Description
Stryker is one of the world’s leading manufacturer and distributer of medical devices and equipment. Stryker has a distribution center in Venlo which plays a key role in the European supply chain strategy in Europe and also outside Europe for the (recently acquired) neurovascular products.

Opportunities
Strong leadership, open and clear communication and a culture of continuous improvement in the Venlo warehouse is vital to match with future Stryker demands and process changes. A recruitment process for a new operations manager started in Q2-2012. In the meantime, there was a need to safeguard the daily operations and ongoing optimizations and process changes until the moment the new manager could start (3 to 4 months).

Solution
An experienced Operation Manager working at Groenewout has been appointed as interim manager. His role was to secure appropriate daily management, deliver relevant reporting, identify and implement organizational improvements and facilitate new business process requirements to be incorporated in operations.

Benefits

• Contingency of operational management during the recruitment period and a smooth transition of responsibility to the new operations manager.
• Improving the roles & responsibilities in the operational team by appointing new supervisors.
• Identification and implementation of several lean optimizations, KPIs and reporting methods.
• Embedding new service enhancements in the daily operation and adapting the organization accordingly.