PROFESSIONAL PROFILE
Strong analytical, observational, and critical thinking skills in the Metallurgical Engineering field, as well as a proven ability to identify problems and formulate effective solutions. Highly experienced working with customers to develop products exceeding expectations, and collaborating with suppliers to address material quality concerns and functionality improvement.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
KAISER ALUMINUM FABRICATED PRODUCTS, Kalamazoo, MI 2009 – Present
Metallurgical Engineer
Responsible for Quality Assurance laboratory operation involving all facets of product, process, metallurgical engineering and quality assurance of extruded aluminum alloy shapes and cast aluminum alloy extrusion log; provided technical service and support to manufacturing.
Coordinated installation and set up of QA laboratory during start up phase of new Kaiser Aluminum production facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Responsible for all QA laboratory operations, including product mechanical testing, dimensional analysis, chemical testing, and final inspection, as well as laboratory equipment procurement, maintenance, and supplies.
Implemented and maintain production facility instrument gage calibration system.
• Supervise eight QA laboratory technicians and coordinate manpower and workload.
• Responsible for product heat treatment processes and coordination of thermal processing equipment temperature control surveys and calibration.
• Maintain cast house optical emission spectrometer operation, maintenance and alloy programs.
DANA AUTOMOTIVE SYSTEMS GROUP TECHNOLOGY CENTER, Maumee, OH 2007 – 2009
Metallurgical Engineer
Responsible for materials laboratory analysis of automotive driveline components; provided technical service and support to product/applications engineering, manufacturing and customers.
Identified important welding process alignment issues that had led to poor weld strength in prototype parts, which allowed the process to be corrected before component driveshaft went into final production.
Determined a low strength problem in pre-production differential carriers was caused by improperly fabricated parts, and made it possible to address the problem in carrier manufacture before potential serious failures could occur in vehicles.
Analyzed unusual fatigue failures in aluminum axle carriers under development testing and identified fracture cause, which resulted in the determination of a design inadequacy in the part that was able to be resolved before final customer production testing.
• Performed failure analysis of defective components encountered during manufacture.
• Carried out metallurgical evaluations to determine cause of rejections.
• Investigated material properties of prototype components.
• Evaluated materials performance of in-house destructively tested assemblies and parts.
• Provided metallurgical analysis of new component designs for product development.
• Performed metallurgical evaluation of rejected and warranty returned parts from customers.
HYDRO ALUMINUM ADRIAN, NORSK HYDRO, Adrian, MI 1997 – 2007
Plant Metallurgist
Responsible for metallurgical laboratory operation encompassing all aspects of product, process, metallurgical engineering and quality control of aluminum alloy extruded heat exchanger tubing and forged pistons; provided technical service and support to manufacturing and customers.
Reduced billet butt scrap through analysis of the extrusion process, and saved more than ½ million pounds of aluminum billet per year. Increased extrusion productivity by approximately $450,000 of finished tube through a reduction in total production dead cycle time.
Identified inadequate level of NDT inspection in finished tube product and developed optimized settings of test equipment sensitivity to detect product defects, which resulted in more than a 90% reduction in customer rejects of tubing.
Analyzed forging slug and extrusion billet suppliers’ processes and identified inadequacies in the production processes that had led to increased levels of contaminants in their products. Collaboration with suppliers resulted in a reduction of more than $300,000 in potential die costs over a year’s time.
Improved analysis of tube product quality issues and failures to accurately identify in-house versus customer caused product defects, which substantially increased customer confidence in Hydro Aluminum products and investigative techniques.
• Developed and refined raw material specifications to improve quality and functionality of incoming materials utilized in product manufacture.
• Collaborated with raw material suppliers to investigate, analyze, and address quality issues involving raw material shipment logistics, alloy development and applicability to end product, and metallurgical and functional process problems affecting product manufacture.
• Developed and implemented new lab quality inspection requirements and testing equipment specifically designed to improve form, fit, and function of product in customer’s application.
• Authored several hundred lab analysis reports as a function of technical support to manufacturing.
• Provided customer technical support with analysis reports, and application, alloy selection, processing, and material related questions.
• Investigated and resolved customer complaints involving product, materials and process issues.
PENN ALUMINUM, MARMON GROUP, Murphysboro, IL 1992 – 1997
Product Applications Engineer/Metallurgist
Responsible for product, process, metallurgical engineering and quality control of aluminum alloy extruded shapes and drawn tubing; provided technical service and support to manufacturing and customers.
Identified critical extrusion qualit...
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