty from 4% of net sales to less than 1.6% in three years.● Finalist for the Chairman’s Award of Merit, the top award for recognition of excellence.● Reduced warranty cost in a key growth category by 62%, reducing customer complaints by 46%. Overall warranty reduction in 2014 was over $1mm against plan.● Reduced year over year warranty for one product by $256,000 through application of Six Sigma and Voice of the Consumer analysis.● Developed and deployed an innovative process to integrate Voice of the Customer into New Product Development and product improvement activities.● Significantly reduced response time for several key quality processes by between 70% and 99%.● Solved longstanding customer complaints with a key growth product, regaining over $1mm in sales by solving this problem.● Leveraged product returns to drive 4 product improvement projects on important strategic products, reducing chronic longstanding complaints.● Achieved quality recognition from a significant customer for our cordage manufacturing facility, the only Mexican supplier to this customer to achieve this recognition.● Developed and deployed eleven digital processes, reducing paper by over 160,000 sheets annually for quality processes in HQ and manufacturing plants. Low code solutions were developed in ServiceNow, Arena PLM and in house built digital architecture.

Led the 10-person Quality and Reliability team, enabling excellence in our suppliers, our people and our processes for two Panduit Product Families. Specific accomplishments include:● Reduced complaint handling cycle time by 89% in the first two years. ● Solved longstanding quality problems with 5 products, reducing defects and rework by 58%.● Reduced inspection cycle time by 96% by redesigning the inspection area for material flow. ● Achieved $1.4mm in lean/six sigma savings.● Reduce field return rates from 4% to 0.4% after taking ownership for new product reliability.

Developed organizational excellence program. Program covered 68% of our global workforce, including 4 Master Black Belts and over 30 Black Belts, with over 100 projects completed per year, Specific accomplishments include:● Delivered over $3.6 million in cost reductions in four different areas of the business.● Improved reliability of a key new product by 14%, enabling $13 million in new business.● Delivered between $9 and $17 million in savings every year through six sigma and lean projects completed.● Achieved Key Supplier Awards from 8 customers in the last 4 years, including two repeat awards from two key customers, more than any time in the history of the company.

Identified and implemented improvements to product quality testing activities, saving over $100k per year and reducing defects by 44%. Developed site-wide cross training program that enabled on-time and accurate delivery of products to customers during company downturn, saving over $400k in labor costs.

Greater Chicago Area

Developed Quality Management Systems and achieved registration to ISO 9001 and QS 9000

Norfolk, Virginia Area & North Chicago, Il

-Leading Petty Officer of Auxillaries Division on board USS Theodore Roosevelt during maiden deployment and subsequent deployment in support of Operation Desert Storm. In this role I was responsible for 10 work centers, comprising 120 personnel.-Achieved over 96% Recorded Accomplishment Rate for equipment maintenance. The highest RAR of any department.-Awarded Navy Achievement Medal, Good Conduct Medal, Southwest Asia Service MedalRecognized as Petty Officer of the Quarter twice.