Dee Mellor

By Jyoti Thottam/Milwaukee

It was one of the toughest moments of her career, and Dee Mellor was about to relive it one recent afternoon, this time in front of an audience--a group of rising stars at General Electric. Mellor, 45, runs the global supply-chain operations for GE's huge Medical Systems unit, and last year she had to decide where to move the manufacturing of a crucial component for the C.T. scanners used in hospitals. In India, she explained, GE had a proven team and facility and could reap an immediate return. China would require more investment, but it offered access to a pool of top materials scientists. As Mellor detailed the options, her students picked apart her every move. And she loved it.

This is the kind of logistical puzzle that gets Mellor up at 4:30 every morning and ready by 6 for conference calls with GE Medical sites in France, Israel and Japan. Trained as an engineer, Mellor has spent nearly all of her career in manufacturing operations. "I like to see how things are made," she says simply. For GE, her skills are critical. CEO Jeff Immelt came to his position from GE Medical and has singled out the division--with $9.2 billion in sales this year--as a key source of growth. On-time, on-spec, on-budget delivery of its products will be essential in hitting that target, and it's what Mellor does best.

She joined GE in 1978 and soon went to the Aircraft Engines division. It was a great fit. Her father was a navigator, and one of her brothers is a fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force. She credits her parents with encouraging her love of math and science. Growing up with a sister and three brothers in Worcester, Mass., also prepared her for GE's famously intense managers. "My brothers would push me hard, Mellor says. "I had to hold my own."

At 35, she was tapped to run a 1,000-employee aircraft-engine parts plant in Wilmington, N.C. At 40, she led the integration into GE of Greenwich Aviation Services, a $1.6 billion company that the larger firm had just acquired. Two years ago, Immelt and his successor at GE Medical, Joe Hogan, persuaded Mellor to move her family to the division's suburban Milwaukee, Wis., headquarters.

GE Medical makes the most sophisticated digital X-ray, C.T. scan, MRI and ultrasound equipment available, and it runs 40 facilities in 10 countries. Mellor made her mark immediately. Says Hogan: "Dee was able to bring up productivity in the components department almost 20% in the first 18 months. That had never been done before." Of course, fast results aren't always the kind you want, Mellor says, explaining her choice of China over India for producing that C.T. component: "It's a great example of not making the short-term play for a higher profit margin." Class dismissed. --By Jyoti Thottam/Milwaukee