Larry Murray
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Atlanta, GA, United States
Toptal member since October 7, 2024
Larry is a Lean Six Sigma consultant and engineer with 25+ years of leadership experience establishing operational optimization across diverse industries in national and international operations. He crafts and executes operational excellence programs, incorporating fit-for-purpose tools while creating value through corporate value chains. Larry is also a process-focused problem-solver with 15+ years of experience training senior leaders, master black belts, and black belts in Lean and Six Sigma.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
- Engineering
- Lean
- Minitab
- Program Management
- Project Management
- Six Sigma
- Value Stream Mapping
Work Experience
Senior Consultant
L R Murray & Associates
- Trained over 3,000 green belts, black belts, and champions, with more than 70% achieving certification.
- Coached and trained executive leadership to establish the top priority measures and then deploy the strategies and tactics to drive desired cost reductions, revenue increases, and overall continuous improvement.
- Handled successful implementation and program deployments in various industries, including oil and gas, mining, manufacturing, telecommunications, and supply chain, leveraging transactional and technical Six Sigma.
- Mentored, coached, and trained senior leaders, master black belts, and black belts in the industry-recognized Lean and Six Sigma methods.
Senior Master Black Belt
Chevron
- Organized and designed Lean Six Sigma activities within business units that supported business initiatives.
- Planned, deployed, and led Lean Six Sigma activities that produced significant cost savings through productivity, quality, and improvements in waste reduction and business processes.
- Trained, mentored, championed, and sponsored all levels of Lean Six Sigma candidates, including green belts, black belts, champions, and leadership.
- Facilitated Kaizen, value stream mapping (VSM), and failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) events for profit improvement savings based on improved productivity, quality, waste reduction, and risk mitigation.
- Designed, trained, and implemented systems to improve enterprise-level organization and housekeeping.
- Mentored and supported production leads, managers, supervisors, and leadership to implement the necessary cultural change within the company.
Engineering Program Manager
Lockheed Martin
- Trained and mentored over 100 black belts, with 83% achieving certification.
- Managed engineering design and development teams, from detailed design to aircraft modification, recovering a projected $1 million overrun to finish on budget.
- Rolled out Lean and Six Sigma to the engineering organization.
- Led the team in integrating Lean and Six Sigma programs.
Project History
PCB Yield and Throughput Improvement
Increased the yield in printed circuit board (PCB) final inspection from 72% to 90%—reducing the backlog from over 800 units to zero and decreasing headcount by over 50%.
I identified three primary failure modes and associated processes.
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The conformal coating was either undersprayed or oversprayed. I initiated engineering and planning changes to reduce underspray and implemented shop aids to minimize overspray.
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The RTV application process had also recently been automated, which changed its appearance and coverage. Attribute measurement system analysis (MSA) identified several defects that caused issues between manufacturing and inspection. Training and visual aids resolved the disconnect.
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Labeling was the 3rd issue on the Pareto. Changes to the configuration management process corrected the majority of the labeling issues.
Oil Well Testing Shore-based Kaizens
Boosted mobilization response times from 89% to 98.5% with 21% less man-hours.
The well-testing service saw a reduction in mobilizations and increased chargebacks for failing to meet the 95% level of service requirement.
We started by completing a value stream map of the process from customer order to arrival at the customer’s location. The VSM highlighted several non-value-added but required tasks that were impacting the process and one value-added step that was the bottleneck.
We enforced several Kaizens that focused on reducing transportation and motion waste to attack the non-value-added steps. A robust 5S and visual control implementation supported these improvements.
The value-adding step of building up the tool string required lifting the 500-pound tool multiple times and installing test equipment. In some cases, these tools were nuclear-powered. By redesigning work benches, the team eliminated the need to lift the tools, making the process faster and safer. Applying 5S and integrating virtual information techniques reduced the build time by over 45%.
Process Capability Improvement
Improved product diameter performance from 48% to 99%.
Line operators measured wire diameter to two significant figures. MSA showed that the method used on the line was insufficient. I developed and deployed a new measurement system.
Process capability index (Cpk) analysis revealed that operators were targeting the lower spectrum, and less than 50% of the product was within that spectrum. Immediate corrective action was to shift the diameter to the middle of the spectrum—resulting in a $20 million increase in yearly material costs.
Using regression and design of experiments (DOE), we decreased the variation, reducing the diameter and allowing material cost savings. I also implemented statistical process control to maintain process performance.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Engineering Science and Mechanics
Georgia Institute of Technology - Atlanta, GA, USA
Certifications
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
Six Sigma Academy
Skills
Tools
Visual Controls, Zoom
Paradigms
Six Sigma, Lean, Design for Six Sigma (DFSS), Process Capability Anaysis, Change Management, Maintainability
Industry Expertise
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
Other
Engineering, Minitab, Pareto Diagrams, Value Stream Mapping, 5S, Statistical Process Control Tools, Manufacturing, DMAIC, Microsoft Teams, Project Management, Program Management, Regression, Warehouses, Six Sigma Black Belt Certified
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