Interview Story - Accomplishment
As a Manufacturing Manager, I was tasked with a critical project to relocate a production line from Austin, TX to Chandler, AZ while the line was running at full capacity. As the Project Manager lead, I was asked to step down as the manager so that I was able to devote 100% of my time to the project.
The first step was designing the new product line floor layout in the new factory. Next, after identifying all the components of the transfer, I planned the transfer schedule. This included working with several teams outside of the organization including suppliers, distributors, transportation, and assembly.
We developed a strategy of moving equipment in “cells”. Each cell contained everything needed to run the specific material that we assigned to each cell.
The biggest challenge was keeping the pipeline of product flowing while that cell moved. As agreed upon in the transfer project, each cell would take one month to relocate to Arizona and be back running material. That meant for each cell, buffer material would have to be started in the line in time to meet the one month of offline for the transfer. Weeks of contingency time were built into the end of the schedule to allow for slippage.
Quickly into the project, I discovered that the Arizona team was not able to meet the schedule and was falling behind. The plan allowed for (3) cells to be offline at any given time. When we started on the fourth tool, a control limit was reached and Texas went on hold until Arizona caught back up.
After this happened a third time, I put together a team to assist Arizona in getting back on schedule. This stopped the project for three weeks, while the assessment and process changes were implemented. We were at a point where the “contingency time” had been used up due to the delays.
Moving forward, every team member knew we had to execute perfectly to meet the timeline. In the end, we did experience minor slippage and missed the target by 11 days. Nonetheless, senior management considered the progress a success and awarded me a bonus for my efforts.