- Encouraging employee involvement in process improvement initiatives
- Incorporating robotics and AI-driven systems to enhance precision, speed, and consistency in production processes
- Providing continuous training for upskilling the workforce
- Setting up regular process audits to identify areas for improvement and to adapt to changing market conditions
- Establishing feedback loops with customers to align production with demand
Natalia Mendez
Head of Manufacturing Americas
Philips
Natalia Méndez DeBriones, leads the medical devices manufacturing cluster for Philips. In her current role she is responsible for leading 13 manufacturing plants, located across the world. She has been in Medical Devices manufacturing for the past 16 years and has experience in different roles: Quality, Product Design, Plastic Molding & Extrusion, and is passionate about Lean, Six Sigma, and Continuous Improvement.
During her career, she has been able to transform and optimize manufacturing processes to better support customer needs and increase value brought to the company. She enjoys working with interdisciplinary teams and finding new ways to achieve goals, while creating development opportunities for her team and others.
Through commitment, empowerment, and improving skills, not only for herself, but for her team, she has been able to triple productivity under high regulated environments, lead teams through challenging regulatory situations, and influence deep cultural shifts that have yielded on improved customer satisfaction and optimized cost of operations. She has led her teams through Manufacturing Excellence Competitions, being awarded repeatedly on several categories in some of her factories.
Natalia is native from Costa Rica, where she lives with her husband. She loves art, reading, and cooking. She gets her energy from working with others and learning from different backgrounds.
