Thomas Matter Email & Phone Number

Racine, Wisconsin, United States

Producing Industrial Transmission/Clutch assemblies

New Product Development Center

• Support new product feasibility studies through estimation of tooling cost, purchasing projected hours, and timing to complete project.
• Responsible for requesting quotes, negotiating costs, and normalizing quotes for supplier selection.
• Responsible for supplier selection and presenting this selection in front of the review board if required.
• Lead regularly scheduled meetings with Harley-Davidson project team and supplier personnel.
• Set-up supplier facility visits with HD team to review supplier manufacturing capability and meet the various project team members to build a solid team relationship.
• Lead supplier improvement initiatives during part design through product launch with focus on (quality, cost, lead-times, delivery, and capacity).

Kenosha, WI.

• Manager for all buildings and grounds and maintenance activities. (1 direct report and 7 indirect).
• Manager for the methods group which supports the fabrication, and welding department (2 direct reports).
• Manager for all routings and BOM’s for production and fabrication. (1 direct report)
• Manager for Manufacturing Engineering. (1 direct report)
• Support “Advanced Product Quality Planning” APQP
• Lead the development of a “World Class Manufacturing Culture”

Sturtevant, WI

• Managed all Margin Improvement Projects for the Marine Propulsion Division of BRP.
• Documented over $2.4 million in savings for the last 2 years with future projects planned for an additional $7 million over the next 3 fiscal years.
• Supported Supply Management and Finance in budgeting for Margin Improvement planned savings over the next 3 fiscal years.
• Supported the immediate supplier resourcing of a critical components due to delivery or quality issues with previous suppliers.
• Supported and monitor all testing related to Margin Improvement Projects.
• Trained in Siemens Perfect pro-calc 6.0 True Should Cost program.

Marinette, WI

• Manager for Central Plant Engineering directing all engineering activities to support production and all new incoming products which includes the design and purchase of all new incoming machining lines (19 direct.
• Manager for the plants maintenance department and MRO store to support all of the plant maintenance needs including equipment rebuilding, reactive maintenance, TPM and PM activities (1 direct report & 48 indirect.
• Manager of all building and grounds activities to maintain a world class working environment (1 direct report & 4 indirect reports).
• Improved working relationships between the maintenance team and the various business teams which resulted in an improvement in equipment uptime of 4.5% due to the ability to perform the TPM and PM’s on schedule.
• Managed improvements in a Steel Piston Line that resulted in a scrap reduction from 35% to 5.5% due to a Kaizen activity I was able to initiate.
• Improved the profitability of the steel piston line from a negative 200% market to a positive 2.5% market margin profit while volume tripled over a 7 month period. Resulting in a cost savings of $1.5 million per month.

Kenosha, WI

• Interim manager for 1.5 years for the Resident engineering group while my manager was out for a medical condition.
• Responsible for the introduction of model year design changes into the Plant on 6 machining and 6 assembly lines in a Lean manufacturing environment.
• Supplier Quality responsibility for all incoming product associated with my machining and assembly lines which included products like castings, powder metal parts, forgings, stamping's, springs, retainers and fasteners.
• Initiated and lead implementation of plant or supplier requested part design changes that will improve part quality, machine tool life, or increase part throughput while reducing manufacturing costs.
• Identified and resolve customer warranty issues related to design, machining and/or assembly in my designated areas using Root Cause Analysis (RCA).
• Supported and approve plant process engineering changes in my areas.

Charleston, SC

• Manager of the New Product Development Shop that produced the prototype piston rings used in Cummins Engine product development programs.
• Manager of the Central Gage Lab facility that supported all activities required by the Piston Ring Division and various other Cummins Engine Co. Divisions in the building.
• Product engineer responsible for generating and developing all new manufacturing processes, techniques and equipment for use in the production environment.
• Project manager responsibility for all plant new product capital equipment selection, procurement, process runoff and implementation in both the S.C. facility and its sister facility in GA.

Charleston, SC

• Supported 2 Plant start-ups for both an Aluminum and a Copper/Brass heat exchanger transfer lines.
• Developed manufacturing process and procedures for a diversified heat transfer product line.
• Organized and scheduled all aluminum prototype builds for customer development programs.
• Responsible for approving and purchasing all of the single hit and transfer stamping dies for the various components to be assembled.
• Designed assembly and braze fixtures for prototype builds and new products.
• Wrote/programmed and monitored the entire vacuum braze furnace operations.

Larwenceburg, TN

• Plant Manufacturing Engineer responsible for the aftermarket aluminum condenser line and semi-automated TIG welding line
• Designed tooling/small machines and wrote process changes
• Developed process and procedure that reduced weld leaks from 12% to 0.2%
• Developed and implemented design changes that eliminated customer fit-up problems and reduced warranty costs

Milwaukee, WI

• New product designer of auto body repair equipment such as fixtures and weldments.
• Interfaced with customer service on field complaints
• Managed prototype scheduling and build timelines
• Assisted in the development of a new drive on frame straightening rack system This system resulted in 5 patent awards to the company for various designs that I supported.

Bsme, Mechanical Engineering

Activities and Societies: Member of SAE

Education record

Education record