Product Development & Manufacturing

Marc M Veihl

Senior Staff Engineer at Stryker bridging R&D and Manufacturing. Northwestern mpd² candidate building fluency in the fuzzy front end of innovation.

NPI Launch Supply Chain PPAP Global Mfg DFMA Product Strategy

What I Do

I serve as the bridge between Research and Development and Manufacturing — evaluating global supplier capabilities, driving supply chain readiness, and guiding contract manufacturers through production approval while balancing cost, quality, and schedule. Six years of launching connected medical devices, from first-generation Wi-Fi hospital stretchers to global manufacturing transfers across Turkey, China, and Taiwan, have taught me that the best product decisions live at the intersection of technical depth and business clarity.

Why Northwestern

I traded capital goods for disposables, Kalamazoo for Chicago, and a familiar business unit for a new portfolio — because growth requires the right stimulus. I am pursuing Northwestern's Master of Product Design and Development Management to strengthen my approach to the fuzzy front end of innovation: defining user needs, building financial models that inform strategy, and developing the leadership vocabulary to move from executing launches to shaping product roadmaps.

mpd² Year 1 Cohort — Northwestern University, 2026

Year One Reflection

From Technical Launch Owner to Product-System Strategist

I came into mpd² as an engineer who knew how to launch things. Six years of NPI at Stryker taught me that if you get the process right — PPAP, supplier readiness, tooling, validation — the product ships. What I couldn't always do was explain why this product over another, or why now instead of next quarter, in language that moved a room.

Year one changed the altitude. Not reinvention — expansion. I still bridge R&D and Manufacturing. I still launch things. But now I can frame the opportunity upstream, defend it financially, ground it in evidence, and carry people along through the decision.

Project Highlights

ReCleat Product Design Built a full business case for a modular shoe upper — market sizing, supply-chain economics, sustainability impact, and executive pitch

Athleta Wellbeing System Design Understanding Designed a physical-digital wellbeing concept from ethnographic insight through phased rollout with business logic

Shift-Knob Redesign Sustainability Took a sustainability redesign from ambitious claims to defensible LCA — PP, recycled aluminum, die casting, regrind loops

Golf-Ball LCA Sustainability Reframed environmental impact around functional unit, retrieval infrastructure, toxicity, and user behavior

Energy Gel Launch Finance NPV model with sensitivity analysis, cannibalization logic, and capacity/CapEx timing ending in a go/no-go recommendation

XmR / Cpk Launch Deck Data Analytics Translated process capability into a launch-timing recommendation for leadership using control limits and exceedance rate

Full-Factorial DOE Data Analytics Power estimation, screening, interaction modeling, and recipe-based optimization for a manufacturing process

ALKO Inventory Synthesis Supply Chains Compared total cost and marginal ROI by SKU class, showing how correlation erases pooling benefits

Beer Game Debrief Supply Chains Made bullwhip distortion visceral — demand signaling, information sharing, lead-time amplification, MOQ effects

China CM Negotiation Negotiation Turned a binary supplier approval fight into tiered options using objective criteria and BATNA

The AI Thread

What started as curiosity about local LLMs in December became Token Jockey, then LLM Launcher, then Chi-Muter — each one a step from tinkering toward building real product systems with specs, evals, and users in mind. AI Jetpacks formalized the shift: from using chat tools to designing prompts, retrieval pipelines, evals, and repeatable workflows as infrastructure around real work.

Eleven Courses, Three Quarters

01Fall '25 Introduction to Product Design & DevelopmentWill & Marty
02Fall '25 Effective CommunicationBeth Bennett
03Fall '25 Sustainability in the Product Development ProcessCraig Arnold
04Fall '25 Team Building & Organizational BehaviorCaroline Marie Vial
05Winter '26 Accounting Issues for Product DevelopmentRobin Soffer
06Winter '26 Understanding through DesignGreg Holderfield
07Winter '26 Financial Issues for Product DevelopmentLeonardo Brubaker
08Winter '26 Negotiation / Conflict ResolutionConnie Meyer
09Spring '26 Leading with Data AnalyticsTony Orzechowski
10Spring '26 Global Product Design & Supply ChainsAchal Bassamboo
11Spring '26 Product ManagementBirju Shah & Jason Beauregard

That's what Year Two is for — doing it for real, at a higher altitude, with sharper wedges.

Resume

Experience

Senior Staff New Product & Process Development Engineer

Stryker SAGE: Advanced Operations

Apr 2026 – Present

Promoted to Senior Staff. Continuing to lead surgical positioning device manufacturing transfer and supply chain strategy while expanding scope across the SAGE Advanced Operations portfolio.

Staff New Product & Process Development Engineer

Stryker SAGE: Advanced Operations

Apr 2024 – Apr 2026

Led surgical positioning device launch with 50% COGS reduction through China manufacturing transfer. Guided contract manufacturer through first PPAP while managing 26-month supply plan across committed, negotiation, and auto-adjusted order horizons.

Staff Process Development Engineer

Stryker Medical Acute Care

Dec 2023 – Apr 2024

Led Prime Connect launch — first Wi-Fi-connected hospital stretcher generating $21M in first-year sales. Recovered critical supplier timeline through on-site Shenzhen visits, proving that technical communication can transcend language barriers.

Senior / Process Development Engineer

Stryker Medical Acute Care

Jun 2019 – Dec 2023

Managed $0.75M CapEx budget. Developed internal torque specification capability across 60+ tools. Built COVID Emergency Relief Bed production cells under rapidly changing conditions, deepening an empathy for operators that now shapes every process I design.

Education

Master of Product Design & Development Management

Northwestern University — mpd²

Expected June 2027

Part-time program alongside full-time role. Coursework in sustainable design, materials selection, life cycle assessment, and product strategy. Bringing a Voice of Operations perspective to a cohort of seasoned product leaders from diverse industries.

BS Mechanical Engineering

Michigan State University

May 2019

Biomedical Engineering concentration. Alumni Distinguished Scholar, Honors College. GPA: 3.95/4.0.

Skills

Technical

DFMA, Process Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ), PPAP, SCADA, SPC, DMAIC, Injection Molding, PCBA Integration, Python, Data Visualization

Business

Make vs. Buy Analysis, NPV/IRR Modeling, CapEx Management, Supplier Negotiation, Tariff Strategy, Product Roadmapping

Leadership

Cross-Functional Teams, Global Coordination (China, Turkey, Taiwan), Operator Training, Stakeholder Management, Crisis Recovery

Portfolio

Northwestern mpd² · MPD 445 Product Management

Mar 2026 – Present

Chi-Muter

A multi-modal commute companion for Chicago transit

Chi-Muter is a connection-protection layer for recurring commuters who coordinate across CTA buses, CTA rail, and Metra. Unlike Google Maps, Transit App, or Ventra — each of which solves one slice of the trip — Chi-Muter is focused on the handoff between transit systems. It evaluates live CTA arrivals against rigid Metra departures, calculates transfer makeability, and tells you whether your connection chain is still intact. The MVP runs on a Raspberry Pi backend over Tailscale, fusing CTA Bus Tracker, CTA Train Tracker, and Metra GTFS feeds into a single managed commute view.

Connection Intelligence

Saved commute templates instead of one-time trip search. Multi-leg connection health evaluation with green/yellow/red status. Compares feeder options (9 vs. X9) against a Metra anchor departure. Leave-by guidance and buffer-aware recommendations.

Live Architecture

Raspberry Pi backend running as a systemd service. CTA Bus Tracker and Metra schedule/realtime API integration. Server-side API key handling. Tailscale Serve for secure private access. Mobile-first dashboard with morning/return commute toggle and demo mode for offline review.

tokenjockey.com — Chi-Muter Clickable Prototype

Interactive clickable prototype — tap the phone screen or use arrow keys to navigate workflows

Python React CTA Bus Tracker API Metra GTFS-RT Raspberry Pi Tailscale systemd CORS

MVP · Beta with Train Gang View on GitHub →

Side Project · Local LLM Infrastructure — iOS Client

Dec 2025 – Feb 2026

Token Jockey iOS

Native mobile client for the LLM Launcher stack

A lightweight SwiftUI app for managing and chatting with LLM models — local llama.cpp over Tailscale, plus MiniMax and GLM/ZhipuAI cloud providers. Token Jockey connects to the LLM Launcher server for full model control, and adds a native chat experience that works across local and cloud backends — streaming responses via SSE, storing conversations locally, and supporting per-model system prompts.

Multi-Provider Chat

Switch between Local llama.cpp, MiniMax, and GLM/ZhipuAI from Settings. All providers use the same OpenAI-compatible SSE streaming path. Native SwiftUI chat with stop generation, markdown rendering, double-tap message navigation, and long-press send to select system prompt (None, Global, Model, or Global + Model).

History & Settings

Local JSON-backed conversation history with swipe-to-delete. Per-provider API keys and model fields stored in iOS Keychain. Chat Provider picker in Settings. Appearance mode and accent color customization. Global and per-model system prompts with active prompt indicators (* model, + global).

SwiftUI WKWebView SSE Streaming llama.cpp MiniMax GLM/ZhipuAI Tailscale iOS Keychain MarkdownUI

Active Development · iOS 16+ · Xcode 15+ View on GitHub →

Side Project · Local LLM Infrastructure — Server

Dec 2025

LLM Launcher

The control plane behind Token Jockey

A Python-based remote control server for managing local llama.cpp models with API key authentication, real-time GPU and VRAM monitoring, health checks, and live log tailing — all accessible over Tailscale from anywhere on the mesh. LLM Launcher is the server-side foundation that Token Jockey connects to: it handles model lifecycle (start, stop, swap), exposes an OpenAI-compatible chat endpoint, and serves an embedded web UI for configuration. This was the first piece of the stack — built to solve the practical problem of running inference on a home GPU while working from a laptop across the house or on the road.

Infrastructure

External JSON config for model management. Auto-detects Tailscale IP. Binds llama-server to all interfaces for network access. CORS-aware with API key authentication on all endpoints.

Monitoring & Control

Real-time GPU stats (VRAM, utilization, temperature). Health checks that confirm model readiness for inference, not just process liveness. Live log tailing piped from llama-server stdout. Full REST API for external tool integration.

gaming-pc.tailnet.ts.net:8081

Scrollable demo — saved snapshot of the LLM Launcher control panel

Python llama.cpp CUDA Tailscale NVIDIA SMI OpenAI-Compatible API GGUF Models

Early Prototype · Python 3.8+ View on GitHub →

Northwestern mpd² · Team Purple

2025 – 2026

Design Through Understanding

Interactive Showcase

During a recent new product introduction, I built this demand scenario modeler to help leadership visualize inventory and cost implications of demand uncertainty across a 26-month planning horizon. Scroll to adjust the demand scenario from 50–100% of baseline — or drag the slider directly.

Supply Chain Demand Scenario Modeler

NPI Case Study — Contract Manufacturer Supply Planning

Portfolio Project

Demand Scenario

50% 100%

50%

Scenario Demand

50%

Safety Stock First Achieved

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Peak Excess vs. SS

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Cost of Excess Inventory

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@ estimated landed COGS

Excess Pallet Positions

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@ cases per pallet

Original Supply Plan

100% Demand — Baseline

Scenario Model

50% Demand

Supply (Committed PO)

Supply (Negotiation Window)

Supply (Auto-Adjusted, MOQ)

Proj. Inventory

Dependent Demand

Safety Stock

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