Robert Culp Email & Phone Number

Responsible for LRC’s consulting practice focused on procurement strategy and process performance improvement services to help our clients involved in acquisition integration to create sustainable value through category management and sourcing initiatives across direct and indirect spend categories.

Hemlock, Michigan, Us

Led the strategic category management and procure-to-pay team through a clear vision to drive change, deliver sustainable cost savings, and enhance innovation with processes and metrics aligned in support of our stakeholders. Annual spend responsibility of $700 million for Directs, Indirects, Logistics, and Corporate Services for this producer of ultrapure polycrystalline silicon used to make semiconductor devices and solar cells. Due to ownership restructure, in-house procurement services needed to be established as strategic and transactional procurement support from Dow Chemical ceased in early 2018. Once the new team was hired, trained and delivering sustainable performance in 2019, I resigned to return to where my spouse lives and work as an independent consultant.Key accomplishments:Designed, hired and trained entire stand-alone Procurement team including re-shoring transactional procure-to-pay activities from India to disengage from Dow Chemical and 3rd party service providers.Right-sizing policies, standards, procedures and guidelines for this joint venture spinoff.Category manager responsible for major raw materials, utilities and corporate services.Developed, prioritized and executed a pipeline of Procurement savings opportunities to deliver $12 million in sustainable year-over-year cost reductions by YE 2020 with verified cost reductions of $3.7 million, verified cost avoidances of $7.2 million, and $1.0 million in recovered AP credits during 2018.

Us

Led the global purchasing & logistics team of Emerald's four specialty chemical businesses including strategic sourcing, risk management, supplier management, new product development sourcing, indirect spend management, plant procurement, transportation, distribution & warehousing with a spend responsibility of nearly $500 million – Directs, $50 million – Indirects & Services, and $30 million – Logistics, 9 sites, 3 countries – The Netherlands, UK and USA.Key accomplishments:Designed and solidified a center-led strategic sourcing & logistics organization aligned with four separate business groups to better support plant operations and increase key commodity and services management capabilities through people development and team building, resulting in improved esprit de corps of procurement associates.Participated in the execution of business plans that increased company EBITDA by 83% in six years.Procurement lead for acquisition and divestment due diligence activities.Leveraged sourcing & logistics team skills to deliver cost reductions totaling $41 million over six years.Delivered sustainable working capital improvement of $3.3 million in 2015 and an additional $2.5 million in 2016 through an extended payment terms initiative.Increased Asia-based region sourcing to expand supply options and improve negotiating leverage.Implemented Diversity Spend expansion plan that broadened site participation and increased diversity spend in each year over a five year period.Developed and published company's first Code of Business Conduct for Suppliers policy, as well as designed and implemented a process for compliance to the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010.

Beachwood, Oh, Us

Led Performance Chemicals business unit’s strategic sourcing team to achieve the lowest total cost position (short and long term) for key spend categories through development and execution of a company-wide sourcing strategy and center-led supply base management with annual spend responsibility of $570 million across 10 operating facilities, 4 countries – China, France, India and USA.Key accomplishments:Leveraged sourcing team skills and international supply to deliver raw material cost reductions of $4.1 million in 2010, $7.7 million in 2009, $1.4 million in 2008, $4.0 million in 2007 and $2.8 million in 2006.Negotiated new price mechanism on a major commodity resulting in $9.1 million cost reduction and $3.0 million cash flow improvement over term of contract.Shifted to 100% supply from China for one key monomer resulting in a 50% cost reduction, as well as managed a 3-fold increase in supply of acrylic monomers from off-shore.Developed global sourcing action plans to optimize the business’ cost position and deploy implementation plan in collaboration with category sourcing team.Acted as a negotiation resource for Marketing and Sales function at key customer accounts.Served as the single point of contact for Strategic Sourcing in cross-functional business unit activities related to ISO 9000 quality management, Lean SixSigma, Sustainability, and Responsible Care.Sourcing representative on business unit’s acquisition due diligence team.Purchase-to-Pay functional stakeholder for ERP implementation (SAP).

Beachwood, Oh, Us

Led Performance Chemicals’ North American strategic sourcing team with annual spend responsibility of $350 million across 5 operating facilities.Key accomplishments:Expanded offshore sourcing from Asia and Europe to deliver over $2 million annually in cost reductions.Negotiated redistribution of acrylic monomer volume to balance and expand supply portfolio, to reduce risk, and to realize a cost reduction of $500,000.

Beachwood, Oh, Us

Performed key commodity procurement and managed material forecasting and supply of major monomers for Paper and Carpet business segment of Performance Chemicals.Key accomplishments:Streamlined and automated monomer pricing forecast system.Negotiated multi-year contract with third-party energy service supplier to provide a minimum annual savings objective of $100,000.Upgraded supplier performance measurement system.Reduced major monomer inventory by over 15% and worked with cross-functional team to reduce total raw material inventory by 27%.

Akron, Ohio, Us

Project manager responsible for multi-client international industry market analysis and forecast reports, as well as managing of single client consulting assignments related to purchasing, material planning and forecasting, market research, strategic planning, and quality systems. Key accomplishments:Assessed market opportunities for an international chemical company’s new polymer and for an international corporation’s manufacturing equipment, as well as assessed low cost country entrance opportunities and potential JV partners for a North American thermoplastics company. Improved data collection and analysis methodology resulting in a 20% cost reduction. Developed and published the company’s first industry forecast report of India’s tire and rubber products industry, and expanded the scope of all industry reports in the six regions of the world.

Clermont-Ferrand, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Fr

Led activities of business intelligence, analysis, forecast and strategic recommendations on the tire industry, competitors and customers. Represented Michelin’s BFGoodrich, Uniroyal and Private-label brands on the Rubber Manufacturers Association Tire Market Analysis Committee.Key accomplishments:Developed and led marketing strategy seminar for annual sales force training conference. Assisted in development and implementation of coordinated multi-brand strategy that integrated and reorganized the marketing and sales efforts of Michelin and Uniroyal Goodrich.Provided analysis for development of coordinated channels of distribution strategy.

Clermont-Ferrand, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Fr

Led raw material forecasting and scheduling function for North American tire operations ($500 million annual spend) including inventory control of raw materials, and maintenance, repair and office supplies ($60 million monthly).Key accomplishments:Developed and executed a plan to reduce inventories by $13 million or 19%. Coordinated sourcing activities during industry-wide steel cord shortage without production loss and reduced airfreight premium cost from $42 million to $7 million. Enhanced forecast system for critical specialty polymers.Developed the natural rubber planning and scheduling system and the raw material inventory management program. Combined and enhanced former Uniroyal and BFGoodrich textile material planning systems, as part of merger integration.

Clermont-Ferrand, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Fr

Clermont-Ferrand, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Fr

Mba, Operations Management

Bs, Textile Chemistry With Polymer Chemistry Concentration