Two Visteon Employees to be Honored by Society of Automotive Engineers

Bryan Dodson, associate director of Product Development Quality Engineering, and Jack Stein, systems engineer, Advanced Cross-Systems Engineering, will be presented with the McFarland Award, inaugurated at the 1980 SAE World Congress. The annual award recognizes outstanding contributions to SAE in the planning, development, and dissemination of information through technical meetings, conferences and professional development.

Dodson is being recognized for his outstanding leadership in SAE since 1998. Dodson developed the Accelerated Testing Conference, which has been a part of the SAE World Congress for the past four years. This conference addresses industry efforts to correlate accelerated testing methods with real- world results. Additionally, Dodson has been instrumental in developing new sessions on Six Sigma and virtual engineering. Both topics have served to spotlight analytical and modeling methodologies available for all technical professionals in the industry.

Among Dodson's accomplishments is implementation of the forward model quality program. The program integrates quality and reliability engineering into every future model program for Visteon, resulting in a significant improvement in quality metrics. Dodson also automated reliability engineering calculations and created an interactive web site to bring the data to design engineers. Prior to Dodson's efforts, this task was performed manually.

Additionally, Dodson has co-authored eight books including: Accelerated Testing: A Practitioner's Approach; Reliability Engineering Handbook; Six Sigma Study Guide; and Reliability: Censored Sampling. In the area of technical papers, Dodson has made significant contributions to the field by researching and presenting his findings in more than a dozen papers covering such topics as: "The Hidden Cost of Poor Quality", "Providing Reliable Products in the Automotive Industry", "Determining Optimum Schedule for Preventive Maintenance", and "Incorporating Risk in Project Decisions in a Manufacturing Environment."

Dodson joined Visteon in October 2000 as a senior manager in the company's product reliability office. In April 2001, Dodson became associate director for Product Development Quality. He is a licensed professional engineer; an ASQ (American Society for Quality) certified reliability engineer, ASQ certified quality engineer, and an ASQ fellow.

He has a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, a master's degree in industrial engineering, and a master's degree in business administration from Louisiana Tech University. Additionally, Dodson has a doctorate in business administration from Nova Southeastern University.

As Visteon's other Forest R. McFarland Award winner, Stein will be recognized for his leadership in SAE activities since 1987. Stein founded and is the current organizer of the Automotive Electronic Systems and Reliability technical session held annually at the SAE World Congress. He is chairman of the SAE Automotive Electronic Systems Reliability Standards Committee and U.S. delegate to the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) working group that recently completed development of international road vehicle standard ISO 16750, Environmental Conditions and Testing for Automotive Electrical and Electronic Equipment.

Stein has served in several roles over his 20-year involvement with SAE, including 12 years as the Ford/Visteon SAE company representative and 10 years as secretary and sub-committee leader for the Automotive Electronic Systems Reliability Standards Committee, among other positions. Additionally, he is a Level 2 SAE Ambassador, having sponsored 22 new SAE members and is a recipient of SAE Mid-Michigan Section Donald C. Scoville Award for outstanding governing board achievement.

Among Stein's career highlights are serving as co-inventor of Visteon's System Integrated Life Cycle (SILC) Risk Management Method and contributing author to two publications: SAE 2002 Transactions Journal of Passenger Cars: Electronic and Electrical Systems and Plastic Encapsulated Microelectronics: Materials Processes Quality, Reliability and Applications.

Stein joined Ford/Visteon in 1989 and has worked in various areas of electronics engineering, including standards development; advanced product development process design; and quality, reliability and systems engineering.

He earned a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and a bachelor's degree in commerce from the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Stein is currently working toward a master's degree in quality/reliability engineering from the University of Arizona.

Visteon Corporation is a leading full-service supplier that delivers consumer-driven technology solutions to automotive manufacturers worldwide and through multiple channels within the global automotive aftermarket. Visteon has approximately 73,500 employees and a global delivery system of more than 180 technical, manufacturing, sales and service facilities located in 25 countries.