Planning Interview Questions And Answers

As an Industrial Engineer planning is one of my fortes. Planning takes several phases that encompass past, present and future data predictions and outcomes. These phases detail; one, setting goals and objectives that align with the company strategy, two, setting up and facilitating models, mechanisms, and activities that will achieve the laid out objectives, and thirdly monitoring and controlling the mechanisms to ensure success of the desired outcomes. Simply a planner essentially is an individual who uses the(se) resources around him taking into consideration technological, organizational, commercial, economic, financial, and efficiency and optimization factors in production and operation systems and processes, by setting goals and objectives towards attaining the tasks at hand. As it is said "Take hold of the future or the future will take hold of you." Patrick Dixon

Planning in one word is 'control'. A good plan can take you far, not only activity wise but financially, by taking charge of your present. Planning is like a telescope that sees into the future possibilities of opportunity, the past its flaws and opportunity ‘niche’ effectively allowing you to make better judgment calls and decisions, and the present in allowing you to take charge of your resources and possible gains. Planning is a powerful tool that when used effectively ensures minimal waste, optimum use of resources, and fast response times to e.g. the needs of the customer and the company as a whole.

Planning, Planning and more Planning. The lack of if non-existent effective planning culture, tools and models. My past experiences in the various capacities I have held, have seen companies battling with waste management, resource management, communication difficulties, and the list goes on. Of those that do practice planning, will be found lacking in effective planning models and formulation techniques developing poor, weak planning strategies that lack in their intended purpose. This led me to one conclusion, and that is, if one takes the time to sit down and map out an effective strategic and logical workable path towards a desired outcome taking into consideration the pros and cons of each facet of the process, allowing for logical analysis of the operations and resources at hand, in order to make practical conclusions on the

decisions and steps to take, allows one to arrive at a far much better conclusion and thus timely priorities where to focus and what to do, giving you an edge in the market. Exploitation of the Labour resource. In the past posts I have been exposed to, all/most company resources seem to have been tackled in terms of exploiting their opportunities, with the labour resource being side lined. I am schooled from the Japanese way of thinking, founders of the industrial engineers lean productivity, theory of constraints, the goal and kaizen way etc..., thus in this light, I believe, that one of the important resources of a business unit especially a service driven and orientated unit as such, is its labour resource. Harnessing and developing this resource into a fully devoted, ownership driven, and excellence oriented work force unit, will ultimately bring all well planned, carefully formulated and effectively driven planning to fruition. The last line of defense in production of quality goods and services is your labour staff at the shop floor. They ultimately define whether you make a quality (inherent) product or not.