SENIOR OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE
I deliver where the traditional approach has failed.
Build. Fix. Scale.
Turnaround · Greenfield · Scale-Up
Six Sigma Black Belt · GE Lean Green Belt · Kepner-Tregoe · Named Patent Inventor · Victor, NY
Create the foundation.
Systems, teams, and infrastructure built from scratch or the floor up — greenfield launches, org design, ERP architecture.
Diagnose root cause, not symptoms.
Cross-domain data overlay surfaces what function-based reporting hides. Stabilize first, then optimize.
Multiply what works.
Take proven operations and expand without degrading performance — multi-site rollout, capacity expansion, integration.
Create the foundation. Build what didn't exist.
Former site leadership proposed a $1.5M capex — approved by management — to solve what was not actually the problem.
Flagship site. 12-month mandate: improve or close. Filtration downtime attributed to equipment inadequacy. The actual constraint was a detection-delay and single-housing architecture problem.
The coating baseline in place could not support commercial production. The unit economics simply didn't work.
Coating baseline established at process launch was economically unviable — triple the optimal application rate with over a gallon of overspray per unit. Unit economics could not sustain commercial production at that specification.
Diagnose root cause. Stabilize. Then optimize.
Nobody had noticed because nobody was looking at the data against the prior economic model.
500 employees, 24/7, 19 nationalities. A prior CI initiative had replaced economic run quantity discipline with make-to-order — breaking the sequencing wheel and collapsing cost absorption.
Five hundred people. Seven shifts. Nineteen nationalities. Assembly output not moving.
Despite the machining recovery, assembly output remained stalled. The operation required a complete redesign — floor layout, role assignment, and operating model — executed across one of the most complex workforce environments in the engagement portfolio.
Neither the supply chain director nor the Manufacturing director could see the pattern from their own seat.
Plant Manager scope: x-ray lines, digital detectors, NDT, pooled-asset refurbishment. Material outages paralyzing production. Directed elsewhere for months — root cause identified in 20 minutes once the right data sets were overlaid.
Multiply what works. Expand without degrading performance.
A greenfield that had failed to launch for two years. The operational foundation believed to exist did not.
120K sq ft facility stalled at launch. Week one surfaced cascading installation failures, a critical resignation, and an FM Global audit failure looming. Senior leadership restructuring 30 days post-arrival added instability on top of operational failure.
Cost-cutting logic that appeared rational in each individual decision, catastrophic in aggregate.
~$125M DTC meal-kit manufacturer. Newark greenfield stalled 3 months in. Productivity: 1 order/man-hr vs 6-unit target. 150 of 170 workforce were unvetted temps with no screening process in place.
Senior Operations Executive · Build. Fix. Scale.
toddkayhart@yahoo.com · 518‑775‑9264 · linkedin.com/in/todd-kayhart · Victor, NY
I deliver where the traditional approach has failed.