To get started, how did you get into supply chain planning and procurement?
At first, I was previously in the army. I was an infantryman in the army, which wasn’t relevant at all to supply chain work. But when I got out, I wanted something kind of more stable.
I started studying industrial engineering when I went to community college. After a couple of semesters, I ended up going to a seminar on supply chain by one of my business professors. He was the operations manager at Granger and I talked with him after the seminar which kind of piqued my interest in supply chain.
So after that, I switched my major and went to Wayne State. I got a bachelor’s in supply chain and then an MBA in supply chain and information systems. While I was getting my bachelor’s, I started as a purchasing intern at a company called Eaton Steel and I worked there for a couple of years. Then I moved to Hyundai Mobus as a production control manager.
I spent a lot of time on the internal side, but I was also in charge of material planning. So a little bit more on the external supplier side than what I did at Mobis. And then I moved from there to a material manager role at Piston Automotive. From there I moved to ACE Controls as the planning and procurement manager.
You mentioned a seminar drew you into supply chain management. What happened to draw you in?
So initially when I was trying to study industrial engineering, I wanted to be an industrial engineer doing layouts, designs, and building production lines. After I went to that seminar, I realized that the supply chain was more like the business side of operations, which meant working on the financials, making the business decisions.
I just like the way parts move together. It’s like a puzzle. You have all these different constraints: manpower, labor, machinery, etc. and you’re just taking the information that you currently have to make the best decisions with it. So for me, I always liked that complexity around problem solving and the challenges that come along with it.
Why did you go with Ace Controls and how has it been once you started here?
So like I said, when I started in steel, I worked at a small family owned company. It was a really tight knit workforce where everybody knew everybody. And I liked that personable atmosphere. It didn’t feel like I was just going to work, it felt like I was going in and hanging out with people who had similar interests and we were getting the job done. I felt like those types of teams work better together. But when I moved to Hyundai Mobus, it was kind of a larger company. Even though I was number two in the material team, I still felt like I was just like this small part of this whole thing. We had over 700 employees at our plant and I was just another employee. So for me, it felt really impersonal.
When I was moving to ACE, I got a really good feeling from my boss Arturo, and the general manager, Chris. It was more in line with what I had in my previous role. So I liked the vibe from the management team and then working here, I started to learn about ACE’s culture. It’s a close knit environment, so everybody knows everybody. It’s got a really good feel to it.
Has your kind of career and job changed since you’ve been here?
I do a lot more on the sourcing side. In my previous role, I was l over the procurement team, but we were more focused on the plant level decisions, managing the contracts, logistics, and material planning. At that job our corporate team did a lot of the sourcing and the contract negotiations.
So at ACE, working on the procurement and the sourcing side of things has really been an expansion of responsibilities. Previously, the majority of my background was internal, now my focus has shifted externally working with the supply chain and managing suppliers. It has allowed me to develop a more strategic skill set by having more control and autonomy in making sourcing decisions.
Have you faced any challenges since you started here?
Yeah, quite a few. My first challenge when I got to ACE was a major project I was given by Arturo. We redesigned the entire layout of the plant. The idea was to optimize the material flows through the plant to try to cut down on wasted travel and reduce material loss. So we centralized the warehouse, and shipping and receiving areas.
Now all materials come in through one entry point, it goes to its home location, and then it doesn’t move from there until it’s going to production.
So we already touched on the culture at ACE being really personable. Was there anything else you noticed once you started?
Yeah, so I noticed that this company has a lot of longevity. Members on my team have in some cases been with the company for several decades. This kind of expertise can’t be replicated without years of experience going through multiple challenges that you face in this industry. Having people that know their suppliers on a personal level helps when the goal is to try to create a collaborative environment within your supply chain.
Could you describe what a day in the life of a planning and procurement manager looks like?
When I start in the morning , I first like to check for shortages and try to put out any small fires that come up or at least come up with plans to mitigate them. Then I’ll talk with my team and go into our production meeting. I meet with the other teams, our production leaders, our quality manager, and other departments. We all talk through the current challenges we’re dealing with and I give status updates on any parts that we’re waiting on or expediting.
After that meeting, I check in with my team again to make sure all of their daily challenges are being met. I make sure they get any support they need from my side and let them know if there’s something I’m delegating to them, for example, making sure a job gets expedited for production. So I meet with my team and make sure everybody’s aware of priorities.
Then I usually have a couple of meetings. I’ll meet with suppliers and different vendors to talk through negotiations, shortage, purchase order renewals, etc. .
And then I start working on my own personal tasks. Whether it’s preparing for negotiations, looking at different quotes, engineering changes, timelines, and anything else that needs to be updated throughout the day.
Then towards the end of the day, I like to work on strategy. I’ll review what I am going to do tomorrow. What I’m going to do this week. What my next major tasks are that I have to start working towards. Check in on the continuous improvement projects..
What would you say is your leadership and management philosophy?
I think building trust is the most important. You have to say what you mean and mean what you say. There’s going to be times where you’re wrong and that’s fine. But you have to just own it. Don’t pass blame. If something is your honest mistake: apologize, accept it, and put things in place to prevent it from happening again and then move on. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
I saw you had demand forecasting as one of your skills, which seems really interesting. How does that work?
So the way that we forecast demand at ACE is to use what’s called master models, which look at the different part groups. And then within those part groups, there’s different variations. For example, if you have a metric versus a standard outer tube, we look at the demand. If say 60% of the demand is of the metric and then 40% is for the standard, then when we’re forecasting for building 100, then 60 will be using this combination and 40 will be using the other combination. So we do our demand forecasting on a monthly basis, but then we check on a weekly basis. We also use historical data, sales inputs, any kind of promotions, or anything that we know pop up within that time. And then we use predictive analytics to forecast the next three to six months.
We use an exponential smoothing method. It’s an art and a science: there’s statistics, but sometimes it’s a judgment call and we’re just trying to make sure that we can forecast future demand as accurately as possible.
So you’ve worked at a couple other companies before now and you also spent some time in the military. How do your past roles at other organizations inform your approach here?
My first job out of high school, I was in the army and I feel like for me that built my adult personality. I like things structured. I like very little variation, which works out perfectly in manufacturing. From that, I’ve always been a disciplined person. I moved up pretty quickly in my career as a result of that.
In college I started in production scheduling.From there I moved into production control, then warehousing, materials management and then purchasing.Just going through the different roles within the supply chain, I got more of a holistic viewpoint of the whole industry from different companies.
And every company does something a little bit different. So I try to take a little bit that I’ve learned from each role and bring it into my new role. The stuff that works, you bring it. The stuff that doesn’t, you drop it.
Are there any changes or improvements that you’re currently working on today?
So supply chain is an industry that’s constantly evolving with new technology and there’s a few things that we’re doing on our side, especially on the data side. We want to implement a shop floor management system. So whether that’s going to be using an MES system or something homegrown with QAD, the idea is that it helps streamline communication and transactions throughout the plant.
So starting with the planners, they issue a work order to the floor. That work order then gets communicated to the picker. It would build off of the layout that we set up and the future of how we want to manage our plant. It’s something that I’m working with Arturo on, at my last company we used the MES system for everything from receiving, stowage, and production. Parts are back flushed at their point of use in real time.
From there, finished goods labels are created and the product is moved to a storage location. That location is then pushed out of the door and everything is automated through scanners. So that’s one of the big things we’re trying to push within the next year or two is more scanning and material transparency. That’ll help streamline material transparency, so you’ll have better visibility of where the material is located at all times.
The transactions will then be done in real time as opposed to manual back flushing, which is time consuming and not always accurate because it requires a person to log the transaction after the fact. So with this, everything is being depleted in real time or at least near time. Then the transaction should follow the material as it moves throughout the process.
What is something about your role that would surprise people outside of ACE controls or like manufacturing?
So in a lot of companies, the roles of planning and purchasing are two different functions. Here it’s more of a hybrid role. It has got its challenges. There’s a lot that’s involved with both teams, but at the same time, I like the way that it centralizes the decision-making since planning feeds purchasing, purchasing buys parts which planning uses to fulfill orders. Having all those decisions in one role helps streamline that process and speeds up communication.
Is there anything else you’d like to share before we wrap up?
I like working with my team. This is probably one of the best teams I’ve ever worked with. I’ve worked in a lot of different environments and I like that everyone here is comfortable expressing themselves. When we go into a meeting, it’s not just managers telling people what to do. We take into account the impacts decisions have on everyone working on the floor, from shipping to receiving. It doesn’t matter if you’re the operations manager or a machine operator, everybody’s voice is heard. I really like that about the culture here.
As always, we end on a fun question: if you could instantly master any skill or hobby, what would it be?
I always thought snowmobiling was really cool. I’m from the beach, so we didn’t have a lot of snow when I was growing up.