Shahab Mohammad-Ali

A family owned business, selling flavored and premium Nuts, coffee and dry fruit. The company has more than 300 retail outlets under the name of Al Rifai in the GCC and has recently acquired another brand in UAE. It is now a key player in packaged Nuts and Dry fruit category with more than 250 SKUs.
I am spearheading the supply chain function for the two companies (Al-Rifai and recently acquired brand in UAE). My responsibilities are;
• Strategically align and develop Supply chain function in the organization.
• Demand and Supply Planning. Involve coordination with Sales and Buying to maintain an optimum stock and service level.
• Project Management for all Process improvement and new sites initiatives.
• Develop, train and deploy Supply chain resource.
Achievements
• Established a Planning function and devised an ERP solution for the supply chain. The new deployment is on MS AX and is supported by Qlickview for reporting.
• Started a sales and operation planning (S&OP) forum and have engaged sales and purchasing for a rolling 4 quarter plans. Business waste is reduced by AED 10 MN and saving of 20 DOH in inventory is achieved.
• Set up a new site in Dubai for Nuts and dry fruit processing. The project included 50, 000 sqft plant, cold store and warehousing space and around 10, 000 sqft office block with a central refrigeration system.

SAP roll out (U2K2) was a major transformation project for both Unilever Pakistan and Bangladesh. Business processes across Finance, Supply Chain (Customer services, Planning, Manufacturing, Buying) and Sales were overhauled. It was a fast track project and delivery milestones were extremely stretching.
My responsibilities involved:
• Negotiated project scope with Accenture (our implementation consultants) and contract cost. The project needed close monitoring for scope and overwork to keep it within budget and timelines.
• Led a team of 11 CPLs (Country Process Leads) across all functions in the two countries, with a team of 100 core and part time members.
• Expectation management (at top leadership and operations level) in both the companies as It was important to adhere to the regional design template and convince everyone on the new ways of working.
• Network with the regional Implementation teams (6 offices in total) to ensure timely accomplishment of gate deliverables across all tracks.
Achievements.
• Despite extensive process re-engineering, all business process in the two companies were functional from the day one of go-live, as we thoroughly tested the system in 4 rounds before go-live.
• 500 end users (across PK & BD) were adequately trained on the new platform to perform their routine task from the day one of the “go-live”.
• A saving of Euro 2 Mn per annum was envisaged through process centralization (mostly buying, manufacturing).
• Full APO was implemented in Supply Chain and was operational from the day one.

I was leading the supply chain planning function at Unilever Pakistan. I was responsible for both supply and demand planning for all categories as custodian of S&OP. The company has around 650 active SKUs (HPC, Foods and IC) with a top line of Euro 500Mn. It has 4 own and 7 third Party manufacturing sites with 11 DCs (distribution centers) across the country. My responsibilities included:
• Led the Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) process.
• Actively led the working capital reduction across all categories with emphasis to reduce obsolete stock at DCs.
• Led long and medium term manufacturing capacity planning for major categories to ensure timely investment in capacity and Make vs Buy decisions for new categories.
• Member of innovation management gate-keeping in Home and Personal Care Business.
• People development in supply chain.
Achievements:
• Deliver service level and Manage company stocks at an optimum level. Customer Case fill On Time (CCFOT) of 93% with 17 DOH (Days on Hand) of finished goods stock. Delivered 7 days saving (Euro 10 Mn) in stock through active coordination with supply management and business functions.
• Obsolete stock / Business waste of Euro 2 Mn was identified and cleared from DCs
• Facilitated CPIM and CSCP certifications for all high potential resources in Supply Chain

I was heading manufacturing operations for the six Home and Personal Care (HPC) sites in Pakistan. HPC in Pakistan had 5 major categories with a Top line of Euro 310 MN. The position involved:
• Drive Improvement in productivity, quality and cost, benchmarking the sites with leading regional sites in their category.
• Create performance culture at all sites and develop future leadership resource for the company.
• Develop manufacturing strategies for all categories to cater for their growth plans and delivered cost.
• Deploy TPM as key enabler to improve management involvement and efficiency at the shop floor.
• Drive occupational safety, health and environment across all categories.
• Spearhead all capacity expansion projects in the related categories.
• Custodian of Make P&L for all HPC sites. Driving cost saving projects in Make and sourcing to ensure GM.

Achievements.
• Conceived, obtained approval (from local Board and Regional offices in Unilever at 3 level) and monitored completion of following key fast track projects:
1. Personal Wash and Personal product manufacturing strategy (Euro 15 Mn), doubling the capacity in both the categories
2. Laundry powder manufacturing capacity enhancement (Euro 20). In Pakistan, laundry went through a phenomenal growth CAGR 25%+ from 2004 till ’08. Project involved commissioning a new third party site to fulfill the incremental demand. Laundry capacity was increased from 24, 000 T in 2005 to over 100, 000 Tons by 2008, whereas conversion cost was brought down by 45% (72 to 40 Euro/T).
• Spearheaded TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) as a key enabler across all sites. OEE were improved from avg. 60% to 75%, whereas all sites were qualified for TPM level 1.
• Championed QM (Quality Maintenance pillar) in the company. The emphasis was to improve plant, machinery, and work practices to aim for zero defect. Ran three QM workshops and brought down the QDI (quality demerit Index) from 3 to 0.5 in HPC.
• Spearheaded DuPont safety program implementation at all HPC sites and Distribution Centers to maintain injury free sites.
• Derived Unilever GQR (General Quality Requirement) across all HPC sites. The program involved HACCP compliance and ensuring compliance to Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) for Personal Product category.
• Spearhead manufacturing saving (Cost Transformation) Projects delivering Euro 5.2 Mn in HPC.
• Lead Warehouse modernization initiatives at HPC In-bound and Out Bound (Back of the Factory operations) at all sites..

Responsibilities included:
• Corporate TPM: Actively deploying TPM at all UPL factories.
• Central Engineering: As ManEx director, I was heading Central Project Engineering in the company, where I was responsible for capital expenditure for all Unilever sites, which involved active support in project feasibility, drafting, approval and later execution.
• Third party manufacturing: Responsible for all 3rd Party manufacturing sites, which included mainly Tea, Laundry and Margarine 3Ps.
• Corporate Safety: first phase of DuPont behavioral safety program was rolled out across organization (including non make).
Achievements:
• Spearheaded a 40 MN liter capacity expansion project in the Ice cream factory, involving plant design, equipment selection and commissioning of plant and machinery.
• Conducted a Regional TPM Instructor course in Pakistan with delegates from 6 countries. Spearheaded “Level one TPM excellence awards” for Ice cream and Bestfood factories in Pakistan.
• Four key manufacturing sites were selected for DuPont safety system. All key managers were trained in OMGRA. Line supervisor training (LSUPA) was completed al all site and technical mangers were trained in PHA and PSRM.

Responsibilities at Rahim Yar Khan Factory were:
Capacity improvement and rationalization for projected sales volumes, involving initial planning, preparation of capital proposals, change management and project execution.
Resource Management, involving budgeting and control of $1.4MN of revenue / repair and $2.0MN worth of project expenses along with management of 200+ people of contractors and own staff.
Key member for TPM initiative for the site, being pillar leader for Planned Maintenance and Initial Flow Control management Systems.
Implementation of information systems for Maintenance & Project Management.