Download Manufacturing and Supply Chain Executive

Ian Ricketts
[email protected]
Merrick, NY
913-485-3132
www.linkedin.com/in/ianricketts
Manufacturing and Supply Chain Executive
Optimizing the performance of Operations to reduce costs and increase revenue
A multi-facetted, results driven, manufacturing and supply chain executive with exceptional hands-on leadership
skills who is focused on solution delivery through continuous improvement. Extensive functional leadership,
operations, process and strategy experience with consistent success at delivering exceptional results and
performance excellence. Ian develops and executes strategic plans, leads change, and drives improvements
through capabilities and programs, with a bias for action, financial awareness, and operational acumen.
Demonstrated leadership in building and inspiring diverse and high performing teams, coaching, challenging,
and stimulating each individual to achieve their full potential. Influences and actively drives cross-functional
collaboration with stakeholders and customers at all levels.
Core Strengths
Operations management
Change management
Continuous improvement TPM Distribution
Strategy and capabilities
Customer collaboration Planning and S&OP
Supplier management
Transformation leadership
Manufacturing
People development
Safety
Cross-functional alignment
Project management
Center of excellence
Communications
Key Achievements
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Implemented planning programs in Americas region that drove a 3 day inventory reduction year on year.
Secured an unprecedented $1.4 bil capital investment by development of a US supply chain strategy.
Achieved $50 mil savings through the development of a cost to serve program that was scaled globally
Generated an incremental $100 mil growth with Walmart by introducing and implementing on shelf
availability program and scorecard using data analysis and leading a ‘convergence’ program.
Led the world’s largest margarine manufacturing plant and turned around the plant operations and
performance: Operational efficiency from 65 to 74%, Waste from 3% to 0.21%, Safety TCIR from 7.1 to
0.5, Customer service 99.7%.
History of Driving Manufacturing and Supply Chain Performance
Solutions 4 Business, Morris Plains, NJ
Jan 2017- Present
Supply chain, manufacturing and systems consulting
Senior project management and supply chain consultant
B&G FOODS, Parsippany, NJ.
A mid-size food manufacturing company with $800 mil annual revenue
VP Supply Chain
April 2016 - Oct 2016
Led all day to day planning operations including inventory, deployment, supply and demand.
Accelerated the planning function’s integration of a significant business acquisition from General Mills: the
Green Giant brand, which represented a doubling of the overall business revenue.
Spearheaded the development and construction of a new organization, the implementation of a new automated
planning system, the introduction of new capabilities, inspired cross-functional alignment of supply chain, and
enabled a seamless transition of the Green Giant business.
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ORGANIC AVENUE, New York, NY.
A small private equity start-up food and juice manufacturing company with $20 mil annual revenue.
VP Manufacturing and Supply Chain
2014 - 2015
Designed and implemented a performance turnaround for the company with one manufacturing plant and 10
grab and go beverage and food stores in NYC, where the plant and supply chain operations and costs were out
of control and generating $500-800k monthly losses.
 Reduced plant fixed and variable costs by over 50% while improving service and operations.
 Implemented service agreements and collaborative supplier partnerships, initiated a systems overhaul,
reconfigured and implemented new supply chain processes including production planning, inventory
management, quality systems and labor planning, providing a springboard for profitable growth.
UNILEVER, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
Director, Planning Excellence, Americas, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
1986 - 2014
2013 - 2014
Recruited and developed a team of 10 expert planning managers and analysts in the deployment of new
planning capabilities and global best practices in North and Latin America. A leadership member of a global
center of excellence focused on planning and service. Evaluated marketplace needs in collaboration with local
country supply chain leadership. Defined, aligned and implemented local plans. Interfaced with global CoE
development team to
evaluate capability funnel. Scope included supply / demand planning and S&OP.
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Led programs that drove overall inventory reduction of 3 days across the Americas region
Drove and locally developed and implemented Demand Driven (Pull) methodology for 4 plant locations
in US with plans for full scale-up in US and over 100 plants globally. Achieved 30% inventory reduction
and improved service from plants to 98.5% from 85%. Improved agility by reducing freeze duration to
7days from 40 days, and released plant capacity for growth opportunities.
Facilitated a 2% to 0.2%, Improvement in forecast bias in Latin America, and 64.2% to 66.5%
improvement in forecast accuracy in North America and achieved a 5% to 50% Improvement in planner
compliance with an inventory optimization tool.
Director, Supply Chain Strategy, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
2012 - 2013
Developed a transformational, end to end supply chain strategy for North America, fully aligned with the overall
US business and global supply chain strategies. Led and implemented US supply chain strategy for
e-Commerce, specifically focused on Amazon. Pioneered the initial development and implementation of a
supply chain segmentation strategy.
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Won approval for $1.4 billion capital investment for supply chain.
Grew Amazon 30% in initial year of partnership.
Director, Customer Service, Trumbull, CT
2011 - 2012
Filled an interim organizational need by spearheading team of 4 managers and 40 analysts focused on order to
cash for all retail customers.
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Sustained the target case fill rate at 98% despite high demand volatility.
Director, Customer Service Excellence PMO, Trumbull, CT
2008 - 2011
Generated and executed a ground-breaking North America customer service excellence strategy. Designed,
built and led a new Customer Solutions organization and program. Pioneered a local US center of excellence,
developing supply chain capabilities and processes including OSA, ePOS, responsiveness (agility), cost to
serve, retail ready packaging, RFID, value stream mapping, and other customer collaboration tools. Engaged in
relevant and collaborative customer driven pilots. Oversaw all US supply chain activities related to training,
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communications, reporting, data analytics, and systems support, including local ERP system clean –up following
an SAP / APO transition.
Initiated and drove a collaborative ‘convergence’ program with Wal-Mart to explore game-changing opportunities
at enterprise level, partnering with a management consultant and identifying potential joint savings of $1 billion.
Utilized creative ideation techniques and clean room methodology to share data.
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Improvement from 65% to 90% of a newly developed customer case fill on time metric,
Over $50 million of global savings following cost to serve pilot program and subsequent global scale up.
Developed and executed programs to improve customer service operations rating to 98% from 88%
and customer service strategy rating to 99%from 78%.
Improved responsiveness from 22% to 70% of A/B sku’s by rigorous reinforcement of agreed actions.
Achieved improvement from 75% to 80% in OSA in drug channel using POS analytics.
Director, Customer Supply Chain, Trumbull, CT
2006 - 2008
Pioneered a new function and role. Directed and led supply chain strategy, collaboration and performance fully
aligned with US retail customers in mass, drug, value and club channels. Engaged in senior level influencing
and relationship building with customer leadership. Developed and implemented collaborative programs and
differentiated initiatives to collaboratively improve day to day service and logistics execution together with
alignment on longer term strategy and partnership. Initiated OSA measurement, improvement tools, and a
program work plan in partnership with Sales and customers. Co-designed and implemented new terms of sale.
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Generated $100 million incremental growth in WalMart through data analytics programs.
Produced 83% to 91% improvement in national OSA metric through loss tree analysis and actions.
Plant Director, New Century, KS.
World’s largest spreads manufacturing plant
2000 – 2006
Provided operational and strategic leadership of largest spreads plant globally: 10 managers, 30 salaried, 240
union employees, 22 production lines with annual production of 320 million pounds. $35 million operating
budget, 150 finished goods skus, distribution center, primarily make- to- order operations.
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Designed and led a plant leadership and operations performance turnaround.
Executed two significant capacity expansions with capital investment.
Implemented multiple line and process changes for marketing and innovation activity.
Led and implemented continuous improvement (six sigma) via TPM.
Negotiated 3 labor agreements, led and operated plant through an 8 week work stoppage.
Leadership and management of all inbound and outbound logistics operations in the refrigerated
distribution center.
Increased capacity by 75%, plant utilization to 85% from 35%, OE to 79% from 65%, plant waste to
0.21%from 1.4%, plant inventory to 6 days from 14 days, sustained customer service at 99.7%.
Led safety improvement to TCIR 0.5 from 3.6 through local programs and behavior based safety.
Oversight responsibilities for 4 additional plants in the spreads manufacturing network.
Previous Manufacturing Experience in Unilever in US and UK
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Manufacturing Manager US
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Engineering and Maintenance Manager US
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Project / Construction Manager UK
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Project Engineer UK
Education
MBA, University of Phoenix, CT
BSc (Hon), Mechanical Engineering, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, UK