Robin Foster

Management of the planning process for all special order vehicles from initial inquiry, through design to bespoke material ordering & insertion into the production plan.

Plan the day-to-day activity of the factory through cost effective planning using customer orders and available forecast information. Set-up following weeks plan to ensure accurate information is readily available for optimisation of cross functional activity, i.e. the ordering of relevant components. Efficiently plan labour in-order to produce product through the most cost effective manner. Liaise with all internal departments to ensure plan requirements are understood and achieved.

Short-term sickness cover

To identify, count & catalogue all parts stored in the service parts warehouse. Analyse historical & future individual part number demand & present to management. To give guidance to the management team regarding future purchasing & product destruction decisions. Re-organise the warehouse storage locations.

Manage the production & material planning requirements for BMW F1X (X5) instrument panel (IP), from Pre-Series to SOP. Sole responsibility for managing 29 suppliers located in Europe, Asia, Mexico & USA. Manage multiple engineering changes with minimal inventory obsolescence & no customer impact. Report daily to customer representatives and senior management. Organisation and management of prototype part storage, including 2 external stores, and internal deliveries to production.

To assist with introduction of Inventory Segmentation & general material planning duties. Train the material planning team in the use of the Inventory Segmentation practice. Report facility inventory status monthly to Director level. Material planner controlling component supply from European & Chinese suppliers. Co-ordinate pre-series material planning requirements for Ford MCA, VW361, Fiat 500e & GM166 projects.

Control inbound flow of materials from intra-company, local & overseas suppliers, ensuring 100% part availability. Analyse raw material consumption (actual vs. indicated). Report & recommend remedial actions. Actively manage inventory levels to ensure that overstocks are minimised. Control new part introduction & old part phase-out. Analyse transportation & recommend potential improvement opportunities.

Customer facing analyst responsible for converting customer demand into levelled weekly production plans. Prepare & chair weekly production meeting with senior management team. Highlight potential production bottlenecks & propose solutions. Responsible for Land Rover, Peugeot, Nissan & BMW Mini dispatch (OTIF). Launch controller for the Land Rover L320 programme. Manage Land Rover & BMW Mini aftermarket supply.

Investigate the usefulness to the company of Dynamic Vehicle Routing software & the introduction of a tyre labelling system to improve casing traceability. Study the handling of tyre cases & devise a robust tyre labelling system. Train all fleet drivers in the use of the tyre labelling system.

Planning of Jaguar, Rover & Land Rover vehicle bumper painting & dispatch. Responsible for internal paint line scheduling operations & improvements. Management of aftermarket supply. Customer contact for all supply & dispatch issues. Member of initial SAP implementation team. Responsible for paint supplier management. Responsible for paint store layout.

Responsible for maintaining the parts supply from warehouse to production lines. Design, purchase & implementation of a new warehouse layout. Control of parts delivery system (PDS). Kanban system introduction & maintenance. Setting of 6 monthly manpower & capital budget for PDS system. Member of the FMEA team that gained QS9000 accreditation for the plant.

Ensure that all supplied parts are available for use in production. Creation of daily production schedules for review by the Production Control manager. Issuance of monthly supplier schedules through MRP system.