Brian O'Higgins

Experience

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  Dell

  Mar 1996 - Oct 1998

  Production Engineer

  Role responsibilities: Enhancements of Production Line Capacity and Quality.Reporting to: Process Engineering Manager.High-volume manufacturing environment for customised orders. Fast-paced, dynamic business, demanding high quality standards.Responsible for the Engineering functions of laptop assembly lines – a role that involved:• Process development to increase line capacity and efficiency by up to 50%.• Process modifications for new product introduction projects.• Troubleshooting of day-to-day production issues.• Capacity planning, line balancing and upgrading of equipment, tools, jigs and fixtures.• Regular dealings with suppliers to source new equipment and tooling.• Project management of process enhancement projects to ensure necessary materials, resources, labour and finances were available and that project adhered to schedule. • Active member of team involved on Capital project in the relocation to new facility and major expansion of laptop assembly lines. Show less

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  Nortel Networks

  Oct 1998 - Oct 2010

  Role responsibilities: Technical Support & Training to Partners; Business Enhancement Projects; Business metrics & Reporting for process improvements.Reporting to: Commercial Tools Senior Manager.Technical Support & Training to Partners:• Provided daily email and phone support to EMEA Partners, assisting with quoting and ordering issues encountered using commercial and product-configuration software applications.• Target-driven role in high-volume environment.• Daily RCA on live order issues requiring knowledge of product and service offers, along with experience of IT product-configuration and commercial software applications.• Provided off-site classroom-based training for Partners on use of product-configuration and commercial tools.Business Enhancement Projects:• Defined and documented the requirements from Support Team in order to migrate tracking of support requests for Nortel proprietary system to HP Service Manager.• Technical Lead from Support Team when introducing ClearQuest defect tracking system into team’s workflow. • Lead the overhaul of defect categorization utilized by Support Team to improve granularity in results for metrics reporting.Business Metrics:• Generated monthly performance metrics on all aspects of activity by the Global Support Teams that were presented to Senior Management and on Partner forums.• Produced weekly ‘Known Issues’ report for product-configuration tools used by Partners to inform them of issues in tools prior to scheduled fixes and provide workaround instructions where available.• Had shared responsibility for circulating update notifications to Partners regarding tool up-issues or to highlight temporary issues within tools.• Compiled and maintained User Guide for primary product-configuration tool used by Global Partners. Show less Role responsibilities: Process Enhancements for Customer Service Dept.Reporting to: Customer Service Manager• Active member of team involved in acceptance testing of SAP ERP system prior to implementation into the Order Management team in Galway.• Assisted with training local Order Management team members (20+) on use of SAP and new interfacing system (GQMS).• Supported introduction of new products into Order Management team. Worked with cross-functional groups such as Product Managers, Product Registrars and Order Fulfilment team to define requirements of Order Management team.• Key member of team that worked on identifying trends in Software Manufacturing process to reduce / remove high-impacting issues to improve ‘Right-First-Time’ business metrics on processed orders. Show less Role responsibilities: Devise and Implement Interim Ordering Procedures.Reporting to: Customer Service Manager.• Key member of Order Management team involved in acceptance testing of manual workaround process implemented in product-configuration tool to facilitate timely go-to-market of NPI prior to availability of fully integrated online solution.• Supported the Order Management team on new product introductions from the ‘Applications’ product portfolio, providing relevant process training to Customer Order Managers prior to product releases. Show less Role responsibilities: Support and Drive Improvements in Order Quality.Reporting to: Order Validation Manager.• Responsible for troubleshooting content issues on live orders from Partners. • Worked with team Manager to improve First Pass Yield on new customer orders by almost 15% over 6-month period. Achieved by gathering and analysing data on content missing from new orders. Provided feedback to Partner contacts identifying individual offenders and to NPI Engineers to implement preventative measures where possible. Show less

  • Commercial Tools Support Engineer

    May 2003 - Oct 2010

  • Customer Operations Process Engineer

    Sept 2001 - Apr 2003

  • Order Management Process Engineer

    Jan 2000 - Aug 2001

  • Order Validation Engineer

    Oct 1998 - Dec 1999
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  Avaya

  Oct 2010 - Oct 2016

  IT QA Test Lead (Senior Applications Analyst III)

  Role responsibilities: Test strategy prep; test case design & execution; test resource planning & supervision; defect capture & management; progress status reporting.Reporting to: IT QA Senior Manager and IT QA Director.• Lead-role for QA testing activities on 30 IT projects in past 3 years that delivered estimated direct savings to Avaya of over $5M; targeted revenue increases of around $30M; and enhanced existing processes by reducing workflow up to 20% on certain process flows.• Responsible for leading the QA test effort on multiple consecutive projects within a global team. Worked with Project Managers, Business Analysts, Technical Leads, Development Managers and Development Leads. Reporting to the Project Team, Senior Management and Department Directors.• ISTQB Certified Software Tester at Foundation Level. Show less

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  Dataworks Limited

  Apr 2017 - Jul 2017

  Software Validation Engineer

  Based in Boston Scientific, Galway.

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  Planet

  Jul 2017 - Feb 2020

  Software Test Engineer in an Agile environment.

  • Senior Software QA Tester

    Oct 2019 - Feb 2020

  • Software Test Engineer

    Jul 2017 - Sept 2019
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  Channel Mechanics

  Feb 2020 - now

  Channel Mechanics offers a cloud-based Channel Enablement platform delivered as a low cost SaaS model, channel enablement as a service (CeaaS).

  • QA Manager

    Jan 2022 - now

  • Senior Software QA Engineer

    Feb 2020 - Jan 2022