Michael “Mike” Harlan
Results-driven Chemical Engineer in specialty chemical manufacturing in Louisville, KY. Plant Operations Manager at a leading producer of industrial adhesives, coatings, and performance chemicals. Oversee all aspects of plant operations, including raw material blending, bulk storage systems, quality-controlled packaging into drums, totes, tanker trucks, and railcar loading. Responsible for optimizing production schedules, ensuring regulatory compliance with EPA, OSHA, and DOT standards, and maintaining the safe, efficient transfer of hazardous and non-hazardous materials. Under my leadership, the Louisville facility has achieved a 22% increase in on-time shipments while reducing packaging-related incidents by 35%. I enjoy leading cross-functional teams of operators, technicians, and maintenance staff to solve complex operational challenges in a fast-paced 24/7 environment. Committed to continuous improvement, actively promoting Lean manufacturing principles and sustainable practices, including waste minimization and energy-efficient blending processes.
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Professional Background
14 years
PE, Six Sigma Black Belt, PSM & HAZOPER
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Technical Interests & Expertise
Streamlining packaging machinery
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At our Louisville plant we drum flammable solvent-borne adhesives and coatings. Last year we retrofitted two lines to closed-loop filling: bottom-entry lance, dry-break couplers, vapor return to a carbon bed, Coriolis mass flow, grounding interlocks, and LEL monitoring.Wins: odor complaints vanished, VOCs dropped, and we gained 8-10% throughput by cutting foam and false trips. The surprises were bottlenecks: pressure drop across the carbon bed crept up on long ketone runs, starving vapor return...
In our adhesives plant, most risk and rework still show up at the end of the line. Moving hydrocarbons from blend tanks into drums and totes used to be open and inconsistent. We switched to closed-loop bottom fill with Coriolis metering, a light nitrogen sweep, and an activated carbon vent. We also enforce bonding and verify continuity before every fill.Results were clear: tighter fill weights, fewer exposures, and lower VOCs. The new pinch point was what leaves with the truck. Bung torque scatt...
At our Louisville plant, a lot of what we ship rides on the petrochemical chain. On our flammables line, we cut static and VOC exposure without a big capital spend.Changes: switched from splash top-fill to bottom-up lances with ramped flow, enforced verified bonding/grounding with interlocks (no green light, no fill), and moved to closed-head drums only for low-conductivity blends. Added a simple vapor balance to a carbon bed and standardized torque control on bungs. Net: 35% drop in near-misses...
At our Louisville plant we package a lot of solvent-based product, so our drum and tote lines live in Class I, Div 1. The biggest gains this year did not come from new fillers. They came from a few low-cost changes that removed friction.We moved to weight-based coarse/fine filling with a short dwell, tied to a ground monitor and LEL permissive so the pump cannot start unless the bond is good, exhaust is proven, and atmosphere is clean. We added closed-loop vapor return on the bung to our carbon...
At our Louisville plant we recently revamped a Class I, Div 1 drum line for flammable blends. We swapped floor scales and manual valves for Coriolis-based, bottom-up semi-auto fillers with a two-stage profile, nitrogen blanket, and bonded/grounded swivels. Result: cycle time per 55-gal dropped 21% (73s to 58s), giveaway fell from 0.15% to 0.08%, and vapor exposure is noticeably lower because we stay closed until bung torque.Not all roses: entrained air on solvent returns confused the meters unti...
We’ve been tightening up VOC control on our solvent drum/tote lines. We moved from open bung filling to closed-loop heads with vapor return to a header tied into a carbon bed. Emissions dropped and the room smells better, but we ran into backpressure swings that slowed fills and created occasional drips at disconnect. We stabilized it with a backpressure regulator on the header, pressure transmitters at the fill skids, and a short pause before decoupling to let the return equalize. Throughput is...
As a specialty chemicals plant feeding downstream petrochem customers, we’ve spent the last year tightening up our Class I drum and tote packaging. The true constraint wasn’t nozzle speed. It was foaming, temperature-driven density swings, and sloppy changeovers that created leaks and rework.Three changes gave us the biggest lift: swapping to Coriolis mass-based fills with simple backpressure control to stabilize against vapor, switching from AODD to VFD-driven gear pumps to kill pulsation, and...
In the last year we overhauled our drum/tote and tank-truck loading for aromatics and ketones. Targets: cut VOCs, speed changeovers, and eliminate handoffs that led to small spills.Changes we made: enclosed fills with hard-piped vapor return to carbon control; switched from PD/volumetric to Coriolis with batch presets; dry-breaks on all transfer points; ground verification interlocked to permissives; independent high-level and rapid-closure valves; standardized hose sets and color coding; added...
In adhesives and coatings we often straddle petrochemicals. We just scaled up drum and tote packaging for a low-flash solventborne product, and the tug of war between throughput and NFPA/API expectations was real. Our two biggest pain points were static control and vapor management at the fillers.Bonding and grounding were solid, yet we still had nuisance LEL trips on warm afternoons. Root cause: the supplier’s solvent blend drifted 3-4 C in flash point from the SDS. Fixes that stuck: require CO...
We just finished retrofitting our drum and tote lines for Class I liquids with closed fill lances, vapor balance to carbon, verified grounding, continuous LEL, and automated torque and leak checks. Emissions are down and our operators feel safer. The tradeoff is a slower takt time. We added 9 to 12 seconds per container and get nuisance trips around 6 to 8 percent LEL on humid days.We have chipped away at it with a few changes. Bottom entry lances and a two stage fill profile reduced splashing....