Richard Sullivan

Experience

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  United States Marine Corps

  Jan 1985 - Jan 1988

  Logistics Officer - Captain

  RESPONSIBILITY PROFILE: Led several units with up to 84 Marines responsible for maintenance and transportation support, with annual budgets averaging $7M and assets managed of $38M. Held secret clearance.► Increased productivity 24% with implementation of best practice maintenance processes.► Reduced customer complaints 65% by developing and establishing quality control procedures.

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  Carpenter Technology

  Jan 1988 - Jan 2008

  CORPORATE PROFILE: A $2B manufacturer and distributor of high-performance specialty materials and advanced products with 4,500 employees operating in 14 countries and serving aerospace, medical, energy, electronics, automotive, and industrial products industries.RESPONSIBILITY PROFILE: Budget: $4M OPEX: $350K CAPEX, 47 FTE and 371 PTE employees with 7 direct. Accepted added responsibility to lead operational standardization, best practice exchange, and technical training globally. ► PROFIT FOCUS RESTORATION: Selected by the CEO to lead a strategic corporate-wide initiative to build a profit minded culture within the largest division (350,000 orders per year). Investigation revealed a cultural preference for technical challenge vs. a profit driven focus. Built the strategy and implementation roadmap, conducted leadership training, and coached and mentored through implementation. Reduced complexity 30%, order support costs 24%, fixed costs $4.8M, inventory holding costs $3.2M, and eliminated $16M obsolescence for $24M total benefits. Show less RESPONSIBILITY PROFILE: Budget: $2.6M OPEX: $200K CAPEX, 33 FTE and 289 PTE employees with 6 direct. Role responsibility increased to lead Quality Systems (ISO 9001, ISO/TS 16949, AS9100, Nadcap) and to expand CI focus to achieve Lean transformation. ► PROFIT OPTIMIZATION VIA LEAN: Chosen by the Executive Management Team to lead an organization-wide strategy and execution to capitalize on waste reduction opportunities in manufacturing and business processes. Proposed and led implementation of Lean Enterprise (a fundamental shift for CI at the time) founded on Kaizen and Value Stream activities. Identified improvements in waste, cycle times, strategic alliances, and productivity. Developed messaging and collaborated closely with functional leaders to hone the strategy. Reduced major product line cycle times by ~55%, improved strategic customer alliance benefit 10 – 15% with an average of ~$500K in new revenue, and achieved productivity improvement via standardization throughout 13 business units for a total cash contribution of $112M over 8 years. Show less RESPONSIBILITY PROFILE: Budget: $1M OPEX: $100K CAPEX, 13 FTE and 122 PTE employees with 5 direct. Promoted by the CEO to lead a continuous improvement (CI) culture change, plan, and execute Lean and Six Sigma methods and to manage large, complex, high-visibility projects.► SIX SIGMA IMPLEMENTATION: Challenged to improve yields, quality, and eliminate product and service variations. Built a CI leadership team and deployed Six Sigma including Design for Six Sigma, Quality Function Deployment (QFD), and Designed Experiments. Trained and managed a staff of Master Black Belts responsible for the identification and deployment of 3,139 formal CI and Six Sigma projects and used Change Acceleration Process to drive cultural change. Achieved 84% reduction in DPMO and improved quality levels of critical processes from 3σ to 4σ. These efforts yielded $238M in validated OPEX savings over 10 years. ► MULTIPLE M&A ASSESSMENTS; STRATEGY & INTEGRATION: Chosen to assess operational opportunities and deploy CI as key part of M&A activity. Assessed operational effectiveness, CI maturity, identified synergies with substantial benefits. Once acquired, launched CI to capture synergy and start progression to permanent CI culture. This was achieved for 14 acquisitions in 23 global locations over 4 years, delivering $5M in validated bottom-line benefits. Developed and executed standard practices served as templates for subsequent acquisitions. Show less SPECIALTY ALLOYS DIVISIONAL PROFILE: A $1B manufacturer and distributor with 2,700 employees producing stainless steels, high temperature, high strength, magnetic, medical and controlled expansion alloys, tool and die steels, and other specialty grades in long product form.BAR PRODUCTS PROFILE: Bar Products develops and manufactures a broad range of stainless steels, high strength alloy steels, medical alloys, bearing steels, valve steels, tool and die steels, and other specialty grades in round, hexagonal and special shaped bar products.RESPONSIBILITY PROFILE: Full P&L - $468M, Budget: $74M OPEX + $6M CAPEX, 691 FTE with 6 direct + 4 matrixed reports. Responsible for 4-plants producing specialty alloys for aerospace, automotive, electronic, industrial, medical, and consumer products industries.► PROFIT IMPROVEMENT: Conceived and drove collaboration initiatives between Sales and Manufacturing for Bar Products, a $468M Business Unit. Increased shipments 13%, improved on-time deliveries 12%, reduced WIP inventory $6M, decreased cycle times 50% on high demand items (saving $13M in finished inventory) and reduced work-related injuries 20% the first year. This delivered $20.5M profit increase and $1M in cost savings. This distinguished the division as the highest performing and resulted in a promotion to lead overall CI.► CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT: Charged with developing customer engagement strategies to improve profit. Determined to increase value/service to customer base, established a leadership team to establish team-based goals, developed and implemented market / product service strategy, and defined and instituted Voice of the Customer projects using QFD methods. Financial benefits averaged $250K and share improved an average of 10% per strategic customer, delivering $8.5M in new profit. Show less Selected to develop and lead a new function with responsibility for exploiting IT to help advance corporate strategic goals. Guided the IT management group in developing strategic plans and served as an IT consultant to top management.► Formed an Executive Steering Committee to prioritize and communicate direction for a $30 million portfolio of corporate IT initiatives.► Launched numerous IT service process improvement initiatives that generated $1.2 million in annual savings.► Selected by the COO to re-engineer corporate logistics. Eliminated 20 distribution sites, saving $22 million. Show less Developed tactical capacity plans, processed demand information, and led the scheduling, loading, and synchronous execution of customers' orders for an $850 million business unit. Led a staff of 76 through 6 direct report managers.► Chaired a cross-functional team formed to work within 6 major manufacturing plants containing 22 departments that improved the achievement of operational goals established in the manufacturing plan from 61% to 95%.► Initiated the use of strategic outsourcing, increasing incremental profit by $1 million over a 1 year period.► Evaluated and re-engineered the order management processes, saving $2 million annually.► Recipient of the highest marks for departmental leadership as established through a corporate employee survey. Show less Led three departments. Responsible for packaging and shipping 168,000 orders annually, operating a central warehouse, running internal plant logistics requiring 550,000 moves annually, and providing facility maintenance and services for 101 plant and office buildings containing 3.2 million square feet on 371 acres. Managed 214 employees through 6 direct reports with operating and freight budgets totaling $45 million.► Slashed freight costs by 29% ($6 million in annual savings) through lane analysis and carrier consolidation.► Improved shipment accuracy to 99.998% (less than two errors per 100,000 orders) with CI teams and RFID and bar coding technologies.► Saved $650,000 annually by substituting custom wood boxes with easily modifiable fiberboard crates. Show less Responsible for developing and conducting mobile equipment replacement, as well as preventive and predictive maintenance programs for a 464 piece mobile fleet totaling $15 million in assets.► Orchestrated the use of pro-active processes for vehicle maintenance and replacement, generating annual savings of $380,000 as a result of decreased repairs and emergency rentals.► Facilitated and trained numerous process improvement teams with a focus on safety, environmental management, material handling, training development, problem-solving methodologies and leadership development. Show less

  • General Manager, Quality, Continuous Improvement & Standardized Operations

    Jan 2004 - Jan 2008

  • General Manager, Quality, Continuous Improvement

    Jan 2001 - Jan 2004

  • General Manager, Continuous Improvement

    Jan 1999 - Jan 2001

  • General Manager, Bar Products, Specialty Alloys Division

    Jan 1997 - Jan 1999

  • Manager - Business Technology

    Jan 1996 - Jan 1997

  • Manager - Material Resource Synchronization

    Jan 1994 - Jan 1996

  • Manager - Shipping & Plant Services

    Jan 1992 - Jan 1994

  • Supervisor - Mobile Equipment

    Jan 1988 - Jan 1992
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  Harsco Corporation

  Jan 2009 - Jan 2014

  CORPORATE PROFILE: A $3B worldwide industrial services and manufacturing company with 18,500 employees operating in 54 countries serving some of world’s largest, most essential infrastructure industries including metals, minerals, energy, railways, and construction.RESPONSIBILITY PROFILE: Budget: $40M-OPEX, $2M-CAPEX, 452 F/T + 154 P/T employees with 9 direct + 4 matrixed reports. Corporate Officer reporting to CEO. Accepted added responsibility for leading and managing global Environmental, Health & Safety and formal Quality functions and processes.► EARNINGS RESTORATION: Introduced and led Strategy-to-Execution methods (Policy Deployment - Hoshin Kanri) after lack of management visibility led to performance gaps and ultimately 9 straight quarters’ missed earnings targets. Implemented process via holistic KPIs/metrics, and reporting, review, and gap analysis cadence to ensure execution. Assembled, trained, coached, and mentored a team of business and process leaders in development, global deployment, and enablement in 90 days. Achieved standardization in 9 months and within the year, met earnings plan.► ENVIRONMENTAL, HEALTH & SAFETY (EH&S): Recruited by the CEO after unacceptable EH&S performance. Investigation revealed a fragmented approach for 18,500 colleagues in 400 locations across 54 countries. Created and evangelized EH&S strategy, built team, developed processes, led training, and oversaw execution. Within the year, reduced major injuries 70%, days away 50%, and recordable injuries 54%, an all-time best in every category. This established the framework for a culture of engagement, proactive risk identification, teamwork, and zero harm. Show less RESPONSIBILITY PROFILE: Budget: $21M-OPEX, $1.5M-CAPEX, 236 F/T + 124 P/T employees with 12 direct. CEO report. Developed, implemented, and led the future state supply chain strategy including sourcing and procurement, logistics and fulfillment, inventory, and demand planning.► $100M+ SUPPLY CHAIN OPTIMIZATION: Years of acquisitions without integrating supply chain led costs to spiral out of control. Challenged by senior leadership to optimize the supply chain ($1.6B total spend, 30K+ suppliers, $214M in inventory). Led investigation, strategy, and built roadmap. Established a new supply chain team and led execution. Evolved demand and supply planning, inventory management, global sourcing, category and supplier relationship management, logistics, and risk management. These efforts delivered $105M in total cash benefit over 5 years. Show less RESPONSIBILITY PROFILE: Budget: $3M-OPEX, $500K-CAPEX, 33 F/T + 76 P/T employees. Reported to CEO, Corporate Officer. Recruited by the CEO to lead Continuous Improvement culture change across the company through the planning and implementation of Lean and Six Sigma methodologies.► CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT: Recruited to develop the strategy and lead a company-wide transformation into a CI culture. Built, trained, certified and developed CI leadership team and led planning and execution using Lean and Six Sigma methods. Identified opportunities in safety, quality, delivery, and productivity. Implementation founded on Leadership, Communications, Teamwork, Project Selection, and Methods & Tools. Within 2 years, this resulted in $22M Operating Expense (OPEX) savings, ultimately achieving $98M over 6 years.► BUSINESS SYSTEM / OPERATING MODEL DEVELOPMENT: Headed ELT in creation and launch of Harsco Business System (HBS) to deliver competitive advantage leading to superior and sustained performance earning the company the right to invest successfully. Led process of crafting vision, identifying system elements, defining corporate parenting strategy and governance, establishing and managing global implementation plan, and deploying best practice processes and tools. Held full functional responsibility for the three HBS elements of CI, EH&S, and Strategic Planning. This instilled and globally scaled best practice processes for Talent Management, CI, EH&S, Strategic Planning, M&A, and Innovation. Show less

  • VP Business Transformation, EH&S, Chief Supply Chain Officer

    Jan 2012 - Jan 2014

  • Vice President Business Transformation, Chief Supply Chain Officer

    Jan 2010 - Jan 2012

  • Vice President Business Transformation

    Jan 2009 - Jan 2010
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  Fortius Management Consulting

  Jan 2015 - Jan 2017

  Vice President Operational Excellence

  A boutique consulting firm providing Business Transformation, Strategy, Operational Excellence and Supply Chain analysis and solution implementation. Primarily serving micro and small cap global industrial products and services firms.Partnered with existing firm leadership to expand offerings beyond sourcing and procurement to provide strategic and large-scale transformational solutions for clients.Select Client Accomplishments:► CUSTOMER SERVICE & PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT: Newly acquired B/U by client required significant improvement to customer service and EBITDA performance levels. Through objective assessment against benchmarks, best practices, and voice of the customer, identified solutions to improve customer service, increase productivity, enhance cost control, and instill foundation for a culture of continuous improvement. Over two years, reliability to customers through On-Time In-Full delivery improved from 92% to 99.8%, operating costs reduced 6.5% delivering $343K in bottom-line improvement, and productivity increased 27% resulting in $2.2M increase in profitability.► STRATEGIC / LONG RANGE PLANNING: Tactically focused client lacked vision and strategy for growing $40M North American commodity B/U into a value-added services leader across all Americas. Facilitated executive team and key leaders in developing first ever Long Range Plan using strategic, capital and multi-generational product planning methods; market / competitive analyses; opportunity assessment, and targeted strategic alliances. Delivered clear and feasible strategic imperatives, strategies, and action plans to grow EBITDA by 252% over five years. Show less

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  MiTek

  Jan 2018 - May 2023

  • Vice President, Continuous Improvement and Project Management

    Mar 2021 - May 2023

  • Vice President, Global Supply Chain

    Mar 2020 - Feb 2021

  • Vice President, Continuous Improvement and Supply Chain, Global Residential

    Oct 2018 - Feb 2020

  • Vice President, Enterprise Operational Excellence

    Jan 2018 - Oct 2018