I face a unique challenge running the biggest department at iXsystems. With employees fluctuating depending on the time of the year, my biggest challenge as Production Manager is making sure my employees have the policies, procedures, tools, and leadership to be successful.
The full production process starts with receiving. The received parts are then checked, reviewed, and kitted. After we assemble the parts into a system, we upgrade all of the subsystems. At this point, we put the system through our QC process to make sure none of the parts fail. Each system is then custom-configured for the client’s use case. The system is then packaged for shipment/delivery to the client.
The Production department actually consists of three sub-departments: Production/Hardware, Client Services, and Shipping. Our priority is making sure we can vary our staff without changing individual productivity. To accomplish this, we’re moving towards more specialization of each team member and we’re constantly putting more procedures in place to increase our productivity. For example, we start orientation for new employees before they work the production line; this lets them become familiar with the production process and how things work. One of our biggest advantages is our speed.
I don’t think there’s any other company in the world that has as many products as we have and can produce them with the quality and speed that we do. It doesn’t matter if it’s one order or a hundred different orders, all of them are treated the same and all of them go through the same rigorous process. It’s what sets us apart from the competition.
Chris Williams
iXsystems Production Manager
