McHENRY, Ill. – As part of BPI’s commitment to enhance product sales and simplify distribution for its customers, the brake parts manufacturer has added a new packaging manager to its corporate product department. In his new role, Doug Koch will use his packaging skills and cross-functional experiences to meet customer and company goals relating to global packaging specifications and standards, inventory enhancement and packaging optimization.
“Doug brings a distinctive set of technical skills and experiences,” said Terry Heffelfinger, vice president, product development, R&D & Quality, Brake Parts Inc. “He is already working with the subject matter experts, product managers and engineers, and the sales and marketing team to find better ways to interface between our many cross-functional areas.”
Koch graduated from Illinois State University with a bachelor’s of science degree in chemistry. He also has a master’s of science degree in chemistry from Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville. Koch said, “My key initiative is to enhance and strengthen our global packaging strategy. I plan to spend the next couple months wrapping my arms around our internal processes and material development programs, and strategizing new package designs to better meet our customer needs.” Koch will serve as a liaison between BPI customers, its sales and marketing team and its worldwide factories.
Prior to accepting this position, Koch spent three years at PepsiCo in Barrington, Ill., as an associate principal engineer. He led the successful qualification, validation and commercialization of new packages, products and technologies. Koch also worked in the St. Louis, Mo., area at Sanofi-Aventis and Anheuser-Busch in the consumer goods package development and packaging quality areas.
