Jason Foster

Recognized by senior management as a leader with extensive business process skills, project/program management experience and strong ability to lead diverse groups to determine root cause and develop and implement appropriate solutions. Currently working on Certified Business Analysis Professional Certification.

Project Management - Organized the development, implementation and maintenance of business application systems. Lead multiple projects and managed developers to ensure specifications and appropriate project lifecycle processes and deadlines were met. Analyzed, developed and implemented process to reduce sales quote processing time from 6 hours to 30 minutes and reduced duplicate data entry from 3 times to once.

Business Process Analysis - Led cross functional team to analyze shipping and invoicing processes utilizing Lean and Six Sigma concepts. 15 hour per week reduction in invoicing process, extended shipping hours by 24-36 hours at financial month end, increased customer support through improved availability of shipping information and corrected key financial audit concern regarding actual shipping event versus invoicing. Analyzed kanban, warehouse, planning and procurement processes. Recommended and implemented process improvements which resulted in signal to supplier time from an average of 5 days to 30 minutes. This resulted in inventory reduction of $1.3mil and reduction of production shutdowns by 80%.

Compliance and Governance - Developed first year Sarbanes Oxley compliance initiative that included development, implementation and monitoring of General IT Controls, policies and procedures. Final audit resulted in only 2 minor deficiencies, no major deficiencies and no material defects. Aligned IT goals and objectives with Corporate Strategic Plan. Ensured compliance with corporate standards for applications, hardware and systems. Participated in strategic plan development and provided guidance on IT related issues through executive IT steering committee meetings.

Communications - Managing priorities through active involvement on business and IT steering committees, management councils and daily interaction with senior and executive management to ensure IT priorities and activities are in alignment with business goals and objectives. Established procedures, infrastructure and high level cross functional IT steering committee to review, prioritize and ensure all major IT work was aligned with company goals and strategic plan. This successfully reduced backlog by 50% in the first year and 80% by the end of the second year. Lead time from initiation of request to resolution was reduced by 65%. First call resolution was increased from 30% to 98%.

Applications - Extensive experience with Baan ERP, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Visio, Smart Draw, EMC ApplicationXtender, EMC Documentum, Act!, Business Objects, Crystal Reports. Coded databases in SQL Server, Microsoft Access, MySQL and Oracle. VB, VB.Net, VBA, 4GL.

Responsibilities
o Improving business processes and supporting critical business strategies by managing the development, implementation and maintenance of business application systems.
o Leading multiple projects and overseeing developers to ensure specifications and appropriate project lifecycle processes and deadlines are met.
o Identifying, implementing and managing critical information technology general controls to ensure acceptable risk mitigation and compliance with Sarbanes Oxley.
o Creating project plans and identifying, tracking and monitoring deliverable dates, key milestones, interdependencies, issues, risks and status.
o Managing priorities through active involvement on business and IT steering committees, management councils and daily interaction with senior and executive management to ensure IT priorities and activities are in alignment with business goals and objectives.

Major Accomplishments
o Lead Business Team to implement IT best practices and Governance including Senior Management IT Steering Committee, Self-serve Helpdesk and Change and Service management. Reduction in backlog by 75%, reduction in lead time by 80% and reduction in downtime as defined by the customer by 95%.
o Analyzed, developed and implemented process to reduce sales quote processing time from 6 hours to 30 minutes and reduced duplicate data entry from 3 times to once.
o Established procedures, infrastructure and high level cross functional IT steering committee to review, prioritize and ensure all major IT work was aligned with company goals and strategic plan. This successfully reduced backlog by 50% in the first year and 80% by the end of the second year. Lead time from initiation of request to resolution was reduced by 65%. First call resolution was increased from 30% to 98%.
o Lead team to analyze order entry process in engineer-to-order environment using Lean and Six Sigma concepts. Successful implementation reduced order lead time by 6 days and inventory reduction of $1.8M.
o Conducted first year Sarbanes Oxley compliance initiative including development, implementation and monitoring of General IT Controls, policies and procedures. Final audit resulted in only 2 minor deficiencies, no major deficiencies and no material defects.
o Lead cross functional team to analyze shipping and invoicing processes utilizing Lean and Six Sigma concepts. Resulting changes led to 15 hour per week reduction in invoicing process, extended shipping hours by 24-36 hours at financial month end, increased customer support through improved availability of shipping information and corrected key financial audit concern regarding actual shipping event versus invoicing.

Responsibilities
o Leading cross functional technical project team for multiple Baan ERP projects including upgrades, enhancements and international implementations
o Conducting full systems upgrades including hardware, operating systems, databases, Baan ERP system and integrated applications.
o Leading EDI team to analyze, implement and support EDI technologies and processes for internal and external business partners.
o Analyzing processes and presenting recommendations for improvements to invoicing, month-end and year-end financial close, inventory management and order entry processes.
o Training staff and developing procedures and training documentation for various processes and applications for both functional and technical staff.

Major Accomplishments
o Analyzed kanban, warehouse, planning and procurement processes. Recommended and implemented process improvements which resulted in signal to supplier time from an average of 5 days to 30 minutes. This resulted in inventory reduction of $1.3mil and reduction of production shutdowns by 80%.
o Implemented financial month end process improvements which resulted in reduction of processing time by over 60% and ERP system downtime from 4-6 hours to 1.5 hours.
o Reduced processing time for open work requests by implementing cross-training program for IT Applications staff to improve resource availability.
o Implemented best practices for security, patch management and change management to reduce unscheduled downtime of business critical applications by 75%.

We adopted a baby girl from Taiwan. Part of the adoption agreement was that one parent would stay at home for a period of time.

Boy Scout Assistant Scoutmaster

Boy Scout Merit Badge Counselor (Space Exploration, Astronomy, Computers, Composite Materials)

Taiwanese History and Culture

High Power Rocketry

o "Security and Ownership of Personal Electronic Devices"
The Information Systems Control Journal Vol 6(2005)

o Information Systems Audit and Control Association
o Project Management Institute
o Baan World Users Tools Subcommittee
o Center for Financial Forensics and Information Security Advisory Board (2005 - 2007)

o Compliance

• Sarbanes Oxley
  

• HIPAA
  

• IT Governance
  

• COBIT
  

• FDA
  

o Business Processes

• Project Management
  

• Order Entry
  

• Inventory Management
  

• Production Control
  

• Supply Chain
  

• Document Management
  

o Business Process Tools

• ITIL
  

• LEAN
  

• Six Sigma
  

o Applications

• Baan ERP
  

• Microsoft Office
  

• Microsoft Project
  

• Microsoft Visio
  

• Smart Draw
  

• EMC ApplicationXtender
  

• EMC Documentum
  

• Act!
  

• Business Objects
  

• Crystal Reports
  

o Databases

• SQL Server
  

• Microsoft Access
  

• MySQL
  

• Oracle
  

o Operation Systems

• Windows Server
  

• HP-UX
  

• Linux
  

o Programming Languages

• Visual Basic
  

• VBA
  

• ASP
  

• AJAX
  

• SQL
  

• Baan 4GL
  

Project Management

LEAN

Six Sigma

ITIL

All References available upon request