Interim Production Director / Plant Manager
Manager:
Mr.D. V.
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Customer:
Confidential
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Role:
Vacancy Role, predecessor left the company without successor being installed on time
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Location:
Germany
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Turnover:
16 M €
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Time frame:
10 months
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No. of employees:
150 (including part time and temporary staff)
About the Customer
The client is a global leading heat treatment company based in Remscheid. The client employs> 1,000 staff in 6 countries at 22 locations. The company acts as a service provider with heat treatment solutions for the global automotive supplier and machine building industry. The Remscheid is planning the largest plans within the group and the core business of the (CONFIDENTIAL) group brand.
Testimonial from Сustomer
‘The client has been a heavy wear and tear of production directors (4 in 5 years). The main task is the difficult situation btw. staff, work council and the management board. Plant equipment and its technical availability is not state of the art, reinvestment is not as it should be.
You analyzed the situation and then started to implement changes. A higher level of information and communication with the work council was identified as being very important. The sense of unity of the staff was strengthened by you.
All senior managers were supported with their tasks and trainings were implemented. In case of difficult client relations and quality issues both sales and quality departments were supported and related actions accompanied. Due to your longstanding expertise many important issues were remodeled, internal and external project management, sales strategy, client satisfaction, taking responsibility and managerial functions, etc. You implemented long term changes. ‘
Situation (Challenge)
The client lost the acting plant manager at the end of 2016 and did not manage to find a replacement on time. Therefore Mr DV is planning to make an interim basis and meet the targeted turnover and EBITA planned for 2017. One of the main targets inter alia was to pacify the relation btw. the work council and the management, Mr DV has been on a both sides and find a solution for the ongoing court case of the two parties.
The initial assignment length was 6 months, but the assignment was extended for a further 4 months due to the lengthy process of finding and appointing a permanent production director.
Adding new and replacing old equipment is an ongoing process of a production planning with 80 years of history, so transferring additional equipment into an already busy facility is a challenge.
The plant thus had a large backlog of overdue orders.
Solution (Achievement)
Until the end of October the turnover budget was + 4% and the EBITA was above the targeted figure. Furthermore, the backlog of overdue orders. The court case btw. the work council and the management was finally withdrawn amicably.
Furthermore, the equipment has not been installed in the original plan of the Technical Director, finally he had to. for 2 months. This scenario is not acceptable due to the high order book value and very tight delivery schedules to the automotive industry.