2007 - Present:

Stihl - Virginia Beach Manufacturing Plant
Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA

I work for STIHL Inc., the American subsidiary of STIHL, the world famous manufacturer of Chainsaws and Outdoor Power Tools.

Me

My position is Staff Engineer in the Manufacturing Engineering department.

STIHL Plant in Virginia Beach

STIHL Chainsaw

We keep the production of our Chainsaws and Power Tools state of the art and cost effective at the Virginia Beach plant.

“The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent STIHL’s positions, strategies, or opinions.”

See my Resume/CV/Lebenslauf ...

2000 - 2007:

Nothelfer Inc. a Company of ThyssenKrupp Automotive
   Monterrey, Mexico
    Silao, Guanajuato, Mexico
     Greer, South Carolina, USA
      Coventry, United Kingdom

At work in the Greer Office

I worked for NothelferGilman, the American subsidiary of Drauz-Nothelfer GmbH, a company of ThyssenKrupp Automotive.

Greer South Carolina Office

Since 2001 I was head of the Nothelfer office in Greer, South Carolina, beginning with the installation of the Z4 Roadster assembly line at BMW in Greer, South Carolina.

Z4 Site Team

In the following years our team completed several After Market Service and optimization projects for BMW’s South Carolina plant, Magna's Piedmont plant, as well as DaimlerChrysler’s plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

BMW X5, also assembled on a Nothelfer Line

In 2006, the last year with Nothelfer, I managed two projects, designing, manufacturing, installing and commissioning Robotic MIG Welding Cells and an Overhead Transfer to Metalsa, a first tier supplier, in Monterrey, Mexico. This line will assemble Toyota Tundra frames for the Toyota plant in the US.

Metalsa Project, Monterrey, Mexico

In 2005 I took over Project Management to complete manufacturing, assembly and installation of Assembly Tools for the Chevrolet Avalanche and Suburban lines in the General Motors Plant in Silao, Mexico.

GM Project, Silao, Mexico

We worked together with Comau Pico in Mexico City, FFT (Flexible Fertigungstechnik) in Puebla and J.A. Krause in Queretaro.

Land Rover Assembly Line, Solihull, England

Before opening the office in Greer, SC, I worked in Nothelfer UK's office in Coventry, UK and managed the Land Rover L30 Assembly Line installation in Solihull, England.

1999:

Design Engineering Services
Wolverhampton, England

Robcad

After gaining valuable site experience I joined DESign in Wolverhampton (near Birmingham) to work in a Simultaneous Engineering environment, designing and programming production lines with the help of solid modelling tools such as CATIA and the factory simulation package ROBCAD.

1997 - 1999:

Automated System Services
Segensworth, England

After my studies I moved from Germany to England and began work with Automated System Services Ltd, a service supplier for the major automotive companies and line-builders in Europe. I initially started as a mechanical design engineer, but was soon able to pursue my special interest in robotics and controls. It was a very exciting time, designing, programming, manufacturing, installing and commissioning turnkey robot cells.

During the second of my two years at A.S.S. Ltd. I was assigned to assist Comau PICO in Germany during the Ford Focus launch where I eventually took responsibility for the commissioning and programming of over 250 robots and supervised and trained a team of 8 robot programmers.

Reducing Cycle Time

1990 - 1996:

RWTH Aachen University of Technology, MSc Degree
Aachen, Germany

My own exposure to the automotive industry began during my studies at the Aachen University of Technology in Germany (RWTH Aachen) where I studied Mechanical Engineering with Professor König, later specialising in Manufacturing Technlogy at the Machine Tool Laboratory (WZL Werkzeugmaschinenlabor) with Professor Manfred Weck.

I have a Master of Science (MSc) degree in Manufacturing Technlogy. In my dissertation with Dr.-Ing. Mike Girguis I developed and realized a CIM system for open-die forging, using an industrial robot and ROBCAD simulation.

See my Degree Certificate / Diplomzeugnis ...

KRC1 Utilities

I am the author of KRC1 Utilities, a visual basic for applications tool for off-line editing, formatting, printing and managing KUKA KRC1 robot programs on a PC.

I had a lot of fun programming the tools, and I thank all the users for their good feedback. However, KUKA has introduced the KRC2 by now, and I am no longer in robot programming. So unfortunately I can no longer support KRC1 Utilities.