Blake Fulton

Blake Fulton is a Senior Value Engineering Manager at GE Power, based in South Carolina, United States.4 He has extensive experience in manufacturing engineering and process expertise in the gas turbine industry.3

Career at GE Power

Fulton has held several roles at GE Power:

1. Senior Advanced Manufacturing Engineer
2. Senior Value Engineering Manager

As a Senior Advanced Manufacturing Engineer, Fulton played a key role in implementing lean management practices at GE's turbine factory in Greenville, South Carolina.12 He was involved in a significant project to improve efficiency and reduce waste in the production of turbine buckets, which are intricate steel blades used in the hot section of gas turbines.

Contributions to Lean Manufacturing

Fulton was part of a team that tackled inventory and scrap rate issues at the Greenville plant. He identified that the turbine bucket component had the highest inventory and scrap rate, making it an ideal candidate for improvement.1 His work contributed to:

• Reducing overall production time for HA turbines from 1.5 years to less than 40 weeks
• Cutting inventory levels by half, saving hundreds of millions of dollars in capital
• Freeing up 50,000 square feet of factory space, with another 100,000 square feet anticipated

Education and Expertise

Blake Fulton received his education from Clemson University.3 His expertise includes:

• Manufacturing engineering
• Process optimization
• Lean management principles
• Value stream mapping
• Advanced manufacturing techniques

Through his work at GE Power, Fulton has demonstrated a strong ability to apply lean management principles to complex manufacturing processes, contributing significantly to the company's efforts to improve efficiency and reduce waste in turbine production.