COO Closed Die Forger Search

COO Search

We were tasked with finding a COO for a Closed Die Forger in the Midwest. The company had been adding forging presses in order to expand their business and wanted an experienced Operations Leader who could come in and lead the investments on the presses, implement a CI Program while making an immediate impact on OEE, Die Life and Uptime.

The COO we were looking for needed to be a strategic planner with a degree, have prior experience managing a job shop press forge operation in a union environment, be a good communicator with a collaborative leadership style, have P&L experience, know how to utilize a variety of continuous improvement tools and have experience leading Kaizen events.

We began, by combing through the United States' Forging Industry, where we have identified over 400 operations. Of the 400+ forging operations in the U.S., 191 are operating Closed Die presses and 81 are operating Open Die presses.

First, we combed through the forge shops in the Midwest, beginning with forge operations with Closed Die presses.
Then we expanded the search to include all Closed Die press shops across the U.S.
Finally, we searched through all the forge operations in the U.S who were running Open Die Presses.

Each forge shop varies in size and organizational structure, with different job titles and varying responsibilities. As we combed through the leaders from these various operations across the country, some of the type of candidates we targeted included:

COO's
Vice Presidents of Operations
Vice Presidents of Manufacturing
Director of Operations
Operations Managers
Plant Managers
Plant Leaders
Directors of Manufacturing
Manufacturing Managers
Area Managers

We identified 103 prospective candidates who we believed may be qualified across the U.S. forging industry and placed them on our call plan. Our initial criteria at this point are degreed individuals who’ve managed a press forging operation for 10+ years. Once we get them on the phone, we evaluate their education, forging experience, press experience, management experience, union experience, continuous improvement experience, accomplishments, compensation expectations, willingness to relocate, etc.

From the 103 Sr. Leaders across the forging industry we contacted:

3 candidates were submitted
3 candidates were phone interviewed
2 candidates were brought for onsite interviews

In less than 2 months we identified, attracted, thoroughly screened and successfully hired a degreed COO from the Closed Die press forging industry!

Begin your search for the ideal candidate for your job on our EMPLOYERS page or CONTACT Laminin Corp today!