Tom Kuhnel Email & Phone Number

Tustin, California, United States

RNDC is one of the nation’s leading wholesale beverage alcohol distributors, specializing in wine and spirits.As a supply chain buyer / inventory planner at RNDC, I manage the buy plans and maintain overall inventory health of dozens of wine and spirits suppliers, procuring $150,000,000-$200,000,000 in finished goods inventory yearly to RNDC's western states (AZ, CA, OR, WA, HI, AK) distribution centers, ensuring that inventory is in the right place and right quantity at all times to meet both forecasted and unexpected customer demand.I curate a strategic plan for each supplier and execute daily/weekly tactical international (DI) and domestic buys, analytics, inventory balancing and management, supplier relationship management, and deep logistics coordination, using best-in-class communication, support, urgency, prioritization, and follow up.- Maintain excellent inventory levels for large volume/revenue suppliers like Bogle Vineyards and Delicato Family Wines, allowing them to execute their monthly/quarterly programming and sales goals.- Ensure that smaller and medium but equally important luxury wine producers like Darioush, Wayfarer, Hess Persson Estates, and Clos Du Val are provided white glove supply chain procurement and support.I use the Blue Ridge supply chain planning platform for data analytics, PO planning and management, and reviewing forecasts and demand history for FTL and LTL ordering. I also manage and optimize supplier and item level data, including buying multiples, safety stock, order cycle optimization, out of stocks, vintage rolls, discontinued items, and collect or prepaid transportation.I also heavily use Oracle, Outlook, MS Office Suite (Excel, Teams, SharePoint), and AS400 (legacy), while working with all levels of the org, including Portfolio Managers, traffic, transportation, data and IT teams, Accounting, and leadership.

Irvine, Ca

Parcel Pending is a leading provider of secure and simple package management technology solutions.Reporting to and hired by the President, I developed and formalized the supply chain department's people, structure and processes, while managing the day-to-day domestic and international end-to-end supply chain as the company moved through an aggressive growth phase, including being acquired in 2019. I managed a supply chain / warehouse operations team that grew from 8 to 21 employees in less than a year, including a warehouse manager, system assembly/testing/QA techs, a returns team, inventory control/purchasing/logistics coordinator, and shipping/receiving coordinators. Significant daily activity included purchasing, quality control, and logistics/reverse logistics of product/parts internationally and domestically, including extensive contract and supplier relationship and product management. Emphasis was on buying core product from suppliers in China, while intimately managing the ODM and freight forwarder logistics partnership and day-to-day activity. A critical related responsibility was inventory management to a daily critical part 'zero stock out' KPI. I worked very closely with finance in my demand planning and inventory management, vendor invoice approvals, purchase order management, and monthly and year end cycle/physical counts and audits for public company compliance. Salesforce and Quickbooks was used.A few key accomplishments included: managing a major warehouse expansion/relocation to expand storage capacity from 7,500 sq/ft to 30,000 sq/ft, eliminating 5 x 3PL provider's storage costs; establishing and redefining the shipping department protocols and daily metrics to meet high shipping volume; negotiating a 56% cost reduction on a core BOM component (5-15% other part reductions) through global sourcing of new suppliers; improving QA processes around system builds and developing operational metrics related to meeting departmental KPIs.

Orange County, California Area

BayWa is a solar distributor of residential/commercial renewable energy solutions and subsidiary of German company BayWa AG ($16B+ revenues).Reporting to the V.P. of Operations, I led supply chain initiatives related to inventory health improvement, in order to help create a seamless supply chain. Responsibilities included: - Analyzing, organizing and reporting inventory health data with recommendations and purchasing needs to the executive team and purchasing using key metrics from aggregating Netsuite data- Developing processes and alerts to increase purchasing’s effectiveness in reacting to inventory issues- Ensuring KPI’s were correct for measuring progress.Additional focus was centered around highlighting appropriate spot buys and adjustments to inbound 3PL deliveries to maintain desired levels, while creating the quarterly/yearly buy plan in support of run rates, stocking strategies, and carrying costs. I worked closely with the CFO and V.P. of Operations to ensure that any demand planning strategy encapsulated financial objectives and included aggressively move aging / EOL inventory and determining what triggers created action. Valuation, run rates, inventory turns, and progression to goals was primary to the agenda.Vendor facing activity included providing vendors forecasted buy plans and analyzing volume per vendor, including work with Trina, JA Solar, LG, LONGi (panels); SMA, SolarEdge, Enphase, Fronius (invertors); Unirac, Quick Mount (Racking); LG Chem, Enphase, SMA (storage).

Orange County, California Area

I was hired by the founder/CEO to help build and manage an IT solutions and services integrator with a niche in the SMB space and propel the company from startup to market leader. Reporting to the CEO, I led the org in the day-to-day planning and execution of its four pillars of integrated technology offerings - IT support, hosted managed services, cloud services, and hardware & software. Supply chain operations activity included purchasing, sourcing, vendor management and inventory control of dozens of IT, telecommunications and Internet products and services. I expertly negotiated, administered and provisioned multiple technology service provider contracts, including with Cox, Verizon, AT&T, Cisco, Telepacific, Level 3, and Century Link. Extensive purchasing and inventory of networking equipment from Ingram Micro and custom suppliers.Some key successes under my direction and participation: 1.) Remained the primary IT phone and data network technologies integrator for startup Houzz, a large and fast-growing market leader in the home remodeling and design services industry, from 2012-2017. We designed, installed, augmented and managed their network infrastructure as they grew from a 30 to over 800-person office, interconnecting 5 more offices (100+ person) across the U.S. 2.) Directed the supply chain, project management, provisioning, systems administration, and network ops team members and day-to-day activity through 1800% revenue growth between 2012-2017. 3.) Led the customer integration of the company’s initial business acquisition, doubling revenues in year one. 4.) Developed and optimized the operation’s business processes and operating policy and managed the creation and rollout of a scalable and automated support platform using Salesforce ERP/CRM. 5.) Reduced the yearly per employee subscription license spend by 47%.

Greater Salt Lake City Area

I successfully completed the following strategic objectives while at BI and under significant company financial constraints/challenges: 1.) Organized and led the new site installation and minor/major site renovation project implementation and customer on-boarding effort for over 2500 US retail banking locations for a Fortune 10 financial services company. 2.) Used my supply chain background and adeptness in purchasing, negotiation, product research, contract and supplier management, inventory control, forecasting and demand planning to create, develop, lead and use the supply chain functions to support major client contractual commitments and R&D initiatives. I managed all purchasing, logistics, and warehousing staff, implemented critical processes, and recommended operational improvements to the V.P. of Operations.My strategic leadership and tactical day-to-day management of these functions contributed to/resulted in multiple department successes, including: 1.) Generating company sustaining 80% increases in overall yearly revenue (millions annually, tens of millions in total) during the 7 year customer contract. 2.) Becoming the first vendor to score perfectly for 16 quarters in a row as rated by our flagship customer's quarterly business reviews, through a highly metric-driven evaluation process of products, project management, installation, service, and supply chain. 3.) Creating an end-to-end supply chain system that achieved a throughput of millions in yearly expenditure, while optimizing margins by driving supply chain costs down through various cost cutting techniques, including win-win vendor relationships, leveraging of vendor competition, volume pricing buying, and drop shipping of product. 4.) Establishing a lean, demand-driven hybrid Just-In-Time (JIT) and Kanban inventory and logistics management system that reduced storage costs and vastly reduced the risk of excess/obsolete inventory.

Greater Salt Lake City Area

At this provider of digital signage, corporate communications, and AV technology solutions, I managed highly visible C-Level worldwide corporate broadcast communication projects (EMEA, APJ, AMS) and contracted corporate satellite networks for key Fortune 100 accounts that brought in millions in yearly revenue. I worked closely with our CEO and V.P. of Sales to ensure that the projects successfully met or exceeded margin attainment targets.I led 5-6 member project teams through the project life cycle, coordinating equipment installations and technical event management at customer locations nationwide, where I communicated time sensitive broadcast details with executive producers, production managers, network engineers, and broadcast staff.Related to the supply chain, I was charged with sourcing, negotiating rates, and purchasing resources, equipment, and materials with strategic suppliers and over 100 subcontractors worldwide. Examples include procuring project resources such as terrestrial fiber, satellite space, up-link and production trucks, production studios, and event down-link technician labor. I also sourced and purchased satellite antennas, LNB's, and related materials for permanent network installations. Successes included:1.) Managing an 1800 location nationwide satellite network migration and new client on-boarding project that raised the company's monthly recurring revenue $50,000/mo.2.) Assuming the project management of two Fortune 25 customers at the direction of management.3.) Maintaining 25% margins consistently with the largest revenue producing customer (5% above average) by negotiating best vendor project rates per location.4.) Eliminating risk by enhancing the supplier relationships and building redundancies in every targeted project location.