Despite outdated beliefs that still persist about the role of the quality department in an organization, the entire manufacturing team, from operators to team leaders, is responsible for ensuring the quality of a product is upheld. After 38 years working in the food manufacturing industry, todays’ guest, Lucia Falek, is an authority on this topic! Lucia’s interest in manufacturing began at the age of six when she went on a tour at Ford Motor Company. Upon graduating with a food science degree, Lucia began a journey of flavor creation and building a quality mindset, which has culminated in her current role in the R&D department at Butterball Farms (which has nothing to do with Turkey and everything to do with butter!). We discuss the importance of designing for manufacturability from the get-go, and an example of what can go wrong if quality control is done too late in the process. Lucia also shares some of the exciting products that she is working on at the moment and the unique role that she believes women play in the manufacturing sector.
#190 Designing for Quality with Lucia Falek
Lydia Di Liello
Capital Pricing Consultants increases clients’ profitability through strategy monetization, operational, and tactical solutions.
Lydia M Di Liello, CEO and founder (with more than 25 years of business leadership, supply chain and global pricing expertise) delivers exceptional results through Strategy, Process, and Technology. Leveraging a career at General Motors and b to b manufacturing in Supply Chain and Pricing management, client profitability typically increases from 15%-300% in as little as six months. Client engagements range from global Fortune 500 to smaller privately held firms.
Starting with strategic overview through actionable specific directives, clients achieve significant profit increases. Executing widely respected trademarked methodology including Discovery, Assessment, and Recommendations, D.A.R. Ô delivers a comprehensive roadmap for clients’ corporate strategic goals through operational impact achieving strategy realization.
Lydia is a well-know and widely respected speaker leading executive forums, conferences, and workshops worldwide; she is published frequently in trade and professional journals. With an MBA from Youngstown State University Di Liello is repeatedly requested at corporate retreats and is a member of the Professional Pricing Society Board of Advisors.
Recently published In Manufacturing Today June 2021 https://manufacturing-today.com/news/seamless-connections/
Di Liello was just named as the only pricing consultant with the prestigious 2020 PROS to KNOW award for the second year in a row from Supply and Demand Chain Executive on March 17, 2021
Company Philosophy: Success starts with open and clear communication through every step of the client engagement process. Valuing clients’ time and commitment, Capital Pricing Consultants are dedicated to efficiency and demonstrable efficacy. Di Liello cultivates long-term relationships built one successful project at a time.
Lucia Falek
Lucia Falek is originally from Detroit Michigan. She remembers a childhood excitement and fascination of manufacturing while visiting the Ford Motor Company at the age of six and the Kellogg cereal company at age nine.
Lucia went on to study Nutrition for 3 years at Michigan State University before slowly and eventually realizing she would really prefer to study how to manufacture food instead!
She graduated from MSU with a degree in Food Science and Technology and spent the next 16 years with The Big Boy Food Group – immersed in the manufacturing of everything from fudge cake, soup and salad dressing to burger buns, ice cream and spaghetti sauce.
Big Boy was the ideal place for her as young scientist eager to learn a wide variety of processes. It was there she became remarkably familiar with the FDA, the USDA, hundreds of raw ingredients, and hundreds of food service items. By the time Lucia joined Butterball Farms in 2004, she had 20 years of experience in quality, food safety and R&D.
Butterball is a small Grand Rapids, Michigan company making specialty flavored products for some of the largest companies on earth. Lucia currently finds herself using her experience and her fascination for manufacturing. She works closely with the Butterball sales team and their customers continually creating, commercializing, and packaging customized flavored food solutions.
