About
Jake Stevens
Industrial engineer. Kettering University. I have spent my career on plant floors in automotive, remanufacturing, protein processing, and regulated manufacturing — usually holding a stopwatch, occasionally holding a set of drawings I just produced.
Background
Trained where the co-op is the degree.
Kettering's industrial engineering program alternates academic terms with full-time industry work. You do not graduate having read about manufacturing; you graduate having worked in it, repeatedly, in different plants, with your coursework running in parallel.
My concentration work covered quality assurance and Six Sigma, international business, and the statistics and ergonomics sequence — design of experiments, hypothesis testing, statistical process control, and human factors. That last one matters more than it sounds: a large share of the losses I find on a floor are ergonomic in origin, and being able to test a workstation hypothesis against published population strength and dexterity norms rather than guessing is the difference between a fix and an opinion.
Since then the work has run across four sectors — heavy-duty diesel remanufacturing, automotive powertrain, poultry and protein processing, and medical device manufacturing. Different products, same underlying question: where is the time going, and what is the engineered fix?
Technical grounding
The specific things I can do myself.
Study & statistics
- Element-level time study
- Hypothesis testing and z-tests against published population data
- Design of experiments
- Statistical process control
- Capacity and staffing modelling
- Six Sigma methodology
Mechanical & process
- Fixture and workholding design to drawing standard
- Bill of material development and supplier sourcing
- Material selection — UHMW, silicone, titanium and alloy fastener stock
- Assembly and disassembly process sheets with torque and fastener control
- Automation cell layout and conversion
- Tolerance, surface finish, and hardness callouts
Management & compliance
- Management operating system design and deployment
- Short-interval control dashboards
- Supervisor development and field coaching
- AR and digital work instruction deployment
- Cleanroom and regulated-environment process change
- Ergonomic and biomechanical assessment
How I work
Four things worth knowing before you hire me.
I work the shift the problem is on.
If the loss happens on nights, I am there on nights. Sanitation-to-startup transitions do not reveal themselves during a day-shift plant tour.
I will tell you when nothing is wrong.
On the remanufacturing engagement, two stations were examined and reported as sound with no recommendations. A study that finds an opportunity everywhere it looks is not a study.
Operators are primary evidence.
When two operators independently complain about the same fixture, that is data. It is usually the most reliable data in the building, and it is almost always already in the room before the consultant arrives.
Every recommendation carries a number.
Problem, solution, estimated time saving. If I cannot attach an estimate to a recommendation, it is not ready to be a recommendation.
Want the detail behind any of this?
The full portfolio — drawings, time studies, deliverables, and authored white papers — is available under mutual NDA.