Transition Manager Supply Chain & Production

Between August 2020 and December our Interim Manager was given the mission to Initiate the transformation Supply Chain & Production towards operational excellence of the main German factory of our client. Targets for his mission were defined in the area of Inventory reduction, production efficiency and industrial On Time Delivery (OTD). Furthermore, a strong focus on the soft skills, initiating a cultural change & accountability increase was part of his roadmap.

Challenges

The environment in which the Interim Manager was working was a highly manual production, mainly project driven, with strong available technical and product skills, but lacking process views, cross functional collaboration, consistent continuous improvement processes and a lack of individual and collective accountability.

Action

During the last month of his assignment, the Interim Manager was in addition asked to work on the process analysis in view of a new ERP implementation and a production process change from MTS to MTO. He succeeded in a short time through a fact driven analysis, deep diving in the understanding of the existing disturbances and gathering cross-functional teams around a common operational target to:

  • Align the teams on the challenges and a common problem-solving approach
  • Implement KPI driven daily performance reviews to identify upcoming disturbances at an early stage and provide quick resolution
  • Visual Management implementations for key processes & KPI’s
  • Increase individual accountability
  • Set-up specific processes to manage production disturbances outside the normal production flow

Within the fundamental process analysis, the main process-inefficiencies were identified, and the highlevel future processes were defined, actions outlined and the transition into the new processes were initiated.

Results

During his assignment the manufacturing output increased by 40% at equal headcount, through waste elimination, stronger collaboration and focus. New operational performing processes in the area of material flow were implemented. A set of meaningful KPI’s were identified and implemented to drive process and operational performance.

The Interim Managers work was fundamental to achieve the set-sales targets for 2020 and set the required basis for future process as well as operational improvements. His very hand-on approach and excellent collaboration with the teams allowed to initiate the required mind-set change and increase the individual accountability.

Leading indicators in the area of material management, supply chain and production showed a strong improvement over the period of his assignment. The outcome of his work was transitioned to the newly hired Operations Manager and our Interim Manager ensured future continuity of the basis of the improvements implemented.

Through is structured analysis, his quick understanding of the different key processes, his result and action driven daily work, as well as his strong interpersonal skills our Interim Manager made this mission a great success for our client.

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