Upon assuming the role of Director, Editorial and Composition Services at Allen Press, I became responsible for all aspects of the scholarly publishing services (editorial, typesetting, art, proofreading, and online hosting). I conducted an audit of all processes to ensure tasks were being done as efficiently as possible. Once operations were streamlined as a result of the audit, my team was able to reduce processing time by 24% across all departments. Implementing improved workflows also realized a 20% reduction of labor costs and corresponding increase in margin.

I led my scholarly publishing services team in creating new orientation and training materials for the department.

One element of the training was to visit each department to learn about other positions and processes. The increased understanding of the work others performed helped ensured that employees had a clear idea of the tasks performed by peers. This understanding helped to better frame the importance of each operator’s work and how creating quality deliverables helped others downstream and, ultimately, presented our customers with exceptional results.

At Borders, Inc., I served on an inter-departmental team charged with evaluating processes required to open a new location. Applying Lean principles, the deliverable was a store opening calendar (possession to soft open) reduced from 5 weeks to 3.

Also at Borders, I developed and implemented new procedures for minimizing inventory shrink. The procedures addressed invoice reconciliation, cash controls, inventory accuracy, and elevated customer service. Extensive training was conducted regarding the procedures, rationale, and expected benefits. Applying these controls as the general manager of an existing store, inventory shrink was reduced from 4.8% of sales pre-arrival to .8% and 1.2% in subsequent years.