João Fernandes Email and Phone Number

Managing Quality Operations of group plants located in the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Portugal, specialized in the production and sale of window decoration.

Driving Quality in all of its aspects in line with the strategic vision of the company to ensure operational excellence and customer satisfaction through innovative solutions for major OEMs worldwide such as Maserati, Jaguar Land Rover, Stellantis, and Renault.

Leading a Quality department in a plant producing car headliners for the major OEMs such as PSA, Renault.

Directed and trained a team of 17 quality professionals supporting manufacturing operations and raw material approvals for automotive industry in a 450 people plant, producing high quality drum brakes. Major OEM customers include Renault, PSA and Toyota.Developed a set of quality metrics to track operational performance and identify/prioritize areas for improvements. Responsible for ensuring customer quality standards are met, while maintaining low quality risk. Developed and implemented Quality strategic vision (budget, policies, procedures and quality processes) for expansion in all areas of the business. Developed process approval and product readiness for new programs enabling definition of launch risk prior to production.

Managing Operations Quality & Programs for 9 plants in Comfort & Trim Systems Division with plants located in Portugal (750 people), France (1500 people), Poland (500 people), Marrocos (400 people), Tunisia (500 people) and Romania (1200 people). Product range includes seat covers, seat foams, headrest, armrest & pneumatics.- Quality management system & management responsibility:Represent the Customer Voice.Lead the relation with the customer on management level in escalation mode for the complete portfolio of products delivered to the Customers.Implement the Quality Management System in conformity with FCP and ensure that it is applied and efficient.In case of sensitive situations (SR alert,…), ensure that appropriate actions are initiated on management level within the company.Ensure that Program Quality related KPI's are available for all relevant parties.- Resource management:Establish and develop Quality organization and Program Quality Leaders, in line with OHQ, and ensure appropriate skills staffing.- Product realization:Guarantee acquisition and program quality activities.Ensure, by audits, the right implementation of Quality methods, MR, LL.Guarantee that Special characteristics are secured in programs and production.Establish and monitor the appropriate application of all quality tools relevant in Acquisition and Program phase.- Measurement, analysis & improvement:Follow closely, and report to the BG, the Quality Performance Indicators related to Customer (customer ppm, complaints, other customer specific indicators if applicable) and internal Requirements in development phase and serial life. Ensure the strict application of the defined improvement strategy in Production and Program.- Generic tasks:Respect Quality & Program targets defined by Division VP in line with the BG Quality and HSE VP.Stop any process or product delivery in case of serious non conformance (customer expectations or safety and regulations issues,….).

In this position I have the responsibility of coordinating, support and train the Plant Quality Managers and the Quality departments of 5 plants with 36 people located in North Europe (Spain - 2000 people, United Kingdom - 400 people) and Asia (India - 200 people). Main activities areas are the production of complete seats in JIT for the major European OEM’s (Mercedes, VW, BMW) and the production of metal structures and respective accessories. - Quality management system & management responsibility:Represent the Customer Voice.Lead the relation with the customer on management level in escalation mode for the complete portfolio of products delivered to the Customers.Implement the Quality Management System in conformity with FCP and ensure that it is applied and efficient.In case of sensitive situations (SR alert,…), ensure that appropriate actions are initiated on management level within the company.- Resource management:Establish and develop Quality organization, in line with OHQ, and ensure appropriate skills staffing.- Product realization:Guarantee acquisition and program quality activities.Ensure, by audits, the right implementation of Quality methods, MR, LL.Guarantee that Special characteristics are secured in programs and production.- Measurement, analysis & improvement:Follow closely, and report to the BG, the Quality Performance Indicators related to Customer (customer ppm, complaints, other customer specific indicators if applicable) and internal Requirements in development phase and serial life. Ensure the strict application of the defined improvement strategy in Production and Program.- Generic tasks:Respect Quality targets defined by Division VP in line with the BG Quality and HSE VP.Stop any process or product delivery in case of serious non conformance (customer expectations or safety and regulations issues,….).

Apart from the required daily management of the Quality department with 8 quality members I was the main contact with our customer (GM Opel – Zaragoza, Spain) of this 200 people JIT plant, which I reside there for 6 months in order to provide them quality support and training to our products (complete seats for Opel Combo). - Quality management system & management responsibility: Define the Plant Quality System in accordance with the Faurecia Excellence System. Represent customer requirements internally and ensure his agreement (PPAP, deviation….). Define and deploy the plant quality budget (to all quality network), monitor progress and respect it. Guarantee that the Plant Quality readiness is achieved by the program team.- Resource management: Coach and train the plant quality team on quality tools & processes Staff, with the accurate skills, and develop the Plant Quality organization in conformity with OHQ- Product realization: Ensure the right application of the alert system in the Plant (8D methodology is respected) Ensure the Plant's compliance with all safety/regulations requirements (securization rate, MR/PY, LLS). Protect the plant against incorrect purchased parts and improve Supplier Quality towards sites PPM/Complaints targets Ensure the conformity of the product by the respect of the control plan (including COP test...) with calibrated devices Secure the plant from potential issues coming from variations (Programs Launches, transfers and ECM...) through process qualification (PQA)…- Measurement, analysis & improvement: Ensure Quality results to all relevant parties. Communicate LLS in his/her plant and guarantee that they are implemented.

Along with the QMS function I have accumulated the HSE position with the main propose of implementation all the tools regarding this topic raging from providing training to the entire organization, management of applicable legislation, be interaction link between the organization and external bodies such as local authorities, universities and institutes. The integration of the HSE system and QMS was another very interesting challenging task that I was able to concluded it successfully. The organization has been certified in ISO 14001 and ISO 18001 in late December.Another position that I accumulated during this time was the management of suppliers with the responsibilities of organize the team I had, assure the development of suppliers by perform audits, issue derogation and monitoring the correctives actions presented by suppliers. Managing of sorting and rework teams was another task under my responsibility with the objective to assure that customer requirements were fulfilled.

I initiated the transition from QS9000 to ISO 9001:2000. A complete Quality Management System revision was done in order to adapt the organization to the new standard and requirements concluding with ISO 9000:2000 certification.ISO/TS 16949:2002 (First Edition) transition was a very interesting challenge as the approach to this standard is completely different and much more demanding than ISO 9001. This transition has proved that all organization must be involved to reach a good result. This result was ISO/TS certification. I was able to deliver this result to the organization in 2002. According to the external certification body, Faurecia JIT plant was the first company in Portugal to be ISO/TS certified in 2002.

During this position I was responsible to monitoring processes and machines capability and eliminate any deviations found at production line flow. Develop, implement and maintain Statistical Process Control techniques to assure that the finished parts were according customer requirements. Perform process and system audits in order to verify the status of the implementation of the required tools. Active contributor to Process FMEA and Control Plan revisions and responsible to monitor the status throughout product production life.