Joe Bittner Email and Phone Number

Leader, coach and mentor to manufacturing teams focused on improving safety, quality and productivity of production operations. Excels in developing new manufacturing processes and improving existing ones.

Provided discipline guidance and oversight for the manufacturing engineering department. Improved proficiency, specified training, and provided mentoring to the group’s 20 manufacturing engineers.• Introduced Manufacturing Readiness Level methodology (MRL-DoD) to the organization for the development of all manufacturing processes• Mentored the manufacturing engineering staff through 20+ MRL reviews • Facilitated 10+ Kaizen, process flow, and benchmarking continuous improvement events • Developed 60 standard work packages and templates to bring uniformity to manufacturing engineering development processes• Established processes to measure the cost of poor quality and to institute root cause corrective actions

Launched a new manufacturing business unit to produce 400kW fuel cell power plants ($75M sales in 2010). Led implementation of design changes in response to customer feedback.• Directed the manufacturing activities of 40 hourly associates and 9 salary team members utilizing 25,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing space• Coordinated efforts of the supporting procurement and quality control functions• Controlled overhead expenses ($2.3M in 2010)• Led action teams to improve product quality, reduce product cost, and improve team safety• Implemented one piece flow production utilizing visual metrics, at cell material storage, and dedicated cell tooling

Led a team of 10 service personnel, 4 site design engineers, 3 procurement personnel and 2 quality engineers to install and service 200 kW fuel cell power plants• Negotiated service contracts increasing service business penetration by 10% and increasing sales from $4M to $7M per year• Improved safety procedures for the service technicians reducing OSHA recordable injuries by 25%• Instituted standard work to improve response time and reduce return calls• Conducted analyses to improve the power plant availability• Specified design changes to improve service

Led validation test efforts at customer sites for two new electrical generation products, a 350 kW micro-turbine CHP power plant and a 150 kW reverse Rankine system. Oversaw supplier quality for these products. • Created, executed and evaluated performance and durability tests on these products• Conducted quality assessments of 10+ sub-tier module suppliers• Instituted quality improvements with these suppliers to improve product availability