Kenneth A. Collins

Kenneth A. CollinsFrontline Consulting - Biography of Kenneth A. Collins

Frontline Consulting - Specialized Management Consulting
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Kenneth A. Collins

Ken is a principal and co-founder of Frontline Consulting, Inc.He has over thirty years of experience in manufacturing, engineering, accounting and project management.Ken has successfully led and managed all phases of manufacturing including production, maintenance, warehousing and laboratory and engineering support.He has had additional experiences in strategic planning, Total Quality Management and in devising and delivering training programs for management and business teams.

Prior to starting Frontline, Ken was employed at Solutia Inc.(formerly Monsanto).At Solutia, he was the manufacturing representative on several business teams responsible for product line growth, cost management and profitability.Ken has had numerous team leadership roles including the site's Diversity Team, OSHA Process Safety Management Compliance Team, Infrastructure Restructuring / Demolition Team and a business Work Redesign Implementation Team.He has recently completed a four-year assignment on the corporate SAP Design and Implementation Team and led a successful SAP implementation team at Solutia's Indian Orchard facility.

Ken is an excellent meeting facilitator and has been used by Solutia management to facilitate business and team meetings both internally at sites within Solutia and externally at industry and community organizations.He is an active member in several community organizations and has served as an adjunct professor of Cost Accounting at Western New England College.

Ken is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a graduate of Western New England College with a M.S. in Accounting.

Frontline Consulting is:Kenneth A. Collins -- David L. Gendron --

Kenneth A. Collins -- David L. Gendron --

Kenneth A. Collins
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Kenneth A. Collins -- David L. Gendron --

Kenneth A. Collins: kac@frontlineconsulting.com
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Kenneth A. Collins -- David L. Gendron --

Kenneth A. Collins -- David L. Gendron --

When they were working at Solutia, formerly Monsanto, Kenneth Collins and David Gendron supervised many different departments and led countless business improvement initiatives.
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The route taken by Collins and Gendron is not unique.
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"This is not a push business," Collins explained.
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Calling the phrase "change agent" a buzz word, Collins said that everything a company does involves change."And all of these changes have to be managed.Our change management process can help the implementation of a capital project, an operational re-design, or a strategic plan."

As the economy slows, they expect many companies that have already become lean will want to become leaner.Extracting costs from a manufacturing or operating procedure is not necessarily complicated, said Collins, but it often does require an impartial eye and a proven analysis process.
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"Every process can be improved ... that's the foundation of continuous improvement," said Collins.
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Ken Collins and Dave Gendron, of Frontline Consulting
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Kenneth A. Collins is a principal and co-founder of Frontline Consulting, Inc.He has over thirty years of experience in manufacturing, engineering, finance and project management.Prior to starting Frontline, Ken was with Solutia Inc. (formerly Monsanto) where he managed and/or consulted in the implementation of numerous major infrastructure restructuring, work redesign, strategic planning, and software/process reengineering initiatives.

A noted meeting facilitator, trainer, and team facilitator, Ken has developed a dynamic presentation style which we know you will enjoy as he guides you through a discussion of initiatives HR professionals may employ to facilitate change management.

Ken has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts and an M.S. in Accounting from Western New England College.
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But the program is already starting to yield significant results in the form of cost cutting, waste reduction, and better customer service, according to Kenneth Collins, senior project manager and the man handed the job of making SAP happen.
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The company is only one of many providing such products to the Postal Service, but the potential for growth is real, said Collins.
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The impetus for changing to SAP was clearly Y2K, said Collins, adding that as the company looked at what needed to be done to make itself Y2K compliant, it decided that it only made good - but expensive - business sense to reach compliance with one new system of software, not several systems ranging in age from five to 30 years.
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When Collins says SAP integrates a company's various departments - from accounting to warehousing - he isn't generalizing.
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Collins believes the payback on Solutia's huge investment in SAP will be recovered in just two years, but admits the learning curve will be daunting.
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"This allows us to become a make-to-order company as opposed to a make-for-stock company," said Collins."That's where a lot of benefits will come from - reducing our inventory as we speed up our processes for supplying products."

Inventory reductions come in several forms, Collins continued, not only finished goods, but also raw materials, and parts, and maintenance equipment.SAP can reduce the amount of inventory, first, and also the cost of that inventory by giving the company more buying power by integrating purchases of the various facilities under the Solutia umbrella.

"We have four sister plants worldwide ... why does each one have to carry a very expensive spare pump or centrifuge.This allows us to keep one spare and allow everyone to have access to it through this system," said Collins.

With purchasing, the company can now track its spending across the corporation and, when possible, lump those purchases to gain more cost savings.In other words, knowledge is most definitely power.

"We had a pump supplier who was supplying pumps to two different plants at two different prices," said Collins.
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"When a person makes an entry into SAP they are making an entry into our accounting books," said Collins."When a key stroke is made saying that something is moving from the docks, that will automatically trigger depletion of that item from the inventory books and it will automatically and instantaneously create an accounts receivable, so a mistake goes all through the food chain and it's very difficult to reverse."

Implementing SAP has certainly not been easy, and it has taken time to turn most employees into converts, said Collins."The key is for all employees to act as a team.It doesn't work if one segment of the team isn't pulling its weight," he said."We did some surveys on receptivity, and early on people were saying, 'this stinks,' or 'why did we ever do this?' When we talked to the same people a few months later they were saying, 'it isn't too bad, I just had to learn to live with it.' And six months later, they were saying,'I can do more things now than I ever could before.'"

Speaking for Mayausky - and probably everyone else at the Indian Orchard plant - Collins said, "It's a learning process ... nothing worthwhile doing doesn't occur without pain."
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Kenneth A. Collins -- David L. Gendron --