Brittany Plagens

Experience

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  The Reserve on Frankford

  Sept 2008 - May 2010

  Community Assistant

  Utilized a database to assist residents with leasing, property tours & program planning.• Honed people skills in a sales environment.

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  Ethicon, Inc.

  Jun 2010 - Dec 2010

  Quality Assurance Co-op

  Responsible for daily activities in Business Systems & Product Data Management.• Collaborated with key stakeholders from Juarez, San Lorenzo, & San Angelo to drive compliance improvement forums. My initiatives reduced non-conformances & mitigated risks associated with critical control points throughout the entire process. • Completed a Lean Green Belt project that improved department process lead time by 3.1 days through the implementation of one-piece-flow, new layout, equipment relocations/validations, standard work, & ergonomic enhancements. Show less

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  Intertek Testing Services

  May 2012 - Aug 2012

  Mechanical Engineering Intern

  Led the company through the Lean process by implementing 5S throughout the facility, collaborated with contractors for improvements & hosted weekly alignment meetings with the entire site. • Created a visual & sustainable organizational structure while improving the site efficiency & productivity drastically.

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  X-FAB

  Aug 2012 - Dec 2012

  Industrial Engineering Intern - Senior Design Project

  Assisted a classmate & a cross-functional team in decreasing scrapped wafers by collecting, validating & analyzing scrap incidents from an online intranet database saving $55M annually.

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  Ethicon, Inc.

  Jan 2013 - Aug 2024

  The organization underwent significant changes with the introduction of a new Leadership Team as well as a considerable turnover across various departments post-COVID, including the BEx team (~24 salary/contractors/co-ops/interns). Tasked with reviving & evolving the site governance, encompassing all forums & processes, as well as serving as a co-sponsor to the site Digital Governance.• Steered the site to deploy business strategy by partnering across functions, streamlining operations, & developing talent. Oversaw the implementation of the Site Master Plan (SMP) for capacity expansion, improving Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) & Rapid Machine Changeover (SMED) for increased productivity.• Shifted BEx focus to problem-solving & site improvement efforts, to address volume transfer delays & backorders due to raw material shortages, utilizing advanced performance management through digital solutions. Our data & analytics team played a crucial role in supporting recovery efforts by utilizing unique insights to solve problems (currently applying for a Manufacturing Lighthouse site), including implementing: IoT OEE tools that visualize machine PLC downtime faults & sources of loss, PowerApps production trackers, approximately 50+ reports after an ERP system transition including inventory management visibility, Python RPA bots to expedite quality confirmations, RFID tracking systems, etc.• Trailblazed an operating model for value generation (process/people/technology), combining 11 data sources & resulting in 135+ descriptive analytics & visualizations as well as 65% of the Wound Closure & Healing (WCH) 2024 digital savings portfolio (~$6MM). Achieved excellence in Material Usage Variance (MUV) & waste reduction, leading to the organization adoption of this approach as a benchmark & the creation of a new role, business analysts. Comprehensive training programs will be provided to support all foundational pillars of the BEx department going forward. Show less During the COVID-19 pandemic, virtually transitioned from a peer to a manager of the BEx department consisting of 3 salaried professionals & ~12 contractors/co-ops, all while being fully remote for the remainder of 2020 until October of 2022. This role came with reporting directly to the WCH BEx Leadership Team but also dotted line reporting to the Plant Manager & Site Staff Leadership Team.• Assisted the site leaders in improving the overall health of the organization through many initiatives (i.e. spearheaded discussions on Racism & Injustice, helped with COVID-19 control & prevention, aided the Proactive Quality program, initiated frequent synergies with 4 supply chain sites, implemented proactive cost tracking, continued digitalization efforts, sustained the data & analytics team created in 2018, as well as led various business cycles encompassing: Cost Revision, LRFP, Strat Plan, Goal & Objective setting, 5-year site strategy, etc.)• Achieved all goals & objectives, increased compensation/promoted employees, resolved challenging employee performance/behavior issues, developed & funded new hire business cases, tackled turnover challenges, balanced workload, upskilled the team, & managed budgets for all business cycles. It is worth noting that despite facing a critical customer service situation from February to December 2021, where site resources were solely dedicated to production recovery rather than projects, we managed to achieve our objectives successfully.• Successfully introduced industry 4.0 digital technologies & expanded the usage of various innovative business tools, while also ensuring that project solutions were suitable for new product launches, Business Continuity Plans (BCP), & technological advancements, leading to the achievement of service continuity, growth commitments, talent certifications & site annual financial targets. Show less Defined the site standards for PMO at all levels, while shifting the culture internally/externally to achieve success by setting expectations & providing clarity for top projects, as well as maintaining process strength & stability. • Re-established a robust Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Rep team that focused on 1:1 project lead support for assessing & improving health (including: resources, schedule, risk & budget) as well as overall portfolio results. • Supported managers in making critical trade-off decisions, when risk was imminent, by engaging with external teams, identifying inter-dependencies & effectively communicating at all levels within the organization. Enabled site leadership to prioritize accordingly by utilizing a multi-year project matrix (including all roadmaps available from multiple organizations: New Product Introduction, Product Value Streams, Life-Cycle Management, etc.). Show less Recruited & managed the site’s first data & analytics programmer/developer to support Qlik Sense performance management long-term strategy. Served as a subject matter expert on site capacity & operation product balancing which supplied change order requests in ADAPTIV as well as driving the PPM site governance. • Created site cascade & split-flow Qlik Sense visual management system including performance review boards & reports; customized 60+ metrics, leveraging agile methodology, while linking to sustainable data sources for real-time performance monitoring.• Led Juarez & San Angelo operations, planning & global planning teams to establish visibility to split-flow forecasts/trends through 10+ shared tools, 4+ shared planning processes & a yearly governance model to fully align production between sites end-to-end (resulting in a $1.7MM Back Order reduction). This effort included a planning model in Qlik Sense to make decisions & balance capacity at a machine level, according to the weekly plan from all sites while incorporating project impacts. The team was able to identify, track, resolve & communicate major capacity constraints & sensitivity to set mix in main operations (that are dependent on one another’s execution at any given time) by dedicating product types on equipment, adjusting routes & kicking off new validation projects.• Completed a Six Sigma Green Belt project that included creating a priority sorting (i.e. FIFO, Back Order, Aging WIP, Ambient Exposure, Product Configurations, etc.) Foil Scheduling Tool, to reduce overexposed lots (resulting in $800K cost savings). Show less Key site leader for integrating the Johnson & Johnson Production System (JJPS) into San Angelo, by first completing a short-term relocation to San Lorenzo & then conducting 3 successful implementation phases; also was assigned the acting PE Manager role supervising a team of 5 salary employees & responsible for the site’s waste reduction efforts. • Provided JJPS leadership to 4 fully dedicated cross-functional teams (including members from operations, quality, planning, engineering & process excellence) while hosting site support for 5 months from Juarez, San Lorenzo, Monument, & 2 director-level deployment leads from New Jersey. Developed a 3-year roadmap, aligned with the plant’s vision & goals, integrating engineering strategies & action plans, while utilizing 9+ lean shop floor best practices to minimize waste & streamline production cycle time.• Developed influencing skills & honed financial acumen while focusing on upskilling the Process Excellence team to develop deeper understanding of the core processes (including sister sites) & Supply Chain concepts enabling data driven decisions, which resulted in delivering savings of approximately $3.95MM. Show less Successfully managed a team of 60 wages associates in a unionized 24/7 environment, handling complexity, multiple operational excellence projects, & conflict resolution.• Guided 4 rotations as the Split-Flow Platform Lead while improving performance & consistently meeting the increasing production commitments while guaranteeing safety & high-quality outputs.• Advanced the Ethicon Performance System (EPS) deployment, as the Daily Team Asset Care (DTAC) Pillar Leader & Foil Model Machine Team Leader, while also delivering a Cost Improvement Project (CIP) to save $253K annually by transferring/relocating a Triclosan Patch Dosing process from an external company. Show less

  • Sr. Business Excellence Manager

    May 2023 - Aug 2024

  • Business Excellence Manager

    Apr 2020 - May 2023

  • Site Project Management Office Lead (PMO Lead)

    Oct 2019 - Apr 2020

  • Staff Business Excellence Engineer

    Mar 2017 - Oct 2019

  • Process Excellence Engineer II & Acting Process Excellence Manager (7mo)

    May 2015 - Mar 2017

  • Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) Specialist

    Sept 2014 - May 2015

  • Manufacturing Associate Facilitator

    Jan 2013 - Sept 2014
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  Johnson & Johnson MedTech

  Aug 2024 - now

  Business Unit Manager

  Will lead the San Angelo manufacturing team and will be directly responsible for driving key business results such as safety, quality, customer service, cost, strategic initiatives, and people development.