About Us

Industrial Metallurgists, LLC provides materials engineering expertise and materials engineering training to help clients develop and manufacture products. We believe that understanding the science and engineering of materials enables the design and manufacture of products that meet their performance, reliability, and cost requirements.

Principal

Michael Pfeifer is the President of Industrial Metallurgists, LLC.  He has 20 years experience as an engineer for product development and manufacturing.  He has a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University and is a Professional Engineer, Licensed in Illinois.

Prior to Industrial Metallurgists, LLC Michael worked 13 years at Motorola in the following engineering positions:

• Manufacturing engineer in a high volume integrated circuit factory.  There he learned about statistical process control (SPC, now commonly referred to as six sigma), failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), design for manufacturing, reliability testing, and specification writing.  He applied this knowledge and his materials engineering background to improve manufacturing yields, reduce manufacturing costs, reduce cycle time, perform root cause failure analysis, and develop new manufacturing processes.
• Design engineer in Motorola’s Automotive Electronics Group, which made automotive and heavy vehicle electronics such as engine controllers, door and window controls, sensors, and telematics devices.  Michael was part of a small group of materials engineers that supported the entire business (it had about $800 MM in sales at one point) with materials selection for new products, cost reduction, failure analysis /root cause analysis, supplier evaluation and development, manufacturing process development, and quality improvement.  Michael worked with mechanical and electrical design engineers, manufacturing engineers, quality engineers, purchasing, and suppliers.

 

Associates

Our network includes professional materials engineers and scientists who are specialists in their areas of expertise.  We also work with companies that provide failure analysis and material analysis support for metals, polymers, and ceramics.