Alexander Valle Burkert
Industrial Operations Executive
Thirty-five years · Asia Pacific and Latin America
I take manufacturing businesses that are underperforming and make them worth something. Plants, product, people and the number at the bottom of the page. Three of the businesses I rebuilt were subsequently acquired.
The record
Acquired by Kimberly-Clark · USD 1.2 billion
Arrived to a plant running at twenty per cent of capacity. Cut the workforce from five hundred to two hundred in ninety days, then rebuilt it to twelve hundred as the business grew. Sales went from USD 10 million to USD 485 million across two tenures. Output from six million to two hundred million units a month. Waste from eighteen per cent to one. Changeovers from twenty-four hours to sixty minutes.
Participated in the acquisition, construction and commissioning of two new plants, including a USD 60 million build at Karawang — the largest facility of its kind in the southern hemisphere — while running annual capital expenditure of USD 22 to 30 million. First in Indonesia to bring pants technology to market, and category leader within three months. Fifty-six per cent of the Indonesian baby diaper market at its peak.
Acquired by Unicharm · USD 400 million
Recruited by the founder to turn round three plants across Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia at the same time. Productivity up fifty per cent, cost down eight. Capacity utilisation up seventy-three per cent by moving to twenty-four-hour operation. Freight and storage from four and a half per cent of sales to one point four. Procurement moved off the spot market onto contract terms across six countries, with an ERP and a third-party logistics rollout running simultaneously.
Acquired by SCA · USD 80 million
Joined as process manager, promoted to manufacturing director. Throughput up fivefold on the same assets. Quality compliance from sixty-five per cent to ninety-eight. Wastage from twenty-one per cent to three. Accidents down ninety-five per cent. When the American parent went bankrupt I was a key member of the management buyout team that kept the business alive.
Reach
Lived and worked in
Brazil · United States · Mexico · Philippines · Thailand · Malaysia · Indonesia
Done business in
Italy · Germany · France · United Kingdom · South Korea · China · Singapore · Japan, among others
Where it started
One of Procter & Gamble Brazil's first seventy employees, selected from more than two hundred candidates, trained in the United States and Mexico. The only Brazilian on its global start-up team, commissioning plants in Mexico, Brazil, Thailand and the Philippines, and cutting start-up time from nine months to two — over a million dollars saved per machine, per factory, per country. Implemented the first TPM system in Brazil.
The machinery
Diaper converting lines at up to one thousand pieces per minute — Zuiko, Fameccanica, JOA, GDM. Took Chinese machines rated at 350 pieces per minute to 500, and Fameccanica lines running at 250 to 280 up to 400, using reliability engineering. Designed the acceptance and success-criteria protocols for machine commissioning, upgrades and raw-material changes. Rebuilt the maintenance function and the critical-spares policy that sat behind them.
Credentials
Chartered Engineer, Institution of Engineering and Technology, London · MBA, Lincoln University · Lean Six Sigma Black Belt · INSEAD, Strategic R&D Management · Ross School of Business, Lean Manufacturing · Five granted patents · English and Portuguese native, Spanish proficient.