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Location:             Commutable from; Bath, Cardiff, Taunton, Frome, Gloucester, Bristol, Chippenham, Swindon, Cheltenham.
  
Industry:              Manufacturing
  
Package:              £80,000-£90,000p.a. + c£5.5k car allowance + benefits
  
Seniority:            Senior Management Team  
  
If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s to hold dear to what’s important and for us to reflect, reimagine and realign our priorities…
  
Technology has advanced, and continues to advance, at a rate of knots.
  
Robotic lawnmowers that merrily go about their business outside the home while the jumped-up vacuum plods around the inside, listening to the voice commands being bellowed into the home hub whilst the connected heating system regulates the air temperature.
  
To name but a few things.
  
Thing is, as much as those advances pinch a few minutes back here and there, they don’t really create lifelong memories with those who we care about most, do they?
  
For some, operating in businesses that solely focus on advancing the already advanced technology seems to be the crowning glory; but you’d prefer to be part of a bigger sense of purpose…something that really did create memories and feed into peoples reimagined priorities, through the products you develop and produce.  
  
Overview of the position.
  
Reporting to a Board Director, you will be responsible for leading the Supply Chain function, owning the creation and delivery of the Supply Chain strategy and managing a team of over fifty employees.
  
As a result of continued business growth, and with an ever-diversifying product portfolio, this has led to an increase in complexity across the Supply Chain. There has been significant improvement driven in recent years within the function and the business now needs somebody to maintain the good level of work already in place but also continue to identify and drive ongoing improvements.
  
You will manage the supplier relationship and information flow relating to the provision of parts from selected sources, to ensure that they are delivered at the right time, to the right quality, in the right packaging whilst adhering to the environmental policy. You will work closely with Procurement and Product Design at concept, design and prototype stage, alongside working closely with manufacturing to ensure development parts arrive on time and in full.
  
Key challenges…
  
People.
  
Let’s start with the heartbeat of your function – people.
  
You know how important culture is; get it right and everything else (eventually!) will fall into place. Get it wrong and…well, let’s not focus on that part because that’s not an option for you – one of your main strengths is being able to go into a business, understand its culture, (the good, the bad and the indifferent), and be able to build, nurture and grow the people. You know what good looks like; you have a proven track record of taking your team on a journey and can demonstrate how you’ve created high performing teams.
  
Business.
  
Next, let’s look at a few of the key business challenges you’ll be involved in.
  
The business generally treats symptoms rather than root causes. The Supply Chain function is better than most, but they do need the new leader to make the identification and correction of root causes an everyday and standard approach.
  
They are trying to improve their planning and delivery capabilities; to do this, they need to improve the identification of SMART deliverables as part of project plans, whilst holding the teams accountable to deliver the plans in all areas, including Supply Chain.
  
Feeding good quality parts to the line with zero shortages or delays is critical to the operation and the team do it reasonably well; they need to maintain and further improve the day to day, hour to hour, parts supply to production, product development and other internal customers, whilst optimising inventory holding.
  
Supply Chain.
  
Finally, let’s look at a few function specific projects you’ll be required to lead and deliver on.  

Map and improve supply related processes and data to support future projects to implement a Warehouse Management System and broader ERP.
Enhance the service they offer to their customers by reducing supply related lead-times / increasing agility.
Enhance the control of incoming logistics and enhance environmental performance through a review and improvement of incoming logistics, on-site storage, and linefeed solutions.
Develop and provide information to guide supplier improvement by developing a vendor rating and improvement scorecard.   You, and your background.
  
Well, it’s quite clear that you need to be a seasoned Supply Chain professional. You have a breadth of manufacturing experience, ideally with a degree of complexity. You’re a modern-day Leader, with high levels of emotional intelligence who is comfortable engaging across the full spectrum of the business, from the shopfloor to strategic activities; this isn’t an ivory tower role – your presence is needed throughout. You’re decisive, a strategic thinker, commercially savvy and can operate at pace.
  
You can take a top-level mandate, visualise what needs to be done, understand how to close the gaps to drive improvements, and effectively communicate this message across your team. Which, of course, is the start; your leadership expertise then comes into play as you’re able to strike the balance between giving autonomy, whilst holding people to account.
  
You’ll need an appetite too, this business is hungry for success and despite being well positioned in the market, it still has the desire to grow.
  
What next?
  
If you feel this is a challenge you’d like to explore further, then we’d like to hear from you – so get in touch by sending us your CV. If you haven’t got a CV don’t worry, we can help with that too. Also, each applicant will get a response, even if it’s not the one you had hoped for.
  
We look forward to hearing from you