Dean H. Stanton · Selected Work
Multi-Site Manufacturing Automation & Labor Cost Reduction
Long-running manufacturing transformation spanning automation, tooling, process design, labor economics, planning, Lean methods, and operating-system leadership across a high-mix medical-device environment.
Results
Results and contributions.
The early and later phases are separate measurements and should not be added together.
01
Situation
Operating context
A labor-intensive, high-mix orthopedic medical-device manufacturer faced recurring pressure on cost, capacity, throughput, overtime, and schedule performance as product complexity and operating scale increased.
02
Challenge
What made the work difficult
Improvement required combining equipment and process changes with daily planning, labor management, and operating discipline across multiple manufacturing facilities.
03
Dean's role
Responsibility and authority
Dean's authority progressed from engineering leadership over automation, tooling, fixtures, and process design to operations leadership over labor, planning, capacity, and continuous improvement, and then to executive responsibility for the broader operating system.
04
Actions
How the work moved forward
- Applied time studies and routing redesign to identify labor-intensive constraints and improvement opportunities.
- Directed custom machinery, tooling, fixtures, and process changes across cutting, insertion, stamping, RF, slitting, gel-pack, and related manufacturing operations.
- Integrated process engineering with layouts, work instructions, planning, capacity management, Lean/JIT practices, root-cause analysis, and ERP/MES execution.
- Expanded the transformation from engineering-led improvements into broader multi-site operating and change leadership.