The Longest Year

Part 2 of Getting Operations Straight

So I survived The Day I Swore I was Going to Die. But you probably already know that since I wrote about it and am now writing this part 2 piece.

After Rich had berated myself and the other managers who reported to Terry, he was ready to clean up Operations. He got myself and the Plant Managers from the Lindsay Ontario. Winfield Kansas, and Easton Pennsylvania plants together.

Interestingly, he did not include the head of our Bedford England or La Romana Dominican Republic plants, as they too worked under Terry’s direction. He also, didn’t bother with Logistics, Purchasing, Engineering, or Quality Control. Perhaps he felt that Terry had not adversely impacted them or he just wanted to make a point and felt four areas were enough to accomplish what he wanted to do. Or perhaps he didn’t realize that they too were a part of the company’s operations.

He got us all together and instructed us to develop a plan to “clean up” operations.

I never really knew what that meant, since we were as productive and cost effective as ever. As I had written about previously, we had just had a record year sales and profit wise, so there wasn’t a lot wrong that needed clean up, but those were his instructions.

I was to head this all up, get input from the three Plant Managers and develop the plan on how Operations would improve its support to Sales and…