Notes
Notes on running operations and leading people
Short, practical notes on running operations and projects, leading managers and what I learn along the way, mostly from manufacturing in Asia. Hands-on, written from experience.
Operations, projects and managers
From managing people to managing managers
What changes when you stop managing people and start managing managers: three ways of leading, from matrix project teams to running a country.
The requests you cannot serve map your market
A bag factory that designs buckles and foam inserts sounds odd. Listening to what customers asked for but we did not sell became the most useful market research we ever did.
Customer audits versus certificates
Why a carmaker's own supplier audit asks far more than ISO 9001 or IATF 16949, and what I took from it into a bag factory in Vietnam.
Manufacturing glossary: OEM, ODM, MOQ, BSCI
Plain definitions of OEM, ODM, CM, MOQ, BSCI and NCAGE as used in bag making, and where the same words mean something else in automotive manufacturing.
A week in the life of a plant general manager
How a plant general manager's week is organised: the meetings that set direction, the daily time on the floor, and the two things that always take more time than planned.
Preparing a successor before you need one
How my successor in China came to take over my role: a manager I had led in France, who knew the team first, and what I think made the handover hold.
What to prepare before selling a business
Lessons, not the deal: what I would prepare first if I might one day sell a business: a clean story, an honest data room, one point of contact and early staff communication.
Integrating an acquired plant: the method
How to integrate an acquired plant without losing its people: a shared plan, clear gates, and the acquired team reporting its own progress. A method, with one regret.
Turning a group strategy into a local plan
A group strategy fits in a sentence; a local business plan is a hundred decisions. A four-step method for the general manager who has to translate between them.
Managing machines versus managing people
What changed when I moved from an automotive plant where machines make the parts to a factory where people do: what transferred, what did not, and why.
Manufacturing in Asia
What a BSCI audit asks of a factory
What an amfori BSCI audit covers, what the day looks like from the factory side, and how a buyer can read the report beyond the grade on the front page.
China+1 is a question, not a strategy
Moving production out of China is easy to say, hard to plan. Three MBA ideas, total cost, the price of a second source and policy as an input, seen from Vietnam.
Before a first order with a supplier in Vietnam
Questions to ask a Vietnamese factory before a first order, and why total cost matters more than unit price. Written from the factory side of the table.
What to say twice across three languages
Working with Chinese, Vietnamese and French colleagues taught me that a message can change meaning in translation. How I check that an instruction was understood.
Working with a French head office from Asia
Running a plant in China for a French group taught me to stay in touch with colleagues at every level of headquarters, not only my manager. Why it pays off.
AI and data on the shop floor
Finding the slowest station on a sewing line
How to find the bottleneck on a labour-intensive sewing line when almost nothing is measured: a low-cost proxy signal, how to read it, and what it must never mean.
Testing a factory idea in days, not months
The minimum viable product, learned in an MBA project and used on the shop floor: how AI as a working assistant makes a first version cheap, and what it never replaces.
The data rule that scales a small company
When inbound interest multiplies, the spreadsheet breaks first. One rule, enter information once, then reuse and track it, with a named person approving every decision.
Why I keep AI out of the final decision
I use an AI assistant daily but almost never let it decide. I ask for options with pros and cons, challenge the answer, and only delegate reversible decisions.