Interim COO, Electrical Equipment Manufacturing - Hungary

The Client

By assigning an interim manager on-site, a German electrical equipment manufacturer wants to get a more detailed overview of the current situation at the subsidiary. Urgently needed improvement measures in production are to be implemented.

The Challenge

The situation in the production plant with four departments is characterized by a lack of discipline, insufficient customer orientation, high sick leave, and fluctuation. Complaints are handled incorrectly, and customers threaten to stop taking deliveries. The backlog has more than doubled to EUR 1.5 million in just five months.

The COO in charge is primarily tasked with establishing measures for reorganizing workflows and optimizing processes and ensuring compliance with them, based on the identification and implementation of quality and safety-related measures. The main objectives are to raise the employees' awareness in the need for discipline, cleanliness, and quality, thus reducing the number of complaints, while at the same time achieving the reduction of the backlog.

The Solution

The considerations by both Boyden Germany and Boyden Hungary, resulted in an interim manager who is very familiar with the local requirements as well as his intercultural competency from living and working equally in both areas for 20 years.

The manager carries seniority, many years of experience in process optimization in production and logistics, as well as immediate availability. In addition to his native language German, the manager also brings the necessary language skills (Hungarian and English), coupled with communication, motivation and assertiveness for advanced quality and organization.

The Result

In the six month project period, a decisive improvement in performance was achieved, the output quantity was increased, complaints were reduced and their processing optimized. The employees were again involved and motivated, further qualification measures were initiated and concrete next steps were recommended to the existing managing directors before handover of the project.

The success achieved in this role led to the assignment of another project: Interim Human Resources Project Manager.