John Ballard Email & Phone Number

Chicago, Il, Us

Greater Chicago Area

Brampton, On, Ca

Indianapolis, Indiana, Us

Demonstrated capability for a successful plant turnaround after a Covid induced business collapse due to cancelled graduation ceremonies. Stabilized the business by controlling cost, demonstrating excellent on time delivery, and creating a “one team” culture to help gain customer confidence. Repositioned the plant trajectory to support a private equity divesture. Implemented aggressive cost controls, applied effective labor strategy, and flattened the site's organizational structure. Championed a $2M annual loss recovery project with capital investment into RFID technology and tokenization to automatically enable chargeback to customers failing to return rental gowns.

Glenview, Il, Us

As Plant Manager, I executed a comprehensive production transition from a manufactured resin raw material to a 50% post-consumable recycled resin, facilitating related process modifications, supply chain alterations, and new customer readiness strategies involving targeted SKU implementation. Reporting to the Global Operations Director, I led six direct reports in driving improvements in safety, quality, HR, Continuous Improvement, Engineering and Maintenance functions. Supporting a multi-million-dollar increase in domestic sales by coordinating strategy with sales, customer service, and operations to outperform competitor’s response to the demand explosion brought on by the pandemic. Expanding the workforce to meet increasing customer demand and transitioning from a 24/5 to 24/7 operation by adding a fourth shift to achieve unprecedented annual product capacity increase. Reduced costs by aggressively focusing on employee recruitment and retention, revising measurable training processes, and applying lean principles to eliminate waste.Passionately instilled a behavior based safety culture through education and accountability. Recognized for achieving one full year with zero OSHA recordable or lost time safety incidents.

Toledo, Oh, Us

As Plant Operations Manager I directed the combined 250-person production, engineering, and maintenance teams with the support of six direct reports. My top priority involved leading and supporting a 24/7 schedule focused on employee safety, product quality, yield increases, and asset reliability in our 400,000 square-foot production facility producing glass fiber reinforcement for composite materials. One of my proudest contributions came in stabilizing operational performance within this matrix organization. I was also selected by the Composites Operation Leader to consult in the planning of a large startup investment and given full authority in managing a multi-million-dollar manufacturing budget. Other outcomes of note include:Other notable positive influences include the delivery of a significant annualized margin improvement by applying a formal problem-solving methodology to resolve the largest first-pass yield loss; capturing a large, annualized savings after reducing waste through a simple production process change; reducing product return costs by hundreds of thousands through a multi-pronged approach involving the installation of a robust quality control process, the application of inline vision inspections to address difficult to detect curing defects, and the tightening tolerances of a mature chemical analysis process, improving quality and performance; and reduced recovery times amounting to a large annualized savings by leading Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) autonomous maintenance pillar and elevating operator training deliverables.

Lawrenceville, Ga, Us

KCM Prestige Division, CBI Laboratories Inc.Here I was afforded freedom in serving as a transformational leader with full P&L responsibility in the manufacturing of FDA-compliant OTC pharmaceuticals including sunscreen, skincare, and depilatories. Reporting to the VP of the Prestige Beauty division, I vetted and led a winning leadership team of nine Directors and Managers resulting in a profitable FDA compliant facility of 200 employees. My team and I enjoyed results that included adding millions to gross revenue after onboarding a new product line and finding millions more in bottom-line savings by making changes to production, order, and delivery processes. I particularly enjoyed saving thousands after finding a workaround to avoid costly expenditures on previously allocated projects.Our efforts afforded us successes including hundreds of thousands in annual savings and a high customer retention rate; significant improvements to contribution margin within 18 months while reducing variable costs; and driving double-digit EBITDA favorability to budget by initiating lean manufacturing concepts and establishing KPIs.I was honored to have earned the Presidential HESS award for exemplary performance and progress towards health, environmental stewardship, and safety with part of this distinction stemming from the remediation of FDA 483 violations incurred with previous ownership.

Lawrenceville, Ga, Us

Kik Custom Products _KCM Household Division, MariettaReporting to the VP of Custom Products, I focused and led a team of seven direct reports in organizing and supporting an operational workforce of 120 employees, most of whom were not native English speakers. Primary objectives included the integration of a new site acquisition as an added portfolio component of the leading contract manufacturer of home care products in North America and the charge to position the site for capacity expansion with a new product line.Together my team realized impacts including: highly favorable to EBITDA target in year one turnaround; drove a multi-million-dollar revenue gain and shared a substantial cost reduction with an existing customer by improving throughput of two production filling lines, acquiring two cost-free higher speed bottle fillers from an idle sister company, and replacing slower units. Other successful interventions included the application of reliability concepts to equipment to improve unplanned downtime; a cost saving headcount reduction with no loss of customer satisfaction by aligning business functions to new JDE ERP system integration and corporate shared services; and the celebration of zero RIR and zero environmental violations in the first year of acquisition by creating an EH&S program to support OSHA-required training, environmental reporting, and an employee-led safety team.All in all, my proudest achievement here came in the form of revitalizing a defeated workforce by providing an enthusiastic and achievable vision with a clear path of deliverables.

Denver, Co, Us

One of the primary objectives of my influence here was to improve an underperforming facility with high turnover, unfavorable fiscal position, and poor safety history. To tackle these issues, I conscientiously selected a new leadership team, established cost controls, assigned aggressive process metrics, and instilled safety focus expectations. These multifaceted efforts were successful as evidenced by the following outcomes: A celebratory annualized financial turnaround, bringing budgeted variable spend under control by applying lean tools to identify opportunities. Hundreds of thousands in annualized savings by implementing a new trucking lane schedule and targeting specialized transportation fleet and tractor-trailer drivers to prioritize servicing east coast vertical cities. A double-digit labor cost reduction while increasing capacity 13% by incorporating a pay-for-skills compensation structure.A significant improvement to order fill throughput after redesigning the warehouse layout to support a flatbed loading scheme.In parallel with the improvement initiatives, I also oversaw multi-site operations of a 100,000 square-foot manufacturing facility and 150,000 square-foot distribution warehouse with a specialized private transportation fleet. I also led the execution and control of a multi-million-dollar capital project plan. During this period, I reported to the VP of Operations, Commercial Roofing.

As engineering leader, I was charged with guiding a team of 20 employees spanning functions including engineering, IT, supervisory roles, and skilled trade work. As a member of the senior leadership team, I contributed to overseeing a major manufacturing plant construction and corporate expansion project. Points of focus that we worked to weave into the new site culture included the establishment of practices lending themselves to collaborative employee engagement, a behavior-based safety environment, and a continuous improvement mindset that challenged baseline expectations. Together we created sustainable world-class operational performance by fostering innovation with consistent focus on asset reliability. During this time, I reported to the Plant Manager.Some of my most memorable accomplishments from this time include:Leading a significant capital delivery and machinery procurement project involving the selection of international and domestic vendors and machinery approvals. Exceeding projected revenue after producing a novel product that transformed a Greenfield startup into the world’s largest producing Fiberglass mat line. Achieving a multi-million-dollar annualized return by proposing and implementing a design change improvement.Powering significant bottom-line growth over baseline capability and applied asset reliability methodology to accomplish year-over-year operating efficiency improvement and mitigate the length of planned downtime. Increasing production capacity 25% over design..Lastly, I was pleasantly surprised to have been formally recognized for a creative employee acquisition plan and a combined training program that was standardized and used as a best practice throughout the organization.