Jim Underwood

About Jim Underwood

High-energy, highly versatile leader with a progressive career history including plant P&L. Ability to draw from shop floor engineering and management experience to relate to and engage all levels of the organization. Skilled in waste elimination through the use of Lean tools such as Value Stream Mapping, Kaizen Methodology, One-Piece-Flow, SMED, Poka-Yoke, 5S, and TPM. Successful in developing a plant management team focused on driving and achieving key plant metrics in the areas of safety, quality, delivery and cost.Specialties: Policy deployment, Operations management, KPI management, Lean manufacturing

Experience

1. Sr Vice President Operations

   PlayCore

   Apr 2012 — Present

   Jim is responsible for providing overall direction and guidance to the operational activities of PlayCore, implementing programs to ensure the attainment of the business plan for growth and profit. Divisional General Managers work directly with Jim in the areas of operations and manufacturing. His corporate responsibilities also includes: Global Sourcing, IT, and Compliance.

Education

• Tennessee Technological University

  BS, Mechanical Engineering

  1988 — 1990

• Union University

  MBA, Business Management

  1997 — 1999

Skills

• Operations Management
• Dmaic
• Operational Excellence
• Kanban
• Plant Management
• Quality Management
• Manufacturing Engineering
• Lean Sigma
• Supply Chain
• Spc
• Process Engineering
• Root Cause Analysis
• Continuous Improvement
• Cross-Functional Team Leadership
• Key Performance Indicators
• Toyota Production System
• Kaizen
• Smed
• 5s
• Tpm
• Lean Manufacturing
• Manufacturing
• Manufacturing Management
• Six Sigma
• Iso
• Cost Reduction
• Value Stream Mapping
• Process Improvement