Interim Manager Production Planning & Control Optimization

Industry: Mechanical Engineering – Products: mobile plants for road construction (jaw and cone crushers, crushing and screening plants) – Sales Wirtgen Group approx. €4bn – Employees 9,000 / Local main plant Göppingen approx. €150m sales – Employees 700

• Coordination of production control and support for the role holder
• Order throughput analysis (current state) in collaboration with involved departments, especially assembly, pre-assembly, purchasing, and central order control
• Support in identifying optimization potential together with production
• Optimization of production control for on-time completion of production orders
• Enhancement of SAP-based scheduling processes and identification of optimization opportunities
• Master data maintenance and further development of required systems
• Optimization of existing scheduling tools
• Kanban, minimum stock control, safety stocks
• Participation in the launch of new development projects
• Assessment of capacity situation and implementation of necessary measures if needed
• Team development
• Optimization of consumption-driven planning and Kanban processes, including design of Kanban parts and maintenance of their control loops
• Handling of the COGI list in SAP EWM – incorrect goods movements
• Checking all items and assemblies for necessary safety stocks to ensure smooth production and assembly

Achievements:

• Successfully optimized around 4,000 Kanban items in cooperation with responsible staff / Initiated SAP-based programming of an evaluation function for Kanban items regarding sizing, consumption, and deviation display in case of control loop errors / Successfully coordinated and configured master data in SAP for plan-driven and consumption-driven planning items and assemblies to ensure supply of in-house production and assembly / Actively supported the head of production control in all matters and the production controller in day-to-day operations

Skills: Process optimization · Production planning & control · Capacity management · Capacity planning · Master data management · SAP MM · SAP PP · SAP WM · SAP ERP

Industry: Automotive – Product: brake pads (metal) – Sales €736m – Employees 5,000 (Group)

Production Planning and Control for fully automated mixing plant:

• Planning and control of the fully automated mixing plant with 38 silos plus linked automated small parts warehouse (AKL) with manual weighing
• Determining order volumes to cover all production orders for brake pad production
• Scheduling of requirements and release and provision of orders and campaigns using SAP EWM
• Sequencing planning (Trace-IT platform) to prepare transfer of mixing orders to the MES control system
• Upload of FE orders into the ProLeiT MES control system of the mixing plant
• Control of the AKL refilling process with raw materials
• Planning of the high-shear mixing line and kneader, and control of pre-materials and pre-mixes
• Campaign planning considering storage capacities vs. number of big bag racks vs. production supply and shelf-life dates
• Planning of backing plates for coating to meet brake pad production requirements
• Holiday cover for mixing plant planning and backing plate planning
• Bottleneck management and capacity planning

Procurement of raw materials, backing plates and packaging + accessories:

• Communication with suppliers to announce incoming deliveries
• Creation and revision of delivery schedules and orders regarding quantity, date, etc. (279 raw materials)
• Sending updated delivery schedules to suppliers and agreeing on new dates and quantities
• Backlog reduction by sending open order lists
• Entering supplier-provided open order lists and addressing exceptions
• Supporting suppliers with time slot bookings by introducing the new Cargoclix system for deliveries
• Engineering change management for all suppliers
• Organisation of special transports
• Holiday cover for procurement in all three areas
• Backlog management and inventory management

Skills: Negotiation · Teamwork · Team management · SCM · MRP · ERP · Consulting · SAP ERP · SAP procurement · SAP PP · SAP MM · Production planning · Logistics

Industry: Building Materials – Product: EPDM sheets made of synthetic rubber – Sales €94m – Employees 229

• Processing SAP booking materials, posting business transactions
• Supporting production planning processes using SAP and its subsystems
• Ensuring consumption-driven and demand-driven planning and control
• Acting as interface to production control, purchasing, and warehouse logistics
• Ensuring material flow and on-time delivery capability of finished products
• Monitoring stock levels and turnover of semi-finished goods and work in progress
• Ensuring interface between customer, production, and planning of customer orders
• Resource-based scheduling of production orders for semi-finished and finished products
• Continuous monitoring and optimization of product mix
• Capacity planning and scheduling of extended workbench tasks
• Representation of production management and production control
• Creating training materials for SAP master data, production planning, and posting processes
• Supporting regression testing of new/enhanced SAP 4HANA modules in MM/PP and EWM areas and assisting with SAP-driven plant separation – setting up a new plant

Skills: Teamwork · Team management · MRP · ERP · SAP EWM · Consulting · SAP ERP · SAP PP · SAP MM · Project management · Process management

Industry: Industrial – Product: stainless steel sinks – Sales €2,310 million – Employees: 8,500 (group)

• Stabilization and optimization of production planning and scheduling
• Determination of requirements for an advanced planning and scheduling system based on SAP data
• Assessment of the automation potential of the planning process
• Identification of action fields and derivation of measures
• Ensuring high delivery readiness with optimized inventory
• Ensuring on-time production planning for requirements and customer forecast data
• Analysis of achieved results and identification of further improvement potentials
• Capacity planning and bottleneck management
• Proactive communication of plan changes with production management, scheduling teams, and customer service
• Ensuring the availability of components, semi-finished products, and long-lead items (e.g. steel)
• Taking over all tasks of the national/international planning manager who was temporarily unavailable
• Ensuring delivery readiness and availability of all national/international customer requirements
• Recording the current planning processes to determine possibilities for automated planning

Skills: Teamwork · Team management · MRP · Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) · Process management · Consulting · SAP ERP · Production control · SAP Production Planning (SAP PP) · SAP Materials Management (SAP MM) · Production planning

Industry: Automotive – Product: water and oil pumps for cars – Sales €350 million – Employees: 1,230

• Consulting in manufacturing process planning and series ramp-up/pre-launch
• Planning and coordination of process improvements
• Execution and creation of lead time analyses, value stream analyses, FMEAs, and capability analyses
• Support in target-to-actual comparisons, studies, investment calculations, and cost estimates
• Consulting and support in implementing changes
• Standardization of equipment and tooling
• Consulting in preparing and updating equipment specifications
• Consulting on compliance with key performance indicators
• Adherence to quality regulations and environmental protection requirements
• Analysis and evaluation of improvement opportunities at workstations
• Training and coaching employees on the shopfloor
• Implementation and commissioning of 3 fully automated lines for assembly and production of water and oil pumps for customer DAIMLER in the Hungarian plant
• Support of the startup and ramp-up of the lines
• Successful preparation and support of the customer product audit by DAIMLER
• Analysis of production issues and their resolution

Skills: Negotiation · Teamwork · Team management · Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) · Process optimization · Manufacturing engineering · Industrial engineering · Project management · Quality management

Industry Automotive – Products plastic and metal composite parts for passenger cars – sales €10M – employee count 95

• Preparing, planning and executing projects
• Coordinating project work to meet customer requirements
• Liaising with all project-related departments at the customer
• Representing the company’s interests with the customer
• Designing, planning and implementing technical projects for developing and manufacturing plastic and metal composite parts, focusing on manufacturability, quality, costs and deadlines
• Overseeing tool design and manufacturing
• Determining manufacturing methods and processes
• Handling tool and fixture modifications
• Creating specifications for equipment, fixtures, special machines, approvals and commissioning
• Calculating tool and part costs
• Responsible for ensuring continuous compliance with applicable safety regulations
• Responsible for order and cleanliness in the area of responsibility
• Planning and implementing production equipment for manufacturing composite parts from plastic and metal
• Proposing applications for new processing methods
• Carrying out major ongoing projects to series production readiness (2 complete lines)
• Completing all tooling projects until plant closure (€3M sales / 23 tooling projects)

Skills: Teamwork · Team management · Industrial engineering · Production planning · Project management · Quality management · Cleanroom · Process and data management

Industry Manufacturing – product metal and stainless steel snap rings – sales €66.7M – employee count 432

• Management responsibility for up to 100 employees, both technically and disciplinarily
• Production and machine planning to meet deadlines, quantities and quality targets
• Continuous improvement of production processes and ongoing monitoring
• Planning employee qualifications and maintaining qualification statuses in the qualification matrix
• Designing, recording, evaluating and deriving measures to improve OEE KPIs
• Planning and executing the relocation of equipment, machinery and production resources from a plant closure
• Weekly and monthly KPI reporting
• Developing and implementing measures to improve quality and productivity
• Introducing the OEE KPI and increasing OEE by up to 30% in terms of downtime errors
• Advancing employees through planned, implemented and documented training in the qualification matrix

Skills: Negotiation · Teamwork · Team management · Human resources (HR) · MRP · Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) · Personnel development · Production control · Leadership development · Production planning · Quality management · OEE KPI

Industry Automotive – product interior button composite parts (Audi A8) – sales €74.8M – employee count 794

• Management responsibility for up to 64 employees, both technically and disciplinarily
• Daily and weekly summary reporting
• Production planning, control and scheduling machine assignments
• Planning and monitoring raw material requirements and deadlines
• Planning, controlling and monitoring external contract manufacturing of A8 buttons
• Harmonizing customer requirements in daily conference calls directly with the end customer Audi (A8)
• Managing and planning tool modifications before production
• Expanding the department from 17 to 64 employees (150 including candidates during recruitment)
• Expanding the button department from 2 to 6 machines, including relocating the department and extending peripheral equipment such as strip metal cutting unit, material containers for different granulates, punching machine etc.
• Introducing a 4-shift model

Skills: Negotiation · Teamwork · Team management · Human resources (HR) · MRP · Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) · Production leadership · Leadership development · Organizational development · Production management · Production planning

Industry Security services / guarding services

• Provided professional and disciplinary leadership to security officers
• Acquired contracts for event security, entry screening, personal protection, and standalone guard duties
• Managed company accounting

Skills: Negotiation · Teamwork · Team management · Human Resources (HR) · Personnel management

Industry Automotive – synchronizers for manual transmissions – Sales €135M – 238 employees

• Led and provided technical guidance to a team of 4 employees
• Planned manufacturing processes
• Introduced new production technologies
• Performed hard-soft material matching of machined synchronizer parts
• Participated in multi-project management and interdisciplinary projects like measurement strategy, manufacturability and testability analyses, and FMEAs
• Created raw part, pre-machining, and rework drawings
• Developed work instructions, inspection plans, TQP/control plans, process flow diagrams, MFUs, process FMEAs, manufacturability and testability analyses, etc.
• Issued orders for production aids and equipment
• Applied development and testing results at each production stage
• Communicated with customers and suppliers on quality, cost, and optimization
• Achieved 30% cost savings on a conical clutch housing through supplier development and use of idle times during machining
• Built an Excel tool for hard-soft design of components
• Simultaneously manufactured and developed 5 complete synchronizer sets (about 70 parts)

Skills: Teamwork · Team management · MRP · Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) · SAP ERP · Staff leadership · SAP Quality Management (QM) · Industrial engineering · SAP Production Planning (SAP PP) · SAP Materials Management (SAP MM) · Project management · Multi-project management · Quality management · Process and data management

Industry: Automotive – Product: semiconductor ICs/microchips for cars – Sales: €235 million – Employees: 238

• Operated and repaired high-end equipment for IC manufacturing in a cleanroom
• Performed SPC, sheet resistance measurements, etch rate measurements, etc.
• Floater for metallization, ZDE, diffusion, plasma chemistry, and wet chemistry
• Serviced various equipment
• Troubleshot various equipment
• Supervised and supported external service providers for the equipment

Skills: Operation and service of IC manufacturing equipment in a cleanroom