Chief Executive Officer — Precision-Engineering Division

The mandate

The division machines and assembles close-tolerance components for industrial and transport customers whose qualifications make supplier changes slow and consequential. Its order book is healthy, but delivery has deteriorated despite overtime and additional equipment. Work waits between machining, heat treatment, inspection and outside processes; urgent orders repeatedly displace planned sequences; and first-pass yield differs sharply by product family. Reported machine utilisation is high because queues and rework keep equipment busy, while customer schedules remain late.

The Chief Executive Officer will lead approximately 775 employees and material partners across two plants, quality laboratories and a specialist supplier network. The role owns the division P&L, customer commitments, capital, operations, engineering, quality and leadership team. Group functions retain treasury and policy governance. The board wants an operator who will establish true flow and product-family economics, not pursue another general cost campaign.

The business has valuable process knowledge and long-standing customer approvals. Productivity change must preserve both. Moving a qualified operation or changing a process may require customer notification, validation and new inspection evidence. The CEO must distinguish waste from required control, and make capital and make-or-buy choices with that constraint visible.

Workforce credibility is equally important. Skilled machinists, programmers and inspectors have lived through repeated improvement initiatives that raised targets without resolving unstable drawings, tools or schedules. The new leader needs to correct management causes, involve operators in standard work and ensure safety or quality stops are never treated as lack of commitment.

Product change needs equal discipline. Engineering revisions, customer concessions and supplier substitutions can alter routing or inspection after planning has released work. The CEO will establish configuration authority and cut-in evidence so old and new requirements do not mix on the floor. A productive plant must know exactly which drawing, tool, material and acceptance plan applies to each serialised part.

Why this seat is open

The previous CEO resigned unexpectedly after the board challenged the latest recovery forecast. Interim control by the group operations head has stabilised priority customer deliveries but cannot continue. This urgent replacement will receive full authority and a fact-based handover; the board will not abbreviate technical and conduct diligence to meet the appointment target.

What you will own

• Re-segment operations by product family, routing, constraint and qualification rather than manage the plants as aggregated machine centres.
• Establish one credible schedule from customer demand through outside processing, inspection and despatch.
• Improve first-pass yield through engineering ownership of recurrent defects, gauge capability and process discipline.
• Reset make, buy and capital choices using complete queue, quality, logistics and qualification economics.
• Repair customer confidence with transparent recovery plans and early escalation of schedule or quality risk.
• Build supplier capacity and control for heat treatment, coatings, tooling and other constrained processes.
• Clarify authority among plant, engineering, quality and commercial leaders and address persistent capability gaps.
• Create a leadership and skills pipeline for machining, programming, metrology and production supervision.

The first 12 months

In 90 days, walk representative orders from release to shipment, validate backlog ageing and reconstruct margin by product family. Review every major escape and late customer programme. Agree the true constraints, freeze unsupported expedites and present a recovery sequence with customer and cash consequences.

By month six, implement constraint-based scheduling in priority families, reduce queue and rework, and complete the first process-capability interventions. Re-contract or develop constrained suppliers and decide which proposed equipment still has a valid case. Plant reviews should use common yield, flow, delivery and cash data.

At twelve months, improve on-time delivery by at least 20 points, reduce total manufacturing lead time by 30% and lift first-pass yield by eight points in selected families. Premium freight and unplanned subcontracting should fall by 40%, division contribution should meet the board recovery range, and no customer-critical qualification should be compromised or major safety risk deferred.

What the board will measure

• Customer schedules recovered and maintained without recurring expedite dependence.
• Product-family contribution based on actual flow, rework and outside-process cost.
• First-pass yield and process capability at critical characteristics.
• Working capital released through lower queue and unfinished work.
• Safety, quality and customer qualification protected through change.
• A credible plant and functional leadership bench with explicit successors.

The person

You have 28+ years in precision engineering, automotive components, aerospace supply, industrial equipment or another high-mix manufacturing environment. You currently lead a division, business or multi-plant operation and have personally recovered delivery where apparent utilisation concealed flow problems.

Your experience should include a P&L or accountable portfolio above ₹2,800 crore and at least 550 employees and partners. You can explain a process you kept in-house despite a cheaper quote, a capital request you stopped and how customer qualification shaped timing. The board will examine technical depth, industrial relations and whether your improvements survived demand variation.

The hybrid Pune appointment requires sustained plant presence and customer travel and reports to the Group Chief Executive and board.

Compensation and terms

The fixed package is ₹5.0–7.5 crore plus performance variable and long-term incentive measured through delivery, flow, yield, cash, safety and leadership. This permanent hybrid role is centred in Pune with substantial plant presence and reports to the Group Chief Executive and board. Notice up to six months can be considered against the customer recovery plan.

Confidentiality

The group, customers, products, processes and plant data are confidential. Detail follows reciprocal fit, conflict clearance and a signed undertaking. Values and circumstances are intentionally rounded and blended; candidates must not approach likely customers, suppliers or employees to identify the division.