Gert Plenge

Experience

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  Nilfisk-Advance

  Mar 1995 - May 1995

  Consultant for Kelly Services A/S

  Temporary consultant at Nilfisk through Kelly Services A/S.• Supporting mechanical designers in 3D CAD & drawing development. • Acting as a super user in Pro/Engineer, creating 3D CAD models from paper drawings & sketches. • Creation of Drawings based on completed 3D CAD.

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  Nokia

  May 1995 - Jun 2012

  • Identifying & leading activities and change projects to improve the mechanics working methods across R&D sites in Symbian Smartphones Mechanics, its stakeholders and suppliers.• Supporting the mechanics leadership team, project leaders and designers in Denmark, England, Finland (3 sites) and US in operational, process, competence and strategy issues.• Utilizing coaching, training and management of virtual networks, leading to a harmonization of the ways of working for Symbian Mechanics from a site to a global focus, taking cultures into account.• Active involvement and influencing contributions to the renewal of Nokia Product Development Process for future success in the Smartphones business. Show less • Development of the Mechanics Process Solution throughout Nokia R&D, incl. process descriptions, work instructions, templates, presentations & training materials and webpages for sharing the process solution. • Stakeholder improvement projects to improve specify and agree process interfaces and deliverables, e.g. within Sourcing and Industrial Design, where several improvements was made in cooperation based on my leadership. • First full understanding of the process & deliveries between Industrial Design & Mechanics established with significant improvements on cooperation between the two functions.• Setup and leading virtual networks for development in areas of process, competences & quality (SixSigma FAI, Capability & Process control and visual quality). • Based on collected inputs, setting requirements towards Nokia CAD & PLM systems from mechanics and follow up on their implementation. • Mechanical representative in Nokia cross-functional process networks responsible for the development of Nokia wide business processes, supporting other functions in their process definitions and applications.• Participation in strategy creation and implementation as member of the Leadership team in my group. Show less Direct manager of up to 12 technical supporters.• Successfully developed the team from individual contributors, with many years of internal conflicts, into a unified flexible team.• In the transformation, ending and hiring of new employees was necessary, together with performance discussions & salary negotiations, one-on-one employee discussions and planning of competence development.• Use of Lean tools and strategies in the development of the team, it’s internal and external cooperation and support to our projects designers, project leaders and stakeholders was essential to improve the work methods, efficiency, quality of work and employee satisfaction.• Several of these improvements were transferred to other sites. Show less Process development & implementation in mechanics in Copenhagen.• Guiding and training designers & project leaders in processes and tools, as well as interfacing functions and externally to mechanical suppliers from all regions.• Support to other sites by working in a specialist team to develop & implement best practices in the mechanics process portfolio. • Resulting in well-known and implemented processes across mechanics in Nokia. • Respected outside mechanics as state of the art, the team was leading process development activities, both locally & globally within mechanical engineering, cross functional stakeholders & suppliers.• Ownership of several cross functional activities in Nokia Denmark, resulting in an aligned & improved product development process in Nokia Copenhagen.• Representation of the Copenhagen site and partly other Mobile Phones sites in the Nokia Corporate process network, improving the entire Nokia process system. Show less Support of mechanical projects by guidance and training of the designers & project leaders in technical & process matters. • Execution of technical reviews of mechanical constructions, drawings and documentation.• Technical expert in project milestone reviews on the Nokia 3310 family – the mobile phone produced and sold in the highest volumes in the world and the 6210 & 6310 - Nokia’s most successful business phone at the time.• Participation to and organizer of a small team developing guides, processes & tools for a “Just in Time” strategy project. • Resulting in improved project execution and competencies, together with enhanced process understanding & implementation, like; • Enhanced clarity in specification with standard layout & reduced amount of dimensions, but raised drawing & component quality. • Improved usage of Geometrical Dimensioning & Tolerance competences & use. • Reducing time for component approvals from up to several weeks down to 1 day. • Improved supplier satisfaction & cooperation.• Supporting the further development & implementation of the project results to all Nokia’s development sites. Show less Mechanical Project Leader for the Nokia 3210, past its public launch – Being one of Nokia’s top selling products, produced in more than 50 million products, it was part of enabling mobile phones to the mass market. • My team, consisting of 4 mechanical designers, supported our suppliers and production in error tracing, investigations & corrections, production optimization and cost reduction activities.• Prioritizing and delegating work tasks, planning & reporting, as well as executing project review meetings.• The team was recognized at suppliers and Nokia production facilities for its high visibility and involvement in problem solving. Show less Participation in the design & development of the Nokia phone models 6080, 3110 & 3210. The last two being some of the first phones designed with the mass consumer in mind and supported Nokia in reaching its market leader position.• Working with the industrial designers, supporting shaping the design of the phones, developing the mechanical construction and interfaces to the electronics with fellow mechanical designers. • Construction and specification of the outer plastic covers, management of a set of global suppliers in Europe and APAC, with participating in supplier meetings, visits and audits.• Component approvals, error investigations and production support at our suppliers and in the Nokia production facilities across Europe, South Korea and China.• Supporting colleagues with coaching and training in 3D CAD as a super user, Nokia tools and processes enabling a faster learning curve, with increased output as a result. Show less

  • Operational Development Specialist, Mechanics

    Nov 2009 - Jun 2012

  • Global Process Solution Owner, Mechanics

    Mar 2008 - Oct 2009

  • Team Leader, Mechanics Documentation Team

    Jan 2005 - Feb 2008

  • Process Manager, Mechanics, Specialist

    Nov 2001 - Feb 2008

  • Specialist, Mechanics

    May 1999 - Nov 2001

  • Mechanical Project Leader

    Aug 1998 - May 1999

  • Design & Senior Design Engineer, Mechanics

    May 1995 - Aug 1998
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  Sonion

  Jun 2012 - Jan 2017

  Project Management of mechanical and electro-mechanical customer projects within supply to the hearing aid industry.• Leading role in the project, from first engagement with customer, until final release and ramp-up of production in our production plants in Asia.• Tasks including all aspects of project management and leadership. Managed with use of standard milestone process, combined with Lean tools like visual planning, rapid learning cycles and knowledge gap and key decision management.• Coaching and guiding project members and sub-project leads for decision making, work methods and successful fulfillment of project goals.Strategic Change Project Management, facilitation or participation of to improve the workmethods and process descriptions for development projects, locally as well as globally in the organization.Supporting Head of Department in development of the department in regards to both team development, daily operations, strategies etc. Show less Interim assignment as Process EngineerSupport to MicroMechanics Development department in improving all aspects of the development process and its implementation. • Current state analysis of project execution and quality problems.• Defining and roll out of improvement projects in areas of Project Execution, Roles & Responsibilities (inside & across functions), Documentation Quality and Part, Tool & Process verification.• Introducing Lean Development & Design for SixSigma into the R&D. • Improvement of designers competences and the quality of documentation by training & coaching. Show less

  • Project Manager

    Dec 2012 - Jan 2017

  • Process Engineer

    Jun 2012 - Dec 2012
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  MechExcellence

  Feb 2017 - now

  Founder

  With MechExcellence I facilitates improvements within;- Assessment & Development of Mechanical Development Processes, Methods & Tools- Project Management of Product Development, Change and Strategic projects- Assessment and Support for Product Development Process Creation, Renewal and Implementation- Coaching/"sparring"/Sounding Board for the mechanical team and management.MechExcellence can also perform Project Management of product development, change and strategic projects on a consulting base. See more on www.mechexcellence.com on how I can help your company to bring your product development methods to the next level. Show less

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  GRAS Sound & Vibration

  Oct 2017 - May 2024

  Leading a team of 5 in the mechanical department in RDClose cooperation with VP R&D on strategy, workmodes, processes and change projects for the full RD departmentLeading several cross functional product and change projects supporting GRAS to reach its strategy targets on both product development and improved cross functional work methods & tools.As project leader, I take responsibility for the project from initiation until launch, having top-level cross functional responsibility of RD, operations and Sales & Marketing activities. Show less

  • Quality Manager

    May 2023 - May 2024

  • Mechanics Design Manager & Project Leader

    Oct 2017 - Aug 2023
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  Axiometrix Solutions

  Dec 2023 - now

  Quality Manager

  Quality Department Manager for the 3 Product Lines in Axiometrix; GRAS Sound & Vibration (DK), imc Testmeasurements (GE) & Audio Precision (US).Heading implementation of new quality management system (Grand Avenue Software) throughout Axiometrix Solutions.