Top Management Team

Chad Kymal - President and Founder

Chad Kymal is an international trainer and consultant and Chief Technical Officer of Omnex Inc. In addition to founding Omnex, Mr. Kymal is founder of Omnex Systems, the software company that produced the Enterprise-wide Quality Management System (EwQMS) Suite.  He has published a book, The ISO/TS 16949:2002 Implementation Guide, available through Paton Press, and he is currently writing a new book, How to Audit ISO/TS 16949 through the same publisher. Chad's interests include work with large corporations in designing effective Business Management Systems and getting value from implementing effective business strategies.  He has served on the Malcolm Baldrige Board of Examiners and as an RABQSA-certified lead auditor. He has a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from General Motors Institute, a Master's degree in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Michigan. Over Chad's successful career, he has received numerous quality achievement awards, including the Quality Professional of the Year award by the American Society of Quality Automotive Division in 2005. He can be reached at ckymal@omnex.com.

Arun Nikore - Executive Vice President

Arun Nikore has extensive experience spanning over three decades in the areas of management, software, engineering and business development. He has a distinguished career in starting, building and leading Manufacturing, Services and IT organizations. His international experience includes working in multinational companies in Asia and the Middle East including ABB and Metal Box. Over the past twelve years he has had in-depth experience with software products, information technology and engineering services in the US. He has handled business and projects with such reputable clients as Microsoft, Oracle, GM, Ford, Toyota, Shell, Exxon, KBR, US Army Corps of Engineers and the University of Michigan. He has a BS in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India. He has also studied information systems management at Harvard University.

Gregory F. Gruska - VP Product Development

Mr. Gruska, a Fellow of the American Society for Quality (ASQ), is presently the COO of Omnex Systems and a principal consultant in performance excellence and Six Sigma Master Blackbelt for Omnex Engineering and Management, Inc.

Mr. Gruska had been associated with Dr. W. E. Deming and has assisted in the Transformation of Management since 1981. He has personally assisted large and small companies in North America and Europe in this transformation including the development and implementation of strategy, benchmarking, process control planning, and customer satisfaction. Further, he has worked with companies in the preparation of internal or external assessment utilizing criteria such as QS-9000, ISO/TS 16949, Total Quality Excellence, and MBNQA and has helped organizations using Six Sigma performance improvement strategies.

He directed and was the primary resource for the development and initial implementations of Comprehensive Process Control Planning ((CP)2). This approach provides a structure for the logical determination and implementation of process controls within an environment of continuous improvement. Following the precepts taught by Dr W. E. Deming, (CP)2 enables an organization to establish what is needed to control its processes and then integrate these plans within the normal operations. The Ford Motor Company, Transmission and Chassis Division, pioneered its use with the launch of the transaxle used in the Taurus/Sable vehicles. This structure enabled the plant to achieve Best-In-Class status for this transmission within the first year of production and subsequently to continue to improve its quality and productivity.

Prior to joining OMNEX, Mr. Gruska managed the Quality Engineering Activity at Chevrolet. This group provided benchmarking, quality engineering and statistical support to all divisional and corporate activities and their suppliers. Besides the application of statistics within the design, manufacturing, and support environments, this group was active in the development of new technologies and training in these areas. Mr. Gruska additional served as a Divisional and Corporate consultant in Statistical Engineering and Management. He has traveled extensively in assisting engineering, financial, and support staffs and manufacturing plants in the investigation and solution of problems affecting quality and customer satisfaction.

Mr. Gruska has been involved in the development of theory and software and authored many papers in the areas of non-normal and multivariate sampling and data analysis, quality management, measurement systems analysis, inspector effectiveness and statistical process control. He is the author of Theory D which discusses the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming and is the editor and principal author of Comprehensive Process Control Planning - (CP)2. He is also the co-author of The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award: The Yardstick for Quality Growth, available through Addison-Wesley. Mr. Gruska is also an active/writing member of the QS-MSA and QS-SPC Manual subcommittees of the American Automotive industry's Supplier Quality Requirements Task Force which is part of the international task force governing TS-16949.

Mr. Gruska is an adjunct professor at Madonna University. He has advanced degrees in mathematics and engineering from the University of Detroit, Michigan State University and Wayne State University. He was the Deming Memorial Lecturer at the Sheffield Hallam University for the year 2000.

Mr. Gruska is a charter member of the Greater Detroit Deming Study Group and the W. E. Deming Institute. He is a ASQ certified Quality Engineer, a licensed Professional Engineer (CA - Quality) and a member of the Board of Examiners of and Judge for the Michigan Quality Leadership Award (1994-2005).

David Watkins - Board of Advisors

Executive Vice President and Director of International Operations for Omnex, Inc., Dave Watkins has a wide range of experience encompassing full profit and loss responsibility in General Management, as well as manufacturing, production, Human Resources and distribution management in a variety of industries. Dave has had responsibilities at all levels of manufacturing, from production shift supervisor to President, and has led total process re-engineering efforts in several plants, involving a number of different process and product technologies.

Dave’s focus is on employing approaches that enhance the client’s ability to create value for customers and stockholders; as a result he is particularly adept at the integration of quality and business management systems to enhance overall performance and competitive capability.

He has developed and delivered training and consulting services domestically and in all major international markets, primarily to senior and executive management groups, in the strategic implementation of integrated management systems incorporating QS/ISO 9001:2000, ISO/TS 16949:2002, QOS/BOS, Product Development & Launch (NPD), Supplier Development & Supply Chain Management, and lean enterprise systems in rational, profit oriented solutions.

Having pioneered the application of these approaches in non-manufacturing companies, Dave has authored or co-authored most of Omnex’s seminars for service companies, including ISO 9001:2000 for Service, Advance Quality Planning (AQP) for Service, and QOS/BOS for Service. He has worked with clients in industries as diverse as banking; local, regional and global multi-modal transportation; product development & engineering; software development; logistics; contract professional services; construction; and project management.

His extraordinarily broad industry experience ranges from automotive and semiconductor design and manufacturing, to the design, development and bottling of package solutions for the liquor industry, production of aerosol cans, gear sets for oil rigs, magnets for electric motors and printing production processes for standardized testing. He has worked with chemical companies, R&D Groups, seating assembly plants and complex electronic component and assembly companies.

Dave has delivered papers on a variety of topics in the U.S., India, Bahrain, Thailand and China and has published articles in a variety of periodicals.

His education includes a BA from Widener University and numerous professional courses. Dave has served on the Board of Directors of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, as a Trustee for the IMA’s Education Foundation, and as a Trustee for Northeastern Illinois University Foundation.

Mark Sebastian - Product Manager

Mr. Sebastian is a hands-on software architect and developer and highly skilled application and database designer. He has extensive experience with both traditional and expert systems development. His abilities are broad-based and include the following projects:

• The Pennatus Resource Management System. Mark designed and implemented a web-based Resource Management System using Zope, Python and Javascript.
• The 4Keeps Knowledge Management Platform. Mark designed and wrote this multi-tiered software, which allows users to capture information in a repository for any model defined as meta data stored in the repository. The information can then be distributed to various applications such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Visio and Microsoft Project.
• KPMG Task Management tool. Mark was the key designer and developer for a Task Management tool developed for KPMG.
• The KnowledgeWare Knowledge Coordinator. Mark led the project and designed the conversion of the prolog Knowledge Coordinator from KnowledgeWare's DOS-based Information Engineering Workbench to their OS/2-based Application Development Workbench. Mark also led the team of developers that ported the OS/2-based product to UNIX.
• IBM Vision-oriented Manufacturing Quality Control Inspections Systems. Mark engineered and supervised the design and programming of the OCR for these systems, as well as contributing to the design of the physical equipment.
• Aeroquip Multi-item Purchasing System. Mark helped to define, implement and install the Aeroquip multi-item Purchasing System in various Aeroquip plants around the world.

Mr. Sebastian has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Illinois and a Master of Science degree from the University of Michigan.

Arun Kumar - (Omnex India, VP of Omnex Asia)

Vice President of Omnex' Asia Operations, Mr. Kumar has been with Omnex in various management positions for over 8 years. He has immense experience in business consulting and quality systems implementation/training for the automotive and related industries. He was primarily responsible for starting up Omnex' operations in India and other parts of Asia.

His career objective is to assist companies in achieving significant improvements in their competitive positions, both operational as well as technology oriented through the introduction of professionally managed quality/business systems, Integrated Six Sigma deployment and TQM philosophies.

A certified Lead Auditor, he manages and leads a dedicated team of more than 60 professionals who take care of the needs of the India, UAE and the S. E. Asia market. His education includes a degree in Computer Science Engineering and other professional courses.

Donald M. Cherry - Director of Sales

Mr. Cherry is an executive sales professional and is currently the Director of Sales for Omnex Systems, LLC.

Mr. Cherry brings over 18 years of professional sales and marketing experience in the applications software industry to the Omnex team. Prior to joining Omnex Systems, Mr. Cherry had worked for multiple fortune 500 organizations including General Electric and International Business Machines and has also held executive positions within the technology industry including, Executive Vice President /Principle, Apex Technologies and CEO of WPC Inc.

Mr. Cherry has secured a broad range of technical software projects in multiple industries including; Automotive, Finance, Insurance and Healthcare. He also has managed key software implementations for a wide variety of organizations including the Ford Motor Company, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, New York /New England Telephone, and Adventist Health Care. He holds a BA in Economics from Wayne State University.