Flexmanager - Interim Operations/Production Manager

Interim Operations/Production Manager

Work Experience

March – April 2013
Independent Consultant
Working for a company based in Germany, I completed a consultancy project, providing analysis of the current business in terms of overall costs of manufacturing sites and recommending future scenarios which will improve the base line.

Dec 2008 – Dec 2012, Bonar Yarns & Fabrics, Dundee, Scotland
Plant Manager
Reporting to the European Operations Director based at group HQ in the Netherlands, I had full operational responsibility for the Dundee manufacturing facility with a workforce of 180 in 2009 to 121 in 2012
• My primary mission was to assure the achievement of the plants' key performance objectives covering Health and Safety, Quality, Production Output, Cost and Productivity
• I led the introduction of cross-functional improvement teams to the site – the first example focussing on waste (scrap) reduction achieved a 16% improvement finishing at a 21% improvement from 2008 to 2012 when I left the company.
• By directing and initially leading a weekly quality meeting which focussed on monitoring trends and implementing improvement actions, a 50% improvement in internal complaints was achieved. This team is now lead by a member of the management team
• I also acted as the Personnel Manager on site, responsible for the delivery of the factory personnel policy and ensuring all managing staff were appraised of any legal changes.
• I have worked in conjunction with the European Operations Director to create a recovery plan to enable the site to move back to profitability, including significant shift pattern and working practice changes. I led the negotiations with the Site and Local Branch Trade Union representatives as the restructuring involved significant redundancy of 60 FTEs.

June 2007 – Dec 2008 Bonar Yarns & Fabrics, Dundee
Industrial Engineer
• I achieved a 30% productivity improvement in the factory’s Knitted Product workshop by working directly with a group of shop-floor personnel to redesign the working area and process flow. This project included a move away from the traditional one-man, one-machine organisation to a team-based organisation working within a production cell.
• Assisted the Site Operations Director to coach and develop the supervisory and management staff with effective man-management and basic management skills and also provided operational support in his absence
• Created a process and budget model to improve the accuracy of the site’s annual manning budget resulting in reduction of 8 FTEs through reorganisation.
• Defined a new production planning process, developing the tools and training material and introducing KPIs to monitor effectiveness of this function. I selected, trained and provided on-going coaching to the production planner – the results have been a 20% reduction in the number of product changeovers and a reduction of WIP from 16 days to 2 days.

July 2006-June 2007 Michelin Tyre PLC, Dundee
Green Tyre designer
Project managed the introduction of new products and processes, analysing the risks involved and creating action plans as required. Industrialised new products or processes in the factory within the defined quality objectives and analysed the quality obtained.

July 2005-July 2006 Michelin Tyre PLC, Dundee
Development Manager
Departmental specialist in problem solving techniques and Continuous Improvement methods used to drive progress at shop-floor level upwards.
Responsible for developing and maintaining performance and productivity indicators, identifying areas for improvement, used by Head of Department and Factory to monitor progress and also specific indicators for cell managers to use to monitor team performance.
• Took the lead within the departmental management team by creating specific action plans to drive improvement – an example is improvement in product quality through targeted analysis and follow-up actions resulting in a 30% reduction in non-conforms.

Aug 2003-June 2005 Michelin Tyre PLC, Dundee
Cell Manager
Overall responsibility for a production workshop, directly responsible for up to 35 operators working a 5-set, 24hr, 7-day operation.
I piloted the factory introduction of departmental Balanced Scorecards and implemented weekly scorecard meetings with all of the 5 teams.

Oct 2000-July 2003 Michelin Tyre PLC, Dundee
Industrial Engineer/Business Improvement
Productivity and Continuous Improvement expert within the manufacturing plant (700 FTEs), providing extensive analysis of data leading to the determination of machine capacities, optimum work procedures, layouts and manning levels.

Education

1999-2000 University of Salford
Post Graduate Diploma - Computational Physics
1994-1999 University of Dundee
BSc (Hons) Physics – 2:2

Skills

Plant Management, People Management, Project Management, Change Management, People development, Lean Manufacturing, HR, Continuous Improvement, Analytical skills

Languages

While working at Michelin I spent 5 months living and working in France. I completed training in France and so have an adequate working knowledge of the French language. I am currently at basic level in Dutch.

Other

In my spare time I am a keen cook and love to travel and experience other cultures and cuisines. I enjoy running and have completed several 10k races and a half marathon. My challenge in 2013 is to complete a sprint triathlon.