Situation

The client is a Swedish listed company and is one of top three waste water pump manufacturers globally with strong brands. Their German operation was underperforming and was struggling through quality problems, backlogs in production and with deep problems in work force. The site had around 230 employees. The current Managing Director is a Swedish expat who needed to return to Sweden with short notice. The group’s management turned to Mason to find a solution with a German Executive Interim.

Solution

Mason is partner in SMW which is an international partnership of Executive Interim Management providers, and we discussed this request with our German partner. We understand that there were deep problems in the company and we must define the success factors in the scope for turn around and improve the performance.

• Establish a good relationship with works council with a German Interim executive.
• Identify the causality between underperformance, quality and backlog problems.
• Establish a quite clear management for turn around and performance improvement

Together with our German partner we delivered a German Interim executive within a week.

The Interim manager had a strong and deep background from manufacturing engineering in the German Industry. Also, we needed expertise in turn-around, restructuring and performance improvement.

The Interim Manager got the responsibility for the site including all functions. He needed to partner with the works council in order to improve the relationship with the employees. There was no trust between the social partners. The Site Manager was also tasked with improving communications to the employees and the works council in order to gain trust.

The site had no Production Manager and the interim manager needed to hire a Production Manager to ensure a continuous technical improvement of the production processes. A part of the production must be relocated outside Germany and to execute this relocation by considering the labour law in Germany and the agreements between the social partners. The Interim Site Manager reported to the European Operations Manager.

Results

The contract was accomplished successfully. A very good relationship between works council and management was established. The quality problems and backlog in production were eliminated. A clear strategy for performance improvement was developed and accepted by the works council.

During the assignment the client was acquired by one of the leading competitors in the Industry.

The new owner kept the Interim Manager in the assignment for more than three years and he ended up in the contract by relocation of the production to a new German site.