Dan Larabell is a Senior Advisor with FTE Performance Consulting who brings over 35 years of combined experience across Supply Chain, Purchasing and Sourcing, Operations Management, Lean Manufacturing Implementation, Quality Assurance and Business System standardization and Vehicle Recall Management. Dan has demonstrated ability as a problem solver/process improvement leader to turnaround troubled operations/processes. Dan is an expert in translating complex processes into clear, understandable, and actionable steps and consistently deliver positive results.

Notable experience and accomplishments:

• As Material Department Director – GM Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly led operation improvements enabling 15 % reduction in labor, while improving material parts availability manufacturing uptime to 99+%
• Dan led team of 75 supplier quality engineers to work with problem suppliers in a focused improvement effort for a supply base supporting GM’s full-size truck and SUV launch involving 7 GM assembly plants
• Led supplier crisis team on-site at high volume automotive transfer case manufacturer to identify production bottlenecks, develop and implement countermeasures, and actively report status to leadership. The 24/7 supplier support team was able to avoid OEM shutdown and meet increasing market demand of transfer case product
• As Director Safety Engineering Product Investigations and Field Action Execution Team Dan reduced the total number of customers impacted by field actions by 83% and saved $9M annually in field action expense through implementation of “fast response” process and improving the execution of traceability data collection and storage
• As Director of Purchasing Program Management and Supplier Quality improved warranty costs by 15% by establishing a new 50/50 joint warranty cost sharing system with suppliers resulting in joint accountability to improve warranty performance of the products
• Dan achieved a total of $60 million savings on multiple commodities, exceeding purchased parts savings targets as the Director of Purchasing, and as an executive director, Dan led a team working cross functionally with Engineering and Purchasing to save $327 million in direct material costs
• As Production Superintendent – Pontiac East Assembly Plant led implementation of all error proofing for Quality assurance in addition to running production operations overseeing hundreds of hourly employees

Prior to joining FTE Performance Consulting, Dan retired from General Motors after a diverse 35 years career.  Dan has held leadership roles in areas including Operations Management, Supplier Quality, Supply Chain, Purchasing, and Warranty.  

Dan earned a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from the Ross Business School, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and holds a Bachelor of Science, Mechanical Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.