Kristine Shiffman Email & Phone Number

Handling process/quality issues in manufacturing of sensor products and transfer to production of new products

Manufacturer of ceramic and metal sputtering targets for advanced applications including solar, semiconductors, and storage media. As a process development engineer, responsibilites involved developing processes for fabrication of ceramic tiles including powder processing as well as creating processes for new products.Key Accomplishments included the design, development, and scale-up of a new bonding process and the installation and set-up of a large spray-dryer system which increased production capability by a factor of five. Optimization of the spray-dry system included developing the process parameters that would lead to prescribed ranges of particle size and compaction behavior.Work on the bonding process focused on not only designing the process itself but also in fabricating all mechanical fixtures and electrical controls. Multiple DOEs were also designed, executed and analyzed as part of root-cause analysis. Factors causing seal damage and leakage of the bonding assembly were identified and corrected. For certain metal-coated parts, which levels of temperature and coating thickness would cause detrimental oxidation of the coating were mapped out for process control.

Manufacturer of industrial diamond products including loose crystals for grinding, and polycrystalline sintered diamond for machining and drilling applications. Key accomplishments as a process engineer included reducing crack failures of a sintered diamond product by 10% by re-engineering the temperature and pressure profile of the process and saving scrap and labor costs by reducing the variation in the moisture level of a critical ceramic component of the system by half. In addition to materials needs, created a downtime tracking system in Excel with automated summaries for total downtime hours by week, area, and category. Manual correction functions were integrated for anomalous database entries. This saved hours of labor by technicians.

A market leader in glass to metal hermetic seals for HVAC industries across the globe, as well as a growing presence in sensor and battery industries.Lead engineer for battery section of the engineering department. Managed and executed engineering projects for new product development of glass seals for lithium battery product lines. Performed SEM/EDS analysis of interfaces and created chemical diffusion profiles of a cross-sectioned soldered hermetic feed-through which proved that alloying of components were causing brittle, cracked regions. From this analysis, new solder that would not alloy and precipitate failures, could be sourced.

M.S., Ceramic Engineering

thesis research in glass enamels

B.S., Ceramic Engineering

Activities and Societies: Kappa Delta, American Ceramic Society, Gamma Alpha Delta Service Society