A vacancy and a production ramp at the same moment
A mid market manufacturing business lost the director of one of its plants as a major production ramp began. A ramp is the period when a site has to build far more units than before, and this one was already committed to customers. The site could have absorbed either the vacancy or the ramp. It was being asked to take both.
Promoting somebody internally was the obvious answer, and it would have pulled the person running production out of that job at the least forgiving moment. The business needed experienced hands in the plant while the ramp was running, for a defined period, without rushing the permanent search. That is what interim management is for: somebody who carries the ramp rather than advises on it.
We sourced for ramp experience rather than site leadership
We scoped the placement around the ramp itself rather than around plant leadership in general, and that changed who we looked for. Plenty of candidates have run a manufacturing site. Far fewer have run one while volume was climbing steeply, and the operating problems in that period are different ones. The search was built on that distinction from the start.
We spoke with former plant directors, production leads and quality directors, and the specification was framed around what a site needs while it is ramping. The engagement was scoped to run alongside the permanent search rather than replace it, with handover to the permanent appointment written into the brief from the start. Candidates cleared the Nextyn compliance framework before we introduced them.
The ramp landed and the permanent search was never rushed
The site held through the ramp with experienced leadership in place, and the commitments made to customers were met. The permanent search then ran at its own pace. Businesses under this kind of pressure often appoint the candidate who is available rather than the one they want, and having somebody in the seat removed that pressure.
The internal production lead stayed in the job they were good at, instead of being promoted into a gap at the hardest possible moment. That mattered to the site well beyond the ramp.
