Matt Clark

Build PM for a WDG Devices hardware product. Responsible for coordinating contract manufacturers, EE teams, ME teams, program manager leads, build materials, build readiness and handoff/ramp to final manufacturing volumes for a product.

Reporting on spend, keeping subassembly build budgets, vendor engagements, more.

Managing the relationship between our WDG Devices hardware group, the Industrial Design group, and the Program Management team while @ Advanced Prototyping Center, Microsoft. WDG partnership enabling flexible shared product prototyping and development environment for engineers, dev, design and more teams.

Deliver class A visual appearance models from international vendors and in-house to Industrial Design team and leadership team. Devices are future first party hardware devices and peripherals, as well as function/fit/CMF explorations. Manage the 60% of resource we direct at external vendors, balance internal/external workflow load. Support in-house builds with specialization in laser marking, LSR silicone casting and tooling, pre-print and print.

Additional senior leadership requests for stage and launch assets for first party hardware launches (Surface Studio, Surface Laptop, Surface Pro).

Longer range PM targets across teams creating data analytics around quality assurance in both internal/external models. Creating scheduling, prioritization and costing reporting through PowerBI reports I have written, and contributed towards group software written in TFS tracking all (~8,000 req and counting) work and metadata about it.

Managing external vendor requiring international travel with WDG Global Security, auditing and analyzing qualitative, privacy and security of our trusted partners, sharing best practices for improvement. New business initiatives and onboarding new vendors.

Designer and researcher under the executive director and the principal for research at University of Illinois at Chicago’s center for product design, research and intellectual property. Executing design research, high level design thinking, functional and aesthetic prototyping.

The original goal was to add a skilled shop supervisor to act as a project manager for a rotating cast of 6 or so unskilled workers. I solicited a plan to revamp the shop for manufacturing efficiency, as well as reorganizing for inventory and production efficiency, then converting the handmade sculptural speaker horns to CNC knife and mill operations. This required creating all digital files from scratch measurements of existing products and extensive model making/photography. The outcome was our ability to scale up to sell online and generate capital to invest back in CNC milling for future projects.

Other aspects of the position were generating experimental large scale (20x20x20) silicon molds, vacuum resin infusion molding at larger scale and various hand layups of carbon fiber and artisanal paper products.

Reorganize shop space in order to be able to create an active inventory system and a physical workflow space, development of jigs and fixtures to aid unskilled workers in safely and rapidly turn out product. Machine maintenance and safety, retooling of active dust collection, going through dead stock for salable inventory, taking inventory of old tooling and moldmaking stock and replacing what is necessary.

Day to day woodworking, metalworking, project planning and overview to divide work among shop aides, translating limited physical stock into paper sketches, then digital 2D/3D files to reverse engineer some products for mass manufacture rather than piecemeal while keeping a handmade aesthetic.

Apprentice to a furniture designer of 28 years; concept development and construction of new furniture designs, refinement of existing prototypes, photographic documentation of both process and finished work for publication.

Reclaimed wood office systems design, construction and crating/transport.

Concept realization, construction and refinement of working prototypes for new media display products. Disassembly and crating for transport.

Working with a team of Electrical/Computer Engineers, Marketing and Business students to collaboratively observe, research, design and implement a market ready system of personal communication tools. Dell worked closely reviewing work and coordinating with teams in Shanghai, California and Texas.

Fabrication of locally sourced furniture, soft goods and manufacture. Concept, design and construction of site-specific office system/ business environments. Clients include the Office of Art and Architecture at UIC, the Dill Pickle Food Co-Op, and the Green Grocer. Product development of Tree Theory bags and Good Dog Spotlight.

Assistant to sculptural artist; concept realization and construction of artist’s design for UBS 12 X 12 show at the MCA Chicago.

Graphic design for State’s Attorney and multinational companies creating demographics ideation, storyboard case concepts, explanatory flowchart, statistical analysis, and final courtroom deliverable. Development and scripting/videos for Seebrief.