About John Cachat

John Cachat is a visionary and an expert in developing information technology and operational excellence strategies for large and small organizations. Mr. Cachat is often sought out for his expertise by large consulting firms, like IBM Consulting, government agencies, and the US FDA, and professional and trade organizations for his leadership. Mr. Cachat specializes in strategies to integrate of ERP, PLM, SCM, and MES technologies. Mr. Cachat received a BSIE degree at the General Motors Institute (GMI – now Kettering University) in Flint, MI specializing in Operations Research and received recognition for both the Entrepreneur of the Year and Outstanding Alumni Achievement awards from Kettering. John also holds a MSIE degree from Texas A & M University, specializing in automated manufacturing. In addition, he is a Certified Quality Engineer and with the American Society of Quality. John is the past Chairman of ASQ Section 0814.

Contact Info

38700 French Creek Road
Avon, Ohio 44011

US FDA Experience

I have influenced the FDA executives’ thoughts, including the direction for cGMPS for the 21st Century, specifically “a risk management approach using integrated quality systems. “ I have provided support on several areas, including 21CFR11 electronic signatures, and computerization of the FDA labs to better track and evaluate lab data.

Strategic Quality Leadership

I facilitated a workshop for the Senior Leadership of Eaton Corporation. The objective was to get the group that consisted of Quality, Engineering, Purchasing and IT management from all business units, to focus on what business processes would best support the corporate objective of reducing the cost of non-quality.

IBM Automotive Consulting Group

I was sought out by the IBM Automotive Consulting Group for my expertise in creating a SaaS application to support new product launch (APQP) and production part approval process (PPAP) across a global, multi-tier automotive supply chain. I managed the project team for the development effort, lead the customer focus group meetings, and lead industry focusing meetings in support of the project.

Global Supply Chain – Debit Memos for Nonconforming Material & Supplier Scorecards

A major consumer products OEM had a paper intensive process for recording supplier problems. I designed, built, and help implement a centralized computer system that in less than 6 months, recovered $6M – 1% of their total annual revenue. The project also created supplier scorecards are 100% defensible - In EVERY case, the company was able to defend the score with supporting data on the first call!

Global Multi-Site Chemical Facility - Immediate reduction in audit processing costs

Implementing the QMS software provided us an immediate ROI. In the past, an on-site quality process audit was conducted for our 27 facilities each year, and sometimes twice a year. After going live with the IQS software we saw a savings of over $155,000 in audit processing costs in the first year alone.”

Major Tier One Automotive Supplier – Migration from Automotive OEM Legacy Systems for spin-off

When a new company was formed by spinning off several GM plants, the VP Information technology sought out my expertise to advise them on how to move off the GM legacy computer systems to an Oracle platform, including a Quality Management System I designed, built, and installed. As a result of this project, I also initiated and maintained a partnership with Oracle.

Automotive Manufacturing Experience

I have extensive knowledge of the metal fabrication and assembly industry, from the steel mills to the assembly plants. This includes hands on experience as an hourly employee and all plant supervisor positions. I lead the initial SPC effort by designing and implementing a process that transferred inspection responsibilities to the production personnel.

Aerospace Manufacturing Experience

I have extensive knowledge of the high precision machining, heat treating, plating, and assembly operations. My projects included: implementing SPC in a low volume production environment, reduce the time and cost of processing and analyzing MRB tickets for more effective corrective action. I was project manager on a $1M USAF Technology Modernization project to develop the database and business processes for all non-inventory, non-financial related transactions in a manufacturing environment.

Industry Leadership and Vision - Manufacturing Quality Assurance Cooperative (MQAC)

In the late 80’s, I sold almost 200 companies on the idea of a cooperative software development effort to create quality management software. The idea was spawned at a meeting held at NASA Headquarters, where I was invited to be a member of a committee to help NASA with small, minority business suppliers that needed to meet the NASA 5300 quality requirements. The initial MQAC members included: NASA sites, Westinghouse, Rockwell, TRW, and General Electric. I then repeated the concept with the MQAC II to create a client server technology, and members included: American Axle & Manufacturing, Eaton Corporation, Parker Hannifin, MTD Products, Autoliv, and Cooper Standard. I can create a vision and convince companies to support it.