Rob PorterfieldVice President of Manufacturing
Porterfield led efforts in 2001 to open the first NI production facility in Hungary, which went from ground breaking to production in just four months and has delivered millions of dollars in cost savings to both NI and its customers around the globe. Prior to his work in Hungary, Porterfield led the creation of an NI software duplication center in Ireland and NI repair centers in Europe, Japan, and Singapore. In 2007, Porterfield coordinated the centralization of three quarters of the global distribution of NI into a single distribution hub in Hungary. By working with logistics partners and strategically rebalancing the global inventory of NI, Porterfield improved delivery times to customers, provided better global product availability, and achieved operational efficiency improvements that save the company millions of dollars annually. In addition, Porterfield continuously works with the purchasing and operations teams to increase efficiencies in NI global supply chains. Through these efforts, NI has seen gross margins increase by four points since 2002. Under his leadership, the company has seen record customer satisfaction ratings, on-time delivery rates, and improved corporate gross margins. Since joining NI in 1993 as a warehousing supervisor, Porterfield has held positions as materials manager, planning manager, director of international operations and global planning, and director of international operations and global supply chain. Prior to joining NI, Porterfield worked as a design engineer at General Dynamics. He holds a master’s degree in business administration from The University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Auburn University. Request a National Instruments employee to speak at your event. |
As Vice President of Manufacturing for National Instruments, Rob Porterfield oversees the worldwide manufacturing organization, including purchasing, production, and operations. In this role, Porterfield directs team efforts on continuously improving customer satisfaction and production efficiency, lowering material costs, reducing quoted product lead times, managing inventory levels, and ensuring the timely release of new products into production.