CS for Owners: Production Manager - $5mm fabrication job shop


Owners and Entrepreneurs sometimes have a challenge “replacing themselves” or delegating key responsibilities to a member of their executive team.  

“Career Solutions for Owners” is our management consulting service to help a founder / owner / CEO develop a role & job description to fill a key position in their company.  We call this a “career solution” for an owner because we see every entrepreneur’s ultimate goal being to build a company that they can walk away from and the business still profitably functions as if they were there.  And that happened in this situation for the owner.


Situation Summary

The Owner / Founder of a metal fabricating and CNC machining solutions contract manufacturer in Brownsburg needed to upgrade the production management talent in his $5mm revenue plant.  Because of the quick turn times for this contract manufacturer, he needed a Production Manager who could manage the production workflow in a fabrication environment with very short run projects but also some volume.  Additionally, there was the requirement of some experience with high or tight tolerance fabrication for aerospace components.  Fortunately, this plant had a very stable workforce  of about 40 so there were not major challenges in labor.


CSG Approach & Search Process

Career Solutions’ research team was familiar with the fabrication job shop community in Central Indiana.  The research plan called for 70+ Production Supervisors, Production Managers, Operations & Plant Managers in a talent universe from CNC machining shops locally.  While the researchers could identify the names of potential candidates in these CNC job shops, the recruiting staff would have to interview each person to find out their experience with tight tolerance & precision fabrication for aerospace components, race car components, nuclear or power generation or other 


Solution

We were fortunate to identify and interview an experienced Production Supervisor, living in Indianapolis but commuting to Haynes International, an aerospace manufacturer, in Kokomo.  While there were six or seven qualified Production Supervisors and Managers whose interview summaries and resumes were submitted to our client, this individual really stood out because of his technical experience, his managerial experience, and eagerness to reduce his commute.  As it turns out, this Production Manager became a key hire for the Owner / Founder since it freed up his time and allowed him to court an acquisition partner for his business.  The Owner / Founder has completed his transition consulting and passed his non-compete period.  He’s looking for a new business to buy or run.  ( http://careersolutionsgroup.blogspot.com/2009/08/talent-strategy-fort-wayne-manufacturer.html ) 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How To Develop An Executive Team - Advising an Owner/CEO on developing an organizational chart

Image
A few years ago, I met with a German engineer who had built a small, global machine tool manufacturing business just South of Indianapolis.  He was an excellent engineer who loved to design new machines, large custom rotary tables, and pallet systems for industry.  But after leading and growing the business for forty years, he was thinking more about fishing with his grandson than building business. He had decided it was time to sell his business.  And, he was wise enough to realize that he’d need help. While an excellent designer and engineer, he was fairly distrustful of salespeople.  And as an excellent engineer, he was reluctant to promote his senior design engineer who had been with the business for 25 years.  He had trusted staff for accounting, billing, and administration.  But, he was very hands-on in running most critical aspects of the business. I had to reason with him that no one could buy his business as long as he held so much critical responsibility himself. So working t
Read more

Labor & Recruiting - 4th Qtr into 2024 - Indiana perspectives

  Every October for the past few years, I have attended a presentation by a PhD Economist who discusses the global, national, and local economic outlook.     He’s a partner in ITR Economics, a national team of economic analysts.     I’ve seen his presentations for several years in a row now and seen how relevant they are.     A major part of his presentation includes the labor market.    He summarized the labor and recruiting outlook this way: •Disinflation on wages late in 2023 and in 2024  (rising salaries will level off) •Tight labor market for years  (no solutions for systemic labor problems) •It is all about the culture  (attracting next generation talent requires “caving in” to them) Because Career Solutions Group’s business is “Indiana centric” but also works nationally, I wanted to gather some additional perspective from very experienced corporate recruiters to gather their input on Indiana’s labor and recruiting.    All are based in Indianapolis and include: • Director of Recr
Read more

Indiana Hiring & Recruiting 2024 Outlook & Interest Rate Impact

Image
  This week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell announced no rate cut in the federal funds rate, leaving the rate at 5.25 to 5.5 which is the highest in two decades.    Younger generations of workers haven’t see rates like this in their lifetimes, making them cautious about using credit cards and taking out mortgages. But what does this mean for the job market and the impact upon employers’ ability to hire? While  Career Solutions  had a small flurry of hiring by corporate clients in Civil Engineering and Financial Services in December 2023, the year overall continued to be very challenging for employers.   Many job postings did not yield quality candidates and those applying didn’t seem to have read the qualifications.    Worse is that many HR departments and corporate recruiters have come to expect half of scheduled interviews and even starts to become “no shows”. Post-pandemic employment continues to have big challenges.    The retiring generation is too big to be replaced by th
Read more