John Kulink
Wabasha,MN
Summary
Resourceful Manufacturing Engineer with 20+ years of experience in Manufacturing, Warehousing, and Project Management. Trained in Lean Manufacturing methodologies. Skilled in implementing manufacturing processes, developing production systems and analyzing product designs. Smart and dedicated to cost-saving initiatives and process improvements. Adept at data analytics to determine courses of action and justifying ROI for projects.
Overview
19
19
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Manufacturing Engineer III
Hearth and Home Technologies
2023.04 - Current
- Process Engineer for 2 largest production lines with $65 million annual revenue
- Facilitate engineering changes to production
- Troubleshoot equipment and process issues
- Developed technical documentation, including standard work, work instructions, and engineering drawings to support manufacturing operations.
- Redesigned and installed new warehouse by line layout creating standard picking locations, overhead pallet storage and reduced travel for warehouse members
- Designed and implemented automated Production Control Display dashboard that provides realtime visualization of production status compared to daily plan
- Achieved 55% reduction in downtime from 2022 to 2023 on highest output production line
Manufacturing Engineer II
Hearth and Home Technologies
2018.08 - 2023.03
- Created from scratch a standard work spreadsheet application adopted by entire company in place of purchased software. Enabled standardized verbiage and timings and reduced publishing time by 90%
- Justified and managed project to bring in $165k bending machine from external vendors that realized 75% improvement in uptime and reduced cycle time by 50%
- Project Manager for installation of VersaCall reporting software on all applicable production lines
- Developed data report request with a $200k+ annual ROI to improve non-standard data queries
- Led and participated in dozens of Rapid Continuous Improvement (RCI) events.
Project Manager / Process Analyst
Swanson Health Products
2011.01 - 2018.04
- Engineering support for Fargo manufacturing and distribution plant as well as East and West distribution centers
- Lead automation designer for $5M East Coast distribution center relocation and expansion project. Managed installation of equipment, pallet racking and conveyor systems. Helped test and troubleshoot all systems prior to go live
- Developed process and layout for pick to light system with zone bypass that reduced order handling by 60%
- Justified and managed installation of $300k receiving sorting conveyor which reduced case handling by 30%
- Used Visio to layout improved material handling process and managed implementation of IT project. Process was used at all 3 DCs and improved stocking efficiency by 35%
- Designed and justified simple conveyor change resulting in 40% reduction in order handling at West Coast DC
- Justified and managed installation of accelerated testing chamber which enabled faster and more accurate expiration dating
- Editor of documents and process flow diagrams used to document various business processes
- Managed and updated building layouts for all distribution centers.
Product Development Engineer
Tecton Products, LLC
2006.01 - 2011.01
- Worked with customer design engineers to develop product design that meets their requirements while optimizing the design for production
- Customer contact for concept to realization process for more than a dozen new products
- Assisted in operating and troubleshooting of new products before release to production
- Developed coating thickness database used to maintain dies and manage cost of inline coating process
- Standardized design process for standard tooling set for all products
- Developed standard operating procedure format for all production lines and maintained SOPs for more than 80 products.
Education
B.S. in Industrial Management/Technology, Cum Laude -
Minnesota State University, Moorhead
Skills
- Manufacturing Processes
- Lean Methodology
- Process Improvement
- 5S Methodology
- Process Development
- Expert in Microsoft Office products
- AutoCAD and Creo software experience
- Proficient in Process Flow Mapping
Certification
BPI Bronze Certification
Negotiations Training, HNI Corp.
Timeline
Manufacturing Engineer III
Hearth and Home Technologies
2023.04 - Current
Manufacturing Engineer II
Hearth and Home Technologies
2018.08 - 2023.03
Project Manager / Process Analyst
Swanson Health Products
2011.01 - 2018.04
Product Development Engineer
Tecton Products, LLC
2006.01 - 2011.01
B.S. in Industrial Management/Technology, Cum Laude -
Minnesota State University, Moorhead
BPI Bronze Certification
Negotiations Training, HNI Corp.
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