Interim Operations Director UK

Interim Operations & Manufacturing Leadership. 

We step in, help stabilise your Operations Teams 
and optimise their performance.
Guiding them on a path which delivers your plans.

Ready to hand over when you have a permanent solution. 

Interim Operations Director  – Manufacturing

1. 1. £1m a month Extra Output. A UK based Machinery Manufacturer produced a range of machines that sold incredibly well across the globe. The downside was that the lead time for deliveries was long and getting longer. We weren’t the first company they’d engaged to try and solve this problem. We WERE the first to deliver a solution, with the Production team that was easy to install and stuck. The output for the site increased by 30%, rising from £3m to £4m. An extra £1m of machinery deliveries every month. Lead times came down and and on-time delivery increased to over 95%. An increase with the same number of staff working the same hours. The increased capacity allowed the management team time to review other improvements and grow their business.

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   2. Production Time Reduced from 48 days to 20 days. A UK Factory site tasked with delivering the first Lean Manufacturing project in a Japanese owned organisation. This UK based hi-tech manufacturer delivered machines and spares across the world. A project that resulted in the production time reducing from 48 to 20 days. Quality of the manufacturing improved by over 90%. The lead time reduced from 6 months to 2. It allowed production output to increase from 2.5 machines a month to 5. Manufacturing staff were released to help R&D develop new parts, delivering new products to market on time and powering growth. The spares function became a full department that could deliver 90% of demand on the same day.

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   3. 240 year old Business Learns New Productivity Tricks. Working alongside the site Manufacturing Management team we delivered 22% more output. For over 200 years this CNC and Fabrication manufacturer had sold full machines and spares to customers across the world. Every delivery was “Made to Order”, the lead times were long and frustrating for customers. We reviewed, changeovers, stock levels , MRP, ERP practices and found bottlenecks. Improvements enabled “off the shelf” deliveries and 30% of orders out within 10 days in others. Reviewing Capex projects, matched the growth plans to the site investments. Skills and age profiles were reviewed. This identified a new plan for staff development & recruitment, to overcome skill shortages.
      
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   4. Getting 45% More out of a Factory. Doubling the sales value & volume of a business in less than 2 years sounds like a great business plan. Not when the Operations team can’t keep pace with this growth. They couldn’t deliver the time critical sales on time. 50% of supervisor roles unfilled, with a sudden Production manager vacancy, made the project critical . Within 3 weeks the Fabrication, Weld, & Assembly teams were delivering 30% more per week. The same number of staff, doing the same work but delivering 30% more orders on time. Their customers could see the improvement. They stayed on board, improvements continued over the coming months. At the end, the business cold deliver 60% more output to maintain the growth. ‌ Project completed, the business had the chance to re-structure the teams & recruit a new management team. The project also reviewed the Capex plans and provided options for a layout re-design.

Interim-Operations-Manager-Director-Mark-Greenhouse

Mark holds a Master’s degree in Manufacturing Systems Management after gaining a BEng in Manufacturing Engineering.

He’s worked across manufacturing in both Blue Chip and family-owned SMEs.

Mark has a considerable depth and breadth of experience across the manufacturing sector.

Depth comes from having roles as a Team Leader, Supervisor, Department Manager up to Operations Director. He has worked with teams in businesses from £4m to £4.5bn, with the majority in the £10-100m.

He’s been an Industrial Engineer and Project Manager. Led Procurement & Planning in manufacturing firms. He’s designed and delivered Capex projects in Production & Processing lines, Automated Warehousing, Robotics and improved Plant Layouts.

The breadth of his experience comes from working across a wide range of industry sectors.

• Bottling Industries, (including a world leading bottling company in the UK)
• Food manufacturing, (including the chilled food sector and snacks market)
• FMCG (shampoos, shower gels, toothpastes) manufacturing.
• Metal Fabrication – Welding (Manual + Robotics). CNC Machining. Laser Cutting of materials. For machines such as Wind Turbines, Farm Machinery, High Precision Print Machinery.
• Electrical Assembly – wiring harness & control panels for various machine types
• Plastics Manufacturing.
• Construction and Window Manufacturing.
• Oil & Gas Processing
• Assembly – assembly of Machines, Sub Assemblies and Parts. Management of Spare Part Supply Chains. For machines with up to 25,000 parts.

Interim Operations Manager

Designed Strategy & Target Operating Models to deliver significant revenues (£10m+) for organisations. Challenging existing Strategies, Market and Customer understanding.

An effective communicator, comfortable at home with senior execs and “sleeves rolled up on the shop floor”. Mark has tackled training, apprenticeship, H&S issues and bullying in organisations.

He has extensive knowledge of Digital and Data Marketing, AI; Managed CRM, Data Analysis & Strategy Insights teams within the B2C and B2B  finance & retail industries.

Mark is a Adjunct Lecturer at Leeds University Business School. He presents an annual lecture on Improvement in Manufacturing & Supply Chains at Leeds University Business School. Over 4,000 students have attended this since 2010.

He has also contributed to articles and published books on improvement.

He challenges clients to improve Productivity and deliver at least +20% from their existing resources. Same staff, same machinery, same buildings.  There are examples of 30-50% more delivered.

The 20%+ improvement is achieved by using a combination of proven improvement techniques.

Combine this with his extensive knowledge of all the other activities that Operations managers need to carry out in manufacturing environments. These include H&S, MRP, Stock Levels, ERP, Performance Management, KPIs.

Lean Management Workshops – Leeds University

Since 2010 we’ve taken well over 4,000 people through our Lean Manufacturing and Management workshop thanks to the Operations and Supply Chain team at Leeds University Business School.

What are the benefits of bringing in an Interim Operations Manager?

Don’t just take our word, have a read of the article below.

The Benefits of Bringing in a Professional Interim Director or Manager

If you’re after a service where we provide consulting then perhaps our Manufacturing Consulting service for your factory or manufacturing plant maybe of interest.

You’ve got a gap in your leadership team, you need an instant fix. Whether you call it an interim Manufacturing Manager, Interim Director of Operations or Interim Operations Manager, the effect is the same. You need to ensure your manufacturing team keeps moving forward. We find businesses have to deal with 1 of 3 common issues;  

• STABLISE – Prevent Your Operations Output From Getting Worse; Make Them Predictable. Stabilise Costs, Quality, Delivery, Skills. There is at least one issue, maybe more that has been causing concern for a while AND customers have noticed.

• OPTIMISE – Begin Making Your Operations As Productive, Efficient, & Effective As Possible. You have tried lots of improvement work before OR don’t believe it will work in your organisation. You can be more productive, Henry Ford took 9 months how to make 12 cars on the time it took to make 1. You might need to have someone take a fresh look for you.

• GROWTH – Enable Your Operations Team to Deliver Your Business Growth Targets. You’ve got great technical skills but Manufacturing & Operations are so much more than technical knowledge. Scaling for growth requires insights on stock policies, people & skills development, Capex Investments, Production & Resource Planning, HR & Performance Management, Health & Safety and a host of other experiences.

Recruiting an Interim Operational Director to suit your stage of the journey could be key to keeping your business moving. It will be key to developing the potential.  

What experience should your Interim Operations Manager bring? The experience you’ll want will depend on the problem you want them to help you solve. 

• KEEP THE SEAT WARM – You want them to fill in due to an emergency or whilst a new hire comes on board. You should focus on someone with the right level of experience in your sector. Someone who already has the technical knowledge.  An Interim Manufacturing person who can focus on ensuring your systems keep running as you wish.

• PROBLEM SOLVING – You have that one area that the team have been unable to solve. It could be reducing costs, improving quality, improving delivery dates, productivity or addressing the skills shortage you have. Look for an Interim Manufacturing Director who can show experience in that area. They may have similar technical knowledge but it’s their problem solving experience you want.

• GROWTH & STRATEGY– You want to grow the business. You need someone to come in, review your business and start the path to growth. Enable Your Operations Team to Deliver Your Business Growth Targets

Think about what you want the Interim Manufacturing Director or Manager to get done. Match their skills, their experience to what you need to deliver.  Think about these two first before you worry about hiring from the same sector. 

Read the comments below, do you hear these or similar in your organisation?

They’re the conversations we hear every day when we are out and about starting with clients. Clients who are discovering the benefits of Lean Management.

• “Can we get this work done by close of play tomorrow?”
• “We’ve been asked to try and speed up our processes, is that possible?”
• “We need to ship this out by Thursday, otherwise there are penalties, it’s already two weeks late”
• “How long? If this doesn’t go by the end of the month we miss our targets”
• “The customer will go elsewhere if it takes too long..”
• “When will this part be in? we need it today, can you call the supplier?”

• “We can’t keep passing the prices rise on, what else can we do…? “
• “Our competitors have a lead time of 3 weeks can we do better?” 
• “We need to do overtime to try and catch the time up, the back log is building again..” 
• “Why can’t we recruit enough people? “
• “Can need to get more skills in our team to cope with the future..”
• “Our prices are going up we need to do something about them…”

Recognise any of them? sound familiar?

You might have 1,2,3 or more similar conversations every day or week. Conversations which take up more and more of your time. Conversations about not having enough people, skills, late deliveries or price rises you can’t offset.

The challenge of getting work completed, reports, and orders delivered On-Time, Every Time, is one we know can be solved, we know how to help you do this. 

The challenge of understanding how you can get more skills, more of the skills you need into your business is one we know how to help with as well.

The challenge of reducing and understanding costs is the one Lean was designed for.  

Lean Management techniques combined with solid Operational Management training will give you the tools to deliver On-Time, Every Time. 

It also makes sense that after you’ve learnt to deliver On-Time, Every Time, the next step is to grow your business.

Deliver more using the techniques you’ve embedded in your lean management organisation. 

Deliver more with the skills you’ve embedded in your lean, agile, responsive organisation.  

Mark Greenhouse – UK Interim Operations Director. 30 years Experienced in Manufacturing and Improvement in Food to Engineering Call today 07712 669396 to discuss your Operational challenges.