Posted on August 27, 2012 by Adam Zak

Reflecting on Michel Baudin’s Blog post from yesterday, titled “Metrics in Lean -  Deming vs. Drucker” –

All well-reasoned propositions. What’s easy to do will always be more popular than that which takes greater effort. And perhaps this is really a difference without distinction. But I guess I’m most curious about the “who calls the shots” question, which may be the more challenging issue.

“Someone” needs to clearly define and articulate the purpose of the organization. “Someone” must lay out concrete and very specific objectives which must be attained if that purpose is to be met. “Someone” must then devise an extremely well-thought-out, detailed game plan for how to achieve these objectives. “Someone” must line the proposed route to achievement with clear, predetermined milestones by which those doing the achieving will be guided, and by which they can gauge progress. And correct course should uncertainty or deviation crop up along the way. And “someone” must at some point be able to ascertain that, yes, we are indeed realizing the purpose of the organization. Hoshin? MBO?

I’d like to think that I’ve just outlined the very basics of a business system that both Deming and Drucker would find workable. I believe they would agree that the “someone” executing these activities is engaged in a practice called leadership, and that where all this essentially breaks down, in the real world, is in that very first step, clarity of purpose.

Which is why finding and engaging the right leaders – whether you’re a Deming or Drucker fan at heart – is absolutely critical to the long-term success of any organization. So, in my mind, we should be spending a lot more time figuring out who’s going to lead, and the Hoshins and MBOs will get addressed in due time as the right leaders create the appropriate business systems. Otherwise, we’re really just sort of rolling the dice, no? Adam Zak

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Plant General Manager – Full Manufacturing P&L + Lean Transformation Champion

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Adam Zak

Plant GM – Operations  - Lean Transformation – full Manufacturing P&L
Architectural Building Products – Newark, NJ metro region

Situation Overview
Founded in the late 1940’s, and very much the industry pioneer, our client has grown into one of the largest and best known purveyors of complex architectural building products in North America. The company consistently outpaces its competition with innovative and trusted brands and patented designs available across a broad distribution network of building-supply (Home Depot) and specialty dealers and retailers, and both residential and industrial construction contractors.

The company is wholly-owned by one of the world’s largest independent manufacturers and distributors of architectural building products and systems, and has just begun to transform its culture with LEAN principles and practices as based on the Toyota Production System, across all U.S. plants.

We’re searching for a new General Manager (plant operations management, full manufacturing P&L) for the company’s largest and most complex manufacturing unit, located in the Newark, NJ metro area. The GM will be responsible for planning and execution of all plant activities, including cultural transformation focused on engagement, responsibility and accountability in all areas of the company’s business. LEAN change leadership will play a critical role in the GM’s success.

Are you the right person to lead this successful, dynamic business to unparalleled customer satisfaction and profitable growth? Can you build an outstanding professional and personal future by earning recognition and reward from transforming this organization into a world-class LEAN Enterprise?

Why You Want this Position
•Imprint your creativity and passion on a great organization, in an environment where: associates are safe, engaged and sharing in success; perfect orders get to customers fast; business objectives and operational execution truly align with voice of the customer; “stronger together” purpose creates competitive advantage; the resulting organization is clearly the easiest and best to do business with.
•Make an immediate, highly-visible impact by leading change for long-term, sustainable Lean operations and culture transformation.
•Work in a place where success is defined not only by performance and results, but also by truly living company values of safety, integrity, teamwork, innovation, excellence, individual dignity and corporate citizenship.
•Enjoy personal recognition for your achievements, and build your future with excellent professional growth opportunities.

Principal Responsibilities
The General Manager will drive leadership and execution of all plant operations, ensuring plant is aligned with overall corporate business objectives, has flexibility and capacity to support customer demand, and effectively balances and leverages fixed cost structure with optimal variable resources. Utilizing effective organizational planning and development leadership, the General Manager will transform how the organization deploys assets, both human and physical resources, to deliver targeted results for engagement, accountability, productivity, continuous improvement, growth and profitability. Direct reports include Plant Manager and functional managers of: shipping; maintenance; purchasing; human resources; scheduling; quality; safety; continuous improvement. Position reports to VP Operations & Supply Chain. In somewhat more specific detail, the Plant GM will:

• Provide exceptional leadership to accomplish strategic annual business and tactical objectives in an empowered, team-based environment.
• Drive breakthrough operational performance improvements utilizing principles and practices of LEAN, while ensuring customer satisfaction with high quality products delivered on-time.
• Direct and coordinate budgets and forecasts to provide funding for new or continuing operations, special projects, growth initiatives, thereby maximizing ROI and increased productivity.
• Build, develop and lead functional teams and value streams to meet business objectives including: delivering the perfect order; creating an environment and culture of safety; and attaining stretch metrics in areas such as quality, delivery and cost reduction.
• Ensure organization’s development and continuous improvement of technical and management capabilities/skills in direct reports, addressing individual development needs and performance issues, building an environment of high employee satisfaction and morale.
• Foster customer value and focus, coordinating and delivering operational support for business development and customer relationship building, and effectively represent the business unit in various interactions with all stakeholders and the local community.

What You Bring to the Table
We require a minimum of BS/BA degree; engineering, manufacturing, or related field preferred. We need to see a strong track record of progressively more responsible hands-on manufacturing experience in a complex, discrete assembly manufacturing environment, with at least 5-6 years in a senior manufacturing/operations leadership role. You must have:
• Demonstrated leadership in maintaining the highest levels of integrity and ethics in business and personal practices.
• Proven success in hands-on P&L management of large plant (say 500+ associates, perhaps $100 million+ revenue), or multi-site operations.
• Consistent track record of execution (results, accountability), successfully delivering year over year performance improvement.
• Strong leadership, communication, problem-solving and interpersonal skills.
• Leadership experience in culturally diverse union team based manufacturing environment.
• Demonstrated success implementing LEAN manufacturing principles, practices and techniques – the ability to drive a sustainable LEAN cultural transformation.
• Demonstrated ability to plan and organize manufacturing operations and effectively resolve manufacturing issues.
• Experienced in strategic planning, budgeting, and timely decision-making.

Please connect directly with Adam Zak, Adam Zak Executive Search, who has been retained to conduct this executive search +1 (847) 304-5300

Please respond to resume@LeanRecruiter.com This position description has been posted at http://LeanJobsBlog.com. Our main Web site is http://LeanRecruiter.com You can also connect with Adam at on Twitter or via LinkedIn (see Links sidebar at right).

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Vice President, Lean Industrial Engineering – Fortune 500 Green EHS Sustainability Leader

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Adam Zak

Company Overview

Our client, a global Fortune 500 organization, is the world’s leading provider of cleaning, food safety and health protection products and services for the hospitality, foodservice, healthcare and industrial markets.  The company operates in over 160 countries with over 26,000 associates worldwide and serves its customers with innovative and unique solutions for cleaning, sanitizing, and sustaining.

And it does this with a keen sense of responsibility to address many of the critical macro trends shaping the complexity of today’s world:   safety challenges resulting from growing demand for food; an aging population’s need for quality health care; insatiable energy demands; and increasing scarcity of fresh, clean water.

  • Water – with a broad suite of technologies and expertise, our client helps customers manage water through conservation, recycling and reuse.
  • Energy – by identifying and treating process-related problems and providing customers with products that minimize energy use, our client helps customers reduce their environmental footprints.
  • Healthcare – our client’s infection prevention expertise is grounded in research and real-world applications, and their comprehensive approach to infection prevention encompasses a broad range of cleaning and sanitizing solutions, as well as protocols, training and tools that promote disciplined, effective prevention strategies.
  • Food safety – with its in-depth knowledge and integrated systems approach, our client helps customers prevent food safety issues and head off emerging threats – from agricultural production, to processing, to foodservice.

Delivering on these commitments to customers across the globe requires some exceptional engineering talent and leadership.  Are you the right Vice President, Lean Industrial  Engineering to help make that happen?

Position Profile

Reporting to the Vice President, Americas Supply Chain Organization, our VP Engineering will serve as the Chief Engineering Officer for North America, and a key Lean change agent on the company’s top leadership team.  The Vice President, Engineering we seek will:

  • Develop and execute the technical strategy for engineering and reliability in the company’s North America Supply Chain organization.
  • Drive the engineering organization to deliver technical leadership and sustained performance by providing innovative technology and quality products.
  • Partner with Supply Chain leaders, meeting challenging and demanding global supply chain objectives, to build sustainable competitive advantage through an increasingly integrated and proactive Global Supply Chain.
  • Help implement the company’s LEAN cultural transformation across all areas of engineering and operations using strong Toyota Production System (or derivative) experience.

Our client defines its Supply Chain organization in a broad, expansive sense, meaning that it comprises all functions necessary to invent, commercialize and deliver product or services to its customers. As such, these “supply chain” functions include engineering, procurement, manufacturing planning, quality, logistics, manufacturing and related support services and roles. The vice presidents of these functional areas are peers to the VP Engineering.

The VP Engineering will be responsible for 12 manufacturing facilities located in North America; a staff of two corporate engineers; and, indirectly, ten engineering managers, plus over 100 engineers and reliability technicians, located in-plant and throughout the North America supply chain network.  The position is based at the company’s global headquarters in St. Paul, MN. Travel will be primarily domestic, interspersed with occasional international trips, and amount to approximately 40%.

Why You Want this Position

  • Imprint your creativity and passion on an already-world-class business by taking a hands-on leadership role to improve strategy and tactical execution to support business requirements and results, in engineering and across the company.
  • Create an immediate, highly-visible and sustainable impact on the operations of a dynamic and rapidly evolving publically-traded products and services organization.
  • Work in an environment where performing well and making the world a better place go hand in hand; where promoting health and well-being, practicing sustainability and being socially responsible are just as important as lowering costs, increasing efficiency and earning profits.
  • Enjoy personal recognition for your achievements, and excellent financial rewards and outstanding professional career growth opportunities.

Principal Responsibilities

  • Develop capital plans and coordinate long-term capital investment requirements in support of projected market demands.
  • Assess and assign appropriate capital project resources, and personally oversee select major capital projects, working closely with Supply Chain Finance to track execution against plan, assuring on time and on budget completion.
  • Recruit, develop and motivate strong engineering staff to support projects across North America, providing leadership to both the central engineering resource team as well as to regional/plant teams.
  • Provide technical direction and guidance, as well as hands-on project management, for all product development and production (manufacturing) engineering.
  • Oversee and improve company’s engineering process standards, coordinating with Global Supply Chain staff on definition and implementation.
  • Drive innovative thought leadership throughout the engineering organization, in approach, process and methodology, with particular emphasis on Lean continuous improvement.

What You Bring to the Table

Strategic thinking and execution.  Experience, judgment and accountability – to plan and accomplish engineering and business  objectives, based on a focused and disciplined approach to technology and product development, supported by…

  • Minimum of 15 years progressive, successful operations leadership, including both hands-on plant/manufacturing management, and at least five years of senior-level engineering management experience.
  • Related industry (e.g., chemicals, food, batch process mfg.) background, in a multi-facility manufacturing environment.
  • Well-practiced customer interface and relationship-management expertise.
  • Excellent organizational, problem-solving, communications and analytical skills.
  • Strong LEAN and/or Toyota Production System implementation experience.
  • BS in engineering; MS Engineering or MBA preferred.

Other factors which will be critical to the success of the person in this position:

  • Keen understanding of business operations and issues in general, and a broad view of engineering as both a business leadership as well as a technical function, with its critical relationship to product design and development.
  • Demonstrated results orientation, with an ability to redesign engineering practices and processes to deliver breakthrough results.
  • Ability to critically analyze existing performance issues and introduce innovative methods and solutions to generate leading-edge operational standards and sustainable, best-in-class outcomes.
  • Proven change leadership skills, with the passion to engage, energize and motivate large disparate groups of people to introduce, implement and sustain the high-impact actions necessary for aggressive operational and financial performance improvement.
  • Well-honed team leadership skills, with ability to create a sense of shared ownership and urgency within the engineering organization, building and enhancing the development of an accountable, results-driven culture.

Compensation

Competitive executive compensation package includes base salary, short and long-term performance  incentives, and relocation assistance, as appropriate. 

Please connect directly with Adam Zak, Adam Zak Executive Search, who has been retained to conduct this executive search +1 (847) 304-5300  Please respond at  resume@LeanRecruiter.com     This position description has been posted at http://LeanJobsBlog.com.  Our main Web site is http://LeanRecruiter.com   You can also connect with Adam at http://twitter.com/LeanThinker or http://LinkedIn.com/in/adamzak

 

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