Michael Ernst Email & Phone Number

Michigan City, Indiana, United States

Mishawaka, Indiana, United States

Responsible for four plants on two campuses located in South Bend and Mishawaka, Indiana. Operations management includes monthly P&L overview and KPI metric execution focusing on deliverables in Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost, Human Resources and Utilities.Achievements:• Designed and implemented Master Production Schedule weekly review resulting in monthly OTD of greater than 98% and reduction of 96% for expedites expense of product to customer.• Develop Plant Balanced Scorecard and work with KPI owners to develop & respond to performance.• Drove reduction in Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost and HR Metrics resulting in 74% reduction in scrap, 90% reduction in Customer PPM and 38% improvement in Operational Productivity.

Auburn, Indiana

North American Manufacturing Footprint responsibility for 7 manufacturing sites located in the USA (IN, MI, MN and TN). Senior Staff monthly P&L overview of all seven sites and KPI metric execution focusing on deliverables in Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost, and Human Resources.Work with contemporaries to develop and implement Plant Balanced Scorecard KPIs and review performance monthly. Direct Corporate Quality Engineers in maintaining all plant’s quality initiatives compliant to TS and IATF16949 and responsible for driving Quality metric improvements at plant level. Manage Customer Service with customer base to review and address all customer concerns.Achievements:• Drove reduction in Quality Metrics from 2014 to 2017 resulting in 18% reduction in scrap, 29% reduction in Customer PPM and 79% reduction in External Sorting charges.• Improved “Satisfied/Highly Satisfied” Customer Satisfaction from 68% to 81% via VOC focus.• Developed and implemented New Product Introduction (NPI) consisting of all APQP outputs and internal lessons learned. Implemented in beta sites for testing and feedback to launch team.• Review Plant Balanced Scorecard and work with KPI owners to respond to performance.• Trained personnel at Minneapolis Die Casting on 5S, Value Stream Mapping and Standard Work and accompanying Kaizens resulting in 0 PPM for missing bracket grommet, 105% improvement in productivity and throughput resolving critical customer complaint.

Angola, Indiana

Adjunct Professor GE 5123 – Lean Enterprise & Total Quality ManagementDeveloped material and taught classes on disciplined problem-solving utilizing Lean Six Sigma DMAIC and lean methodologies for ENG graduate students. Classes taught using real world experience and examples.

Global Manufacturing Footprint responsibility for 9 manufacturing sites located in the USA (IN and IL); Canada; Mexico (Matamoros and Juarez); Scotland; Czech Republic; China and India. Operations management includes monthly P&L overview of all nine sites and metric execution focusing on Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost & HR. Direct a Quality team of 70: ten direct reports, six indirect, and 50+ Quality Engineers and Technical Assistants focusing on quality and operational improvements utilizing Lean Manufacturing, Kaizen and Lean Six Sigma Projects. Areas of responsibility include new product launch, product gross margin attainment, warranty analysis and demand to supply capacity planning. Analyze APQP deliverables and drive implementation into Product Development Process. Meet weekly with direct reports discussing Cost of Quality (COQ) drivers. Achievements: • Deployed Plant Balanced Scorecard in nine plants tracking 20 metrics across five disciplines resulting in improvements across all five metric families.• Drove Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) deliverables throughout all five phases into business unit Product Development Process (PDP) and oversaw development of supplier audit checklist insuring suppliers were audited per the PDP reducing design mistakes by 80%. • Created a common quality culture by meeting weekly with each site’s Quality Manager. Focused on COQ, PPM, Customer Complaints, Rolled Throughput Yield (RTY), and 8D.• Consolidated three business unit’s Quality Policy into one corporate wide Quality Policy used by all business units. Rolled out new policy to Automotive business unit plants and train personnel.• Reduced business unit Cost of Quality (COQ) from 3.36% in 2008 to 2.84% by end of 2009 saving $930,000. COQ finished at 2.64% in 2013.• Developed Global quality procedures and trained personnel in APQP and PPAP, and basic statistical process control (SPC) for corporate leaders to manufacturing floor operators.

Responsible for developing and implementing Continuous Improvement initiatives and programs, working with six manufacturing sites. Formed Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Council consisting of eight LSSBB across all three business units to discuss and share best practices across businesses. Worked closely with VP-Operations and respective site Plant Managers to identify Lean Manufacturing Kaizens and Six Sigma Projects saving $2.4 M from 2009 – 2013 by training 256 Lean Six Sigma Green Belt candidates. 212 were certified as LSSGB. • Initiated web-based SharePoint Library to share Lean Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing.Michael J. Ernst Page 3• Developed Lean Manufacturing modules and deployed via training or overseeing training of 65 supervisors, quality and manufacturing engineers as instructors to deliver Lean Training modules resulting in the training of over 1,250 people in both unionized and non-union sites.• Trained and tutored on-site Six Sigma Black Belts in North America, Europe and Asia to work with Green Belt candidates within each facility and monitored their progress via net meetings.• Developed web-based 8D system communizing business unit’s problem-solving format and trained personnel on use allowing sharing between sites allowing installation of Best Practices.• Established Lean Six Sigma projects and mentored teams on elimination of Non-Value-Added portions of manufacturing processes focused on scrap, sorting, inspect and rework elimination.• Developed Six Sigma Project Library for business unit allowing Projects and Kaizens to be posted enabling immediate sharing of Best Practices among manufacturing sites. • Implemented horizontal deployment of Best Practices throughout business unit by quarterly meeting sharing plant successes resulting in reduction in Safety recordables, COQ, customer PPM and complaints, RTY, premium freight and increases in machine uptime and quality yields.

Bachelor Science

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