Ryan Knights Email & Phone Number

Marietta, Ga, Us

Started a company to add value to Automotive Suppliers and OEMs to help get high quality engineering support without having to add headcount to their teams. Specialized in Automotive plastic injection molding design with ability to CAD Design, Engineer, and Draft Drawings for complex assemblies to mitigate tooling issues, allow for tuning, and meet customer needs with high quality products. Work to build services including 3D CAD, Product Development, Prototyping, Low Volume Production, and Testing Services. Able to reverse engineer products and help to iterate and add key features for patenting.

Atlanta, Georgia, Us

I managed an engineering team to set priorities and standards for the entire group. Create processes from the bottom up to work on transforming a 100 year old business into the modern agethrough diverse sourcing and category management. Enacted a “Scorecard” process to evaluate many suppliers at once in an easy to understand model that is familiarized with executive leadership to help drive sourcing strategy. Utilized a large engineering team in China to complete supplier audits, testing, and drawing management. Utilize a team to complete part breakdown and analysis to create cost model to determine what the cost of a product should be and use that information to negotiate with suppliers. Managed >10,000 SKUs through drawing management systems and interchange databases. Determine and source outside labs, consultants, and suppliers to complete business critical items and ensure budget and headcount is correct for business needs

Grenoble, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Fr

Started a new office from the ground up with the Business Development & Engineering Manager to target an emerging market for a well established company. I work to grow new developments in an ever-changing automotive market with specific product knowledge in Electric Vehicle (EV) fastening environment. Lived in the San Fransisco Bay area to best interface with new EV clients and get both concepts and prototypes to the customer to support builds on fast timelines. Changing the idea of what fastening can be on a vehicle through development of cable channels, busbar holders, and other routing solutions in both plastic and metal to meet requirements in an emerging market.

Grenoble, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Fr

Responsible for creating and following projects from concept to production. I developed fully functional CAD concepts in CATIA V5 to give customer turnaround within 24hrs of a possible solution. I designed 34 unique parts specializing in bringing feedback quickly to the customer in order to win key business driven by management through direct relationships with OEMs and Tiers. I consistently worked on large projects and packages through prototype and production launches to meet customer design and timing constraints. I grew total sales of a key customer by 103% while targeting another target customer bringing the number of new products from 0 to 14 in a year timeframe. I worked across different time zones (Germany/California/Michigan/India/France) to best support our customers with our rapid growth.

Troy, Michigan, Us

Worked on long term cradle to grave development of exterior automotive product lines such as grilles, exterior moldings, exterior trim, and fuel doors. I worked through both development in early stages of the Ford milestones as well as product launches at the customer facilities. I found a solution to an ongoing launch issue on a new product (fuel door) for the company on a flagship program and implemented an Interim Cycle Act (ICA), Permanent Cycle Action (PCA), and put together standard work documents complete these solutions.I helped to facilitate, implement, and finalize tooling production changes and ICA changes within the Ford Kentucky Truck Plant (KTP) while working alongside Program Management, Quality, and Engineering. I designed and launched all grille variants on the 2021 Ford Escape and Lincoln Corsair utilizing multiple internal plant locations and providing support at the Louisville Assembly Plant (LAP) through both initial buck developments and production. I started development of the 2022 F150 Raptor Grille implementing different elements from a typical grille system due to lightening, off-road, and aerodynamic requirements of the Raptor trim level.

Dearborn, Michigan, Us

Accountable for the major milestone of master section development within the Ford Global Product Development System (GPDS) from Feasibility Checkpoint 3 (FC3) to Final Appearance Approval (FAA). This included helping to determine feasibility for multiple separate concepts from the studio and progressing that concept until the final exterior design was complete. This role was within Ford's Product Development Center (PDC) and worked across the exterior of every vehicle line and transitioned into working on the exterior and interior of Body-on-Frame vehicles.

Atlanta, Georgia, Us

Mechanical Supervisor in the Mechanical Car department in Elkhart, IN after relocating from Roanoke, VA. I managed carman and oversaw activity at the 2nd largest hump yard on the Norfolk Southern system. I worked to efficiently repair and find possible FRA defects on a variety of rail cars, both NS owned and customer owned, to keep product moving and meeting customer deadlines.

Atlanta, Georgia, Us

I was quickly thrown into management as the 3rd shift mechanical supervisor over 35 employees when the current supervisor was promoted to a new role. I learned the importance of teamwork and soaking up knowledge and experience of those around to deal with the diverse issues of managing a union workforce. Over the 6 month period os 3rd shift management, the output of locomotive repairs tripled from 3 to 9 fully repaired locomotives per month. Relocated to Roanoke, VA to fulfill the role and created and deployed a Microsoft Access based system to track vacation, shift sheets, and general locomotive repair jobs needed for each shift. I also worked on process improvement using 5S and Six Sigma to create standard work documents and organize work areas.

Bachelor Of Science (Bs), Mechanical Engineering

Education record