Kiru Kumar

Responsible for establishment phase of IKEA's upcoming new distribution center in Pulau Indah.

Responsible for main distribution centre in Klang Valley, servicing the whole of West Malaysia and 9 distibution centres in East Malaysia.

Reason for Leaving : Company ceased operations in Malaysia. Summary Responsible for operational excellence of one of IKEA's Distribution Centers for the Asia Pacific region. Control and manage a 550,000 ft2 (51,000 m2) distribution centre with 99,400m3 storage capacity holding an average stockholding value of USD50 million. Lead, coach and develop teams responsible for delivery of goods within the agreed time and in the agreed quality at the lowest possible DC operational costs to IKEA stores in Asia Pacific. Key Responsibilities Recruit and select talented operations management team and support staff. Train, motivate and develop operations team to reach their fullest potential and maximize business opportunities. Ensure all procedures and policies are thoroughly understood by operations team. Clearly communicate business goals and company objectives so both management and staff are well informed. Responsible to secure, develop, communicate, explain and to follow-up business plan and relevant actions. Responsible to secure the daily operational business/activities. Responsible to provide information about plans and results to co-workers and explain their overall importance. Responsible to increase efficiency of DC operations (reduce cost, improve productivity). Leading and developing co-workers within the area of responsibility and in accordance with IKEA co-worker idea. Plan annual staffing and operational budgets. Initiate and implement safety programs. Ensure sure that health and safety procedures as well as security measures are observed at all times. Monthly KPI monitoring and report (both internal and external). Preparation of weekly and monthly management reports.

Summary Responsible for logistics planning and execution for a major multi-national customer. Gained experience in new distribution centre (DC) set-up, start-up and shifting. Overall management of a 127,000 ft2 (11,800 m2) distribution centre. Conducted workflow process studies and reviews to increase efficiency and productivity. Implementation of staff training programs and incentive scheme. Key Accomplishments Successful completion of testing and migration to new WMS. Successful training of the existing staff on new WMS. Successful planning and completion of new DC setup. Successful planning and execution of cargo transfer (physical transfer as well as systems transfer) from old DC to new DC. Achieved while maintaining running operations at both locations. Promoted to Senior Operations Executive after only 6 months as Customer Service Executive, in recognition of my high level of commitment and contribution. Promoted to DC Manager after only 6 months as Senior Operations Executive, due to excellent performance and contribution and extremely effective customer relations. Achieved space utilization above goal. (97% against goal of 90%). 99.2% and 99.5% inventory accuracy for 2003 and 2004 annual stock-counts. (Goal - 98.5%). Successfully planned and implemented training programs and staff motivation to reduce handling damages by 50%. Effective and comprehensive daily operational planning resulting in 100% on time deliveries even though 40% of shipments were initiated only 48 hours prior to vessel closing time. (Goal - 98%). Successfully implemented barcode tagging system for products to improve efficiency and accuracy of the receiving process. Achieved 20% increment in productivity via process improvements. Created, implemented and fine-tuned systems and processes for goods receiving, storage, picking, value-added services and dispatch. Improved methods of product packaging (value-added services) to reduce cycle time by 40%.