A Letter from Kathleen Holmes

Hi Dr. Svestka,

Below there are a couple of pictures of me with my implementation team in our facility in Torreon, Mexico.

I am completing a project to move the manufacturing operations of 90% of Lincoln's leads and harnesses that are used here in Cleveland during assembly of our machines.

This project requires use of all the core Industrial Engineering skills and good people skills. There are the additional benefits of getting an expense paid trips to Mexico and a great salary. My salary is higher now than when I worked in production, working 58 hours a week. Lincoln pays their production workers very well.

Also, a lot of opportunities are being presented to me from this experience. The project is saving Lincoln over $2,000,000 a year in labor savings, and we haven't measured the quality savings with all of the improvements that have been implemented.

Please use this as a recruiting tool. There is a lot of demand for IE’s and Lincoln has to compete for them. Good grades, some manufacturing experience, and the offers will come. Hope is all well with you.

Thanks to everyone in the department for widening my career and mind.

Kathleen Holmes
Manufacturing Engineer
The Lincoln Electric Company

Ms. Holmes is a 2003 graduate from Industrial Engineering. She completed her accelerated MBA at Cleveland State in 2004.

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