Warehouse-Automation Cutover Recovery Leader — Consumer Electronics

The mandate

Goods-to-person automation went live before exception capacity, manual fallback and inventory reconciliation were proven at commercial volume. Nominal machine availability looks acceptable while totes wait in orphan queues, serial-controlled orders split and pack stations starve unpredictably. The start-up executive was dismissed after a recovery release increased throughput briefly but created untraceable substitutions and a second client backlog.

The interim starts within twelve days for ten months, assuming site authority through backlog clearance, control redesign, peak and permanent succession. The first four weeks establish tote, order, serial and exception truth; later phases qualify operating envelopes and safe releases. Recruitment begins in month four, with six weeks of paired shift command and two unannounced automation degradations before handover.

Handover requires reconciled inventory, order priorities, automation envelopes, exception ownership, manual fallback, serial and battery controls, release acceptance, labour plans and client visibility. Completion is demonstrated when the successor sustains ninety days above agreed service and handles a sorter loss plus inventory mismatch without unsafe manual work, lost serial custody or interim intervention.

The leader may throttle release, reserve manual zones, reallocate labour and maintenance, quarantine suspect totes, stop software deployment failing operational acceptance, replace recovery leads and release zł420 million within the authorised plan. Product disposition, code approval, permanent workforce action, vendor award and capital above delegation require accountable approval. Client teams retain customer-priority and product decisions.

Network redesign, automation replacement, product master-data ownership, carrier procurement, client assortment and core commercial renegotiation are excluded. The interim cannot bypass guarding, invent serial reconciliation, clear queues by cancelling valid orders, move suspect stock off-system or treat machine uptime as customer recovery. Manual fallback must preserve scan, custody and labour-safety evidence.

Why this seat is open

The former start-up executive left when a release intended to recover throughput worsened serial and customer exceptions. Temporary operational authority is required before peak while the 3PL recruits a permanent automation-site leader able to challenge both vendor fixes and warehouse shortcuts.

What you will own

• Reconcile order, tote, item, serial, exception, station and customer status across automated and manual flow.
• Decide release rate, priority, labour, maintenance and fallback activation inside safety and client boundaries.
• Establish operating envelopes for induction, storage, sequencing, picking, packing and exception capacity.
• Govern software releases through physical-volume, failure, rollback and inventory-reconciliation acceptance tests.
• Clear backlog without losing serial custody, dangerous-goods controls, order completeness or truthful promises.
• Command six simulations involving tote loss, sorter outage, interface failure, serial mismatch and peak surge.
• Transfer authority after ninety stable days and successor-led compound automation degradation involving sorter bypass, inventory drift, labour scarcity and carrier cut-off pressure.

Candidate qualifications

• Held executive authority through automated warehouse launch, failure recovery and sustained stabilisation.
• Recovered goods-to-person or comparable flow where uptime concealed exception and customer backlog.
• Reconciled serialised inventory, orders and physical totes across automation and manual fallback.
• Designed operational release gates and rollback without assuming software or engineering approval authority.
• Protected warehouse safety, battery handling and client custody while restoring commercial throughput.
• Transferred recovered automation operations through live peak and deliberately degraded operating modes, with safe manual capacity, reconciled queues and explicit customer-priority rules.

Non-negotiables

• Available within twelve days for Warsaw rotating shifts and six simulations.
• Direct automated-warehouse recovery authority is required; systems implementation alone is insufficient.
• Will disclose 3PLs, electronics clients, integrators, automation vendors, labour providers and insurers.
• Will not bypass safety, invent serial evidence, approve code or hide manual exception work.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe an automation recovery where machine availability concealed a growing physical exception queue.
2. 49 words maximum. How did you preserve serial custody during manual fallback?
3. 49 words maximum. State your Warsaw availability and the largest automated site you recovered.