Candidate of the Week - Plant Manager/Production Manager, Melbourne
I am an experienced Plant Manager and Production Manager with substantial experience in building and leading teams of varying levels, delivering productivity and process improvements within a medium sized manufacturing plant, part of a large global Fortune 500 manufacturing corporation. Recognised for success in leading manufacturing teams to deliver maximum productivity, quality product and customer service within agreed time frames and budget.
My previous employer, Avery Dennison is in the final stages of rationalising manufacturing plants within the Asia Pacific region and this has seen the closing down of the Melbourne manufacturing plant. The business has relocated from Tottenham to the South Eastern suburbs with a small distribution centre. Therefore, my role as Melbourne Plant Manager became redundant effective 30th September 2008. Throughout 2008 I concurrently closed down the Melbourne plant, relocating machinery and inventory, progressively enacting redundancies for the entire workforce, cleaned and prepared the site for sale, while playing a major role is designing and setting up a new green field site Distribution Centre with limited manufacturing capability, utilising various Six Sigma, Lean and 5S tools in the design of layout and workflow. During the period from October until 12th December, I set up and transitioned the business into the new distribution centre at Oakleigh, encompassing fit out, relocation of machinery and inventory, recruitment and training of new distribution centre staff to the point where the new site became functional.
With 29 years of experience within the Avery Dennison business, I am looking for a new position and focus in a production role where I can utilise my vast experience. I have always been a very “hands on” manager with a “can do” attitude toward everything throughout my 15 years as Production Manager. My style has always been to spend time on the floor and frequently be involved in troubleshooting problems or simply ensuring production and delivery commitments were met.
I have years of experience with building and leading teams of staff across 3 rotating shifts, including varying levels from factory floor, line managers, maintenance, graduate engineers and technical staff. This has included recruitment, training, formal and informal performance management, mentoring, personal development and performance improvement plans where necessary.
I have had substantial experience purchasing, laminating, coating and converting papers, cardboards, foils and films for pressure sensitive label stocks and flexible packaging. Therefore I have extensive experience in slitting, rewinding, sheeting, coating and laminating processes, basic flexo printing and very good substrate knowledge for many different materials commonly used within the printing and packaging industry. Working with Avery Dennison/Jacpaper businesses as a major supplier to the label printing industry, I have a sound understanding of many of the commonly used printing processes such as UV letterpress, flexo, offset, screen and to a lesser extent digital processes. My roles frequently involved visiting printers in order to identify and correct product failures with the products supplied by Avery.
I have also been responsible for warehousing and distributions functions, including managing and surpassing customer service KPIs for DIFOT, inventory accuracy, customer complaint resolution and improving product quality to our customers.
My role was heavily focussed on process improvement, specifically bringing about performance improvements in the areas of quality improvement, scrap reduction, productivity improvements through SKU reduction and set up time reductions, operating cost reduction and housekeeping improvements. I have had exposure to and utilised many of the tools from Six Sigma, 5S and ELS lean manufacturing techniques in achieving significant improvements and have worked within an ISO 9000/9001 environment for many years.
I held major responsibility for OH&S performance for the manufacturing site, this included the implementation of an OH&S framework, communication and training of all production and warehouse staff ensuring hazards were identified and risks assessed, operation of both the local and national safety committees, near miss and incident reporting and investigation, various checklists and regular internal and external audits.
Responsible for communication to the manufacturing areas, I held regular formal “toolbox” and other informal communication sessions with all manufacturing staff to ensure that OH&S, company ethics and core values, business performance and departmental performance KPIs were appropriately communicated and trained out.
I have experience manufacturing flexible packaging, pressure sensitive label stocks and chemical process experience (manufacturing emulsion adhesives and coatings) through my years with Avery Dennison/ Jacpaper and Sands & McDougall. I believe I have a unique set of skills and I am keenly seeking a production opportunity where I can utilise my experience, but at the same time learn about a new industry and grow with the business.
Yours Faithfully,
Brendan Myers
A full resume is available upon request
email. myers25@bigpond.com