Helena Thornton

Helena Thornton,   Helena has 20+ years of experience in automotive manufacturing.  Areas include assembly design, component, system design, project leadership, implementation and engineering management.  At Lear, she led teams to win approximately $500M in new and carry over business for Lear Electronics Division.  As a manager in Cost-Technology Optimization, she drove systematic part standardization.  She pursued elimination of a delicate (hard-to-make), expensive over molded antenna which resulted in patent number 7,116,214.  In another cradle to grave benchmarking project, she saved Lear $2.5M per year by pushing the design/test/approval of a flexibly manufactured component which had the added benefit of in-sourcing from a competitor in Japan to a Lear plant in Michigan.  Multiple designs could be produced from a single die by interchanging punches.  These components are on millions of domestically produced trucks and SUVs.  She identified over $30M in OI improvement 2006-20009.  She is a project leader for manufacturing design and assembly, cost & value analysis and all industrial engineering activities.  Each of her positions was a natural progression of her ability to zero-in on cost reduction opportunities and business opportunities and lead change.  She currently implements lean manufacturing as an industrial engineering manager in a private automotive supplier.   In the early part of her career, she served in many leadership roles in the Detroit chapter of the Institute of Industrial Engineers, including President 1993-1994; she has led affinity groups for Inforum, a professional women’s alliance.  She served on the City of Dearborn Recreation Commission from 2012 to 2015.  She is Certified in Energy and Environmental Management (CEEM) through Lawrence Technological University which included 494 hours of field work in the wind industry.  She received her BS I&SE; University of Michigan—Dearborn and her MS I&SE; University of Michigan Rackham.