Interim Operations Leadership
Customer satisfaction increased to more than 95%.
Case Studies
Business Issue
An electro-mechanical fabrication and assembly business with the following challenges contacted Flow Consulting for Interim Leadership:
Poor leadership in most of the operations functions.
Deficient or no internal processes resulting in performance issues across the business.
Delayed new program introductions.
Declining delivery performance.
Customer issues with quality increasing.
Approach Used
To stabilize and improve the organization, the Interim Operations director performed the following tasks:
Skills Assessment — Assessed all operations staff from director–level through individual contributors using a skills assessment matrix for each person/position as follows: Expert, Proficient, Marginal or Not a Skill.
Performance vs. Potential/Promotability — Assessed every individual in leadership and support roles.
War Room — Immediately established a war room with a focus on containment and put in place checks and balances to assure issues captured before shipment.
DMAIC — Utilized DMAIC methodology to ensure problems were adequately defined and prioritized: Systematically resolving the highest priority issues.
Recruiting and Staffing — Staffing adjustments in multiple areas were required to meet current needs of a business in transition and growing. Five of eight director-level positions were filled as were multiple operations positions at all levels.
Training — ERP system training and cross-training in production areas resulted in improved material availability and on-time delivery.
Lean Initiation — Applied Kanbans on the input and finished goods sides of the business.
KPIs — Key Process Indicators were initiated as a standard part of daily operations and monthly operations reviews.
Results
Quality — Customer satisfaction increased from less than 50% to more than 95% due to significant quality improvements in two key product lines.
Staffing — Eleven new leadership hires, including the permanent VP of Operations, has better positioned the business for future success.
Customer Commitments — On-time delivery improved from less than 85% to more than 95%.
Capacity — Capacity issues were substantially resolved through the effective use of Kanbans.