Tamon Honda

• Experienced multi-disciplinary problem solver of matters involving technology, marketing, economics, and management.
• Versatile and highly creative team player with strong computer knowledge and excellent communications skills.
• Computer application specialist with proven track record of increasing organizational efficiency and effectiveness.
• Mechanical engineer with MBA and 10 years of high-end manufacturing and 8 years of database experience.

• Business Analysis
  
  • Identified industry trends and performed competitive analyses based on trade journals, conferences, and consultations with industry professionals. (details)
  • Wrote strategic business plans based on:
  • Organization's competitive advantages. (details)
  • Current industry opportunities. (details)
  • Expectated opportunities based on anticipated customer needs. (details)
  • Presented formal strategic marketing business plans to Executive Committees as written reports and oral presentations. (details)
  • Created sales forceasting tools using inudstry indices and mathematical models. (details)
  
  Marketing
  
  • Managed all marketing communications, such as advertisements, flyers, brochures, promotional e-mails, press releases, and web sites. Managed budgets when applicable. (details)
  • Segmented all customers and created strategies for each. (details)
  • Conducted market research to refine customer segments and identify newly emerging industry trends. (details)
  • Performed marketing ROI analyses. (details)
  • Developed sales justifications for capital goods purchases. (details)
  • For trade shows, managed all personnel, functions, and logistics. (details)
  
  Computer Applications
  
  • For a small legal services firm, reduced billing processing time 80%, which led to a 100% increase in revenue. (details)
  • For a lien and bond placement firm, reduced new case processing time 67% and error rate 83%. (details)
  • For a medium-sized law firm, reduced file retrieval time 50% with a 20% staff reduction and much higher reliability. (details)
  • For an automobile parts manufacturer, reduced quality control inspection time 93%. (details)
  
  Training
  
  • Trained new users of quality control software. Emphasized user's specific needs and relevant engineering standards. (details)
  • Hosted staff seminars on new software applications. Emphasized changes to organizattion's everyday operations. (details)
  • Trained sales staff on new products, services, and developments. (details)

Prior to my arrival at Yamazen Inc., a nationwide machine tool dealer, set sales targets based entirely on the previous year's sales results. It did not consider the challenges facing its customers. There was little if any attempt to learn about why its customers purchased from Yamazen instead of its customers, despite the fact that the machine tool industry is a mature business and its products had virtually no differentiation from its competitors.

I quickly became a constant reader of the two major manufacturing trade journals, Modern Machine Shop and Tooling and Production, and the American Machine Tool Dealers Association newsletter. Additionally, I scoured for relevant articles as I read the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, the Economist, and the Chicago Tribune. I closely monitored sales indices from trade association and the U.S. Government. At conferences and trade shows, I spoke with many manufacturing professionals and learned of their concerns and how they cope with them.

As I gathered all these disparate bits of data, I cobbled them together to form a cohesive understanding of all machine tool users. I divided them into customer segments, created strategies for each, and presented my findings before the Executive Committee. I argued Yamazen would be a much more effective sales company by strategically targeting each customer segment individually instead of all machine tool users generically.

When Yamazen hired me in 1999, it had 22 offices throughout the United States, each with its own team of application engineers. (Application engineers are machining specialists who customize machine tools for a customer's specific needs.) Collectively, Yamazen's application engineers have enormous experience, in many industries (automotive, aerospace, medical, etc.), metals, precision levels, and production rates. However, they worked independently of one another and were not aware of the capability of their colleagues in other offices.

As with many computer applications, very few users tap into the full capabilities of their machine tools. I recognized that Yamazen would have a competitive advantage if it could transfer this cumulative knowledge to its customers and help them get the most from their machine tools.

I proposed hosting meetings (face-to-face, video, or online) where these application engineers could discuss issues, learn from one another, and swap hard-earned tricks of the trade. Another goal of these meetings was for the application engineers to get to know each other. When they later encountered difficulties, they knew whom to contact. Thus, each application engineer would be able to tap into all the machining knowledge of all the application engineers.

From September, 2001 through July, 2002, I worked for National Lien & Bond, which places liens and bonds on behalf of unpaid providers of labor or materials in the construction or building trades industry. Unlike its competitors, it provides its clients with nationwide coverage - all 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. Territories, the Federal Government, American Indian nations, and interstate jurisdictions such as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Since NLB's coverage is unique in the industry, I recommended targeting major building materials suppliers and distributors. National Lien & Bond would be particularly good match for these companies because they would have a single point of contact for any delinquent accounts anywhere in the United States.

Yamazen sells machine tools to manufacturers that operate on very thin margins, both in money and time. Reputable industry studies have shown that it is generally preferable for them to exceed their budget than to be behind their production schedule.

I recognized that for manufacturers, time is a very valuable commodity, sometimes more so than money. With this in mind, I recommended that Yamazen investigate ways it can market its time saving capabilities, both in setup and production. Being the first machine tool dealer to address timesavings could provide Yamazen with a first-mover advantage in an issue of growing importance.

During the 1990's, prior to my arrival, business was very good for Yamazen, a machine tool dealer. I was hired in 1999 and as the year 2000 approached and economists a downturn, I foresaw manufacturers becoming less willing to make capital purchases despite the constant need to expand their capabilities. Since Yamazen's revenues were almost entirely based on machine tool sales, I believed it was very vulnerable to a cooling economy.

A unique strength of Yamazen's was the outstanding group of Application Engineers, the technical professionals who customize machine tools for the customers' needs. Yamazen had approximately 70 Application Engineers in Yamazen's 22 offices, and together they had tremendous industry experience.

I wrote a business plan that proposed the creation of Yamazen consulting services. Under this plan, Yamazen's Application Engineers would help its customers get the most from all their equipment; even those Yamazen did not sell. Their recommendation areas would range from tooling, machining speeds and feed rates, and workpiece holding fixtures to CAD/CAM integrations, robotics, and new machine tools. The advantages of this plan are:

• It is a hedge against machine tool sales. Yamazen customers unwilling to spend $200,000 for a new machine tool may be willing to spend $80/hour for engineering consulting fees, in an attempt to increase their capacity.
• It would increase customer trust and loyalty toward Yamazen. With repeated positive experiences with Yamazen, the customer more likely to purchase its next machine tool from Yamazen.
• It would enhance Yamazen's knowledge of its customers. When the customer is ready to purchase another machine tool, Yamazen's intimate working knowledge of the customer will give an advantage when submitting sales proposals. This may enable Yamazen to earn greater-than-average profits.
• It will increase the experience of Yamazen's application engineers. By constantly challenging its application engineers, Yamazen will be able to widen the experience gap with its competitors.

Please note that the last three items have the additional benefit of increasing Yamazen's customers' switching cost. In a mature business with little differentiation among competitors, I believe this was an opportunity to create genuine industry distinction.

For each strategic business or marketing plan I wrote at Yamazen, I created both a PowerPoint presentation, which I delivered before the Executive Committee, and formal written report.

I began with a signficant financial and/or market share benefits of my plan, which, I would later explain were reasonably attainable. Once I had their rapt attention, I presented an overview of Yamazen's situation with special attention to the areas relevant to a customer need I identified. I then proceeded with my proposal and how it fulfilled that need. Finally, I detailed the immediate and long-term benefits as well as the resources needed.

I received a great deal of experience with both creating PowerPoint presentations and writing formal business plans while earning my MBA. I participated in dozens of team projects, where I frequently provided the primary leadership. I have also created PowerPoint presentations for attorneys at lectures and conferences. In all, I have created approximately 30 PowerPoint presentations and written approximately 20 formal written reports.

At Yamazen, a machine tool dealer, I created an accurate sales forecasting tool. I incorporated indices from the machine tool industry, major customers, and the Federal Government to create a mathematical model using linear regression to predict future sales. Because some factors waned in relevance, I skewed the chi-squared analysis to give slightly greater weight to recent months. I submitted regular forecasts to my superiors to assist their preparations for forthcoming months.

I served as the Marketing Manager for Yamazen, a machine tool dealer that sold to the manufacturing industry. In that capacity, I segmented all of Yamazen's potential customers according to size, industry, and type of work.

I soon realized the idiosyncrasies of segmenting machine tool users. While all manufacturers need accuracy, precision, speed, reliability, torque, power, flexibility, and value from their machine tools, the critical factor(s) for each segment varies considerably. For example, tool and die shops, regardless of industry, want high precision and reliability above all else. Job shops, on the other hand, have different priorities according to their industry. Those serving the automotive need speed and torque, those in the medical fields must have high accuracy and precision, and jobs shops working with multiple industries require high flexibility. Multinational automotive parts manufacturers make decisions very differently from "mom and pop" machine shops, so one must approach each differently. After identifying the segments, their needs, and how they operate, I identified strategies for approaching each to increase the sales force's effectiveness.

I similarly segmented National Lien & Bond's clients, unpaid providers of labor or materials to construction projects. NLB seeks payment by placing liens on the properties (for private sector projects) or filing claims on construction bonds (for public sector projects) on behalf of its clients. Again, I created segments according to what the client provided, its size, the number of unpaid jobs, and amount due. This process not only allowed me to customize marketing strategies, but as I tallied NLB's enrollment by segment, I was able to determine the marketing penetration of each segment. I could then make recommendations for improving NLB's marketing effectiveness.

I served as Marketing Manager at Yamazen, a machine tool dealer, and National Lien & Bond, a lien and bond placement firm. Neither firm was willing to invest in formal market research studies, whose results would enhance marketing's effectiveness and efficiency. So I improvised and conducted many intercept interviews with current customers, potential customers, competitors, and other industry professionals. (These interviews supplemented my regular reading of trade journals and business periodicals.) To keep the interviewee at ease, I chose very informal settings, such as break areas, by the water cooler, and in parking lots.

Admittedly, I did not rigidly structure my interviews and therefore could not acquire the rigorous quantitative data of reputable market research firms. Nevertheless, I did acquire a great deal of qualitative knowledge, which helped me refine the market segments and spot emerging trends. While I would have like to have had solid quantitative data as well, I still learned a great deal and gained very worthwhile insights.

Whenever possible, I conducted Return On Investment (ROI) analyses. Since I was responsible for budgeting each marketing project, I knew every cost. I then used my judgment identifying the sales resulting from each project.

Since salesmen and customers were usually lax with promotional codes, I resorted to mathematical models of sales to determine a promotion's effectiveness. For example, suppose I hosted a promotion in April and May. I analyzed the previous year's sales to determine the sales pattern and applied it to the current year. I then applied last year's sales patterns to the current year and projected sales for this April and May. Any sales above this projection, I argued, were the result of the promotion.

I served as Marketing Manager for Yamazen, a machine tool dealer. The price of Yamazen's machine tools range in price from $60,000 to $350,000. To assist the salesmen, I created spreadsheet templates that calculated the:

• Increased revenue from a machine tool with higher production capacity.
• Savings from a decreased scrap rate.
• Monthly payments.
• Tax write-offs from depreciation based on several widely accepted schedules.
• Tax breaks when applicable.

The salesmen found this to be a very effective sales tool because it detailed the positive impact a new machine tool would have on the customer's revenue stream and profit margins. Further, by helping the customer's profitability, customers viewed Yamazen salesmen less as adversaries and more as allies.

I served as Marketing Manager of Yamazen, a machine tool dealer that regularly participated in trade shows and open houses. In addition to assisting regional offices with their trade shows and open houses, I managed Yamazen's booth at the 2000 International Manufacturing and Technology Show in Chicago. An 11-day long event, IMTS is one of the three premiere global manufacturing trade shows and draws approximately 120,000 attendees. For Yamazen's 75' x 100' booth, my responsibilities included:

• Creating a concept and general design for the booth.
• Selecting a booth builder and worked with them to ensure satisfying our needs.
• Working out all logistics for the trade show, such as drayage, trucking, labor, and other convention center services.
• Promoting the booth to Yamazen's current and potential customers.
• Arranging entertainment options for Yamazen's current customers.
• Chairing meetings to monitor progress and set weekly objectives.
• Updating the Executive Committee regularly with progress reports.
• Meeting all budgetary goals.
• Meeting all intermediate deadlines.
• Scheduling shifts for salesmen, engineers, technicians, and other staff.
• Arranging accommodations in downtown Chicago for all staff.
• Taking care of everything else.

Daphne Hammond & Associates performs trademark searches to find current uses of a prospective trade name. DHA's major clients are law firms and the legal departments of large corporations. When I first observed the operations in 1992, Ms. Hammond conducted approximately 50 trademark searches per day and dedicated approximately 5 days a month to billing.

After rejecting accounting programs because of their lack of flexibility, I created a turnkey database system tailored to the firm's needs with Paradox 3.5. Simultaneously, I made computer hardware purchase recommendations, which were accepted in their entirety. I created simple menus and automated many steps. I designed the data entry screens to be fast, clear, and easy to use. Billing time shrank from 5 days to approximately 10 hours, most of which was spent printing the detailed client reports.

We also worked together to craft a work order form that mimicked the data entry time. This form facilitates quick entry of the most common jobs and is flexible enough to handle unusual requests. The combination of the decreased work order processing time, decreased billing time, and accompanying peace of mind allowed Ms. Hammond to focus on increasing her client base, which in turn resulted in a 100% increase in revenue.

National Lien & Bond is a firm that seeks payment for unpaid providers of labor and materials for the construction industry by placing liens or claims on bonds. One of my primary responsibilities was re-writing their database that tracked the statuses of their active cases. The old system, written by one of NLB's attorneys, was heavily used despite the poor navigation, confusing organization, and numerous bugs.

I first closely examined NLB's operations, noting bottlenecks and how to alleviate them through automation. To design the navigation and organization, I consulted with key staff members, drawing pictures of user interfaces and brainstorming with them on ways to make their tasks faster and easier. After several prototypes, I transferred the data to the new system, which I wrote in Access 97. It worked as I had hoped. The simple navigation and robust functions reduced the new case processing time 67%. The better organization and logical layout of information allowed the staff to focus on fewer tasks, reducing the data entry error rate by 83%.

The key to the success of this system was customizing it to the needs of the firm's operations rather than vice versa. True, many of the functions were very complex, forcing me to learn Visual BASIC in order to write specialized modules. Still, I believe that the easier it is for the end users, the more it will be used the more accurate the information it contains, and the greater the value it is for the firm.

From 1989 through 1992, I worked as assistant computer administrator for Jacobson Holman, a Washington D.C. intellectual property law firm. I noticed the firm was having so much difficulty locating its physical files - the paper folio files - that it was sometimes missing deadlines and lost several major clients.

I proposed installing a bar code based tracking system to locate the files. My solution had files get checked in and out of the file room in a manner similar to a library. Files frequently move from one office to another, bypassing the file room. To track the location of these files, I purchased a portable bar code reader. Clerks regularly roamed from office to office in off-hours, scanning every bar code. All location information was downloaded into a network database, to which all staff had read privileges.

Under the old system, five file clerks struggled to average a 20-minute retrieval time, with some taking hours or days. Using my system, four clerks consistently retrieved files within 10 minutes with ease. Thus, file retrieval time was reduced by 50% with a 20% staff reduction. Lastly, it had the unexpected benefit of improving staff morale. It is still in use and the firm considers it a mission-critical program.

Besides the technical subjects like programming and bar coding, I received my initial experience with project management. I developed a plan for implementation and staff acceptance of the project. I learned the importance of constant communications with my supervisors and managed a team of four workers. Finally, I learned to actively solicit staff comments to both improve the system and earn their trust.

From 1995 to 1996, I was Quality Control Specialist for Molex, an electrical connector manufacturer. My main project while there was writing quality inspection programs for the computer connectors for the 2000 Ford Explorer. The 120-pin connectors came in seven pieces and approximately 2000 dimensions that had to be inspected.

I wrote programs that automated the inspection of the seven parts of this connector. I wrote them in PC-DMIS for use on a Brown & Sharpe Coordinate Measurement Machine. The programs took approximately 8 hours to run, whereas making similar measurements by hand typically took three weeks.

For over nearly two years from 1994 through 1996, I taught new users a quality control software package called PC-DMIS. PC-DMIS controls and records the measurements of a Coordinate Measurement Machine (CMM). (Very simply, CMMs are cranes that move very precisely with a sensitive touch probe. Knowing both the probe's movement and the probe's known size, a CMM can make many measurements, such as hole diameter, location, hole roundness, plane flatness, thickness, and other feature measurements. Such measurements critical can no longer be made by hand: Automobile parts typically must be accurate to within 0.002" and some medical applications require accuracy of 0.0005".)

At first, I taught the every weeklong class in exactly the same way: by the textbook. After a few months and as my knowledge of the software the users grew, I instead taught what the users would need to know. For example, certain General Motors users measuring door frames needs to know certain things to do their jobs well, whereas the Oral-B toothbrush manufacturer needs to know other things well. So rather than covering everything with no particular emphasis, I designed each class around what the students needed to know.

I used many devices to keep the class's attention and keep them motivated. I asked they what they needed to know and laid out an outline of how I would teach the class over the five days. As I presented the fundamentals, I pointed out how they would lead to the tasks they would have to do. I tested their knowledge after each lesson and, to cement their confidence, again early the next day. As soon as they were ready, I helped them write their own programs, putting the lessons into practice. I showed the class how to interpret engineering standards like Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing and how to break them down into a series of tasks. I repeatedly quizzed them, especially with foreseeable situations that could cause them problems. As for features they would probably not need, I glossed over them just to raise their awareness. As I saw it, my job was to make them as independent as possible on a complex software application with only five days of training.

After completing the new database system at National Lien & Bond in early 2002, I trained the staff on its use. I hosted a series of seminars in which I provided the essentials of the system, covering what every employee had to know. As I demonstrated the major functions and their operation, I pointed out how each step replaced the lengthy and complicated manual tasks the firm was currently doing. Showing the staff how the new system simplified their work lives and drastically reduced their time demands ensured their full attention and built enthusiasm.

I later met with some staff members individually, covering responsibilities unique to them. I specialized the individual training, making sure they understood system operation. At the end of each session, I made it clear I welcome their questions and feedback.

As an Applications Engineer at both Brother Industries and Brown & Sharpe, one of my responsibilities was to update the sales staff of new products and developments. These were often very informal meetings, with only a few salesmen and often over lunch. Nevertheless, I prepared to make my message clear and brief.

I usually referenced existing products they knew very well. For example, I described the Brother TC-228 as a TC-227 with faster spindle and tapping speeds. Both features already were strong selling points on the TC-227, so I explained how these improvements on the TC-228 created greater separation with the competition. I also laid out information in ways they could use: The TC-228 can drill and tap 300 CNC ¼"-20 through holes in ½" thick 1040 AISI steel in 5 minutes and 35 seconds, 2:20 faster than the TC-227 and 5:05 faster than Brand X.

At Brown & Sharpe, I briefed the sales staff in similar ways, except the changes were about the software's expanding capabilities. After working closely with a customer and discovering a new method, I shared the finding with the sales staff. My hope was my contribution would be another reason to choose Brown & Sharpe's products and create more separation from its competitors.