Rue Claude Berthollet copy 6

The discussion revolves around various issues in project management, communication, decision-making, and integration within the company. There are challenges with projects running late, lack of proper integration, difficulties in finding the right contact person, and repeated problems due to not addressing issues effectively. The need to rethink operations, engage more people in finding solutions, and improve communication and structure within the organization are emphasized. The lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities is highlighted as a common problem affecting multiple employees, leading to inefficiencies and frustrations. The importance of proactively finding solutions, utilizing IT support, and fostering a collaborative approach to problem-solving is stressed. But maybe this is what I can do, because I would like to talk about the topics of a couple of other people. This is not only this one. This is a general DCC. We have a general issue. We have a general issue of doing that kind of project, doing the projects running late. Integrating, not completely integration. The overall way of communicating, not making decisions, finding the right contact person, all these things. Maybe just try to remember what was brought up. Otherwise, ask Mark again. I'm pretty sure he's mentioning some of the problems again. Ask in the right moment. But really, if you can do a slide of just what are the main problems, what are the difficulties from a local point of view, and then we'll add some later. I'm going to be careful. Like one or two slides saying that's a generalist problem, and I will give you some input about like we're doing the same things again and again. I just brought that similar topic to me now last year. I would say, again, with the new guy we have and with the two new guys we have, nothing I'm not promising that anything is changing, but if you don't bring it up and if you don't bring it to the right people, then we'll continue every time again. So let's try to use that feedback. And you're not the only one, right? Every function has their own problems about dealing with that kind of situation after integration, after a project, so we can just do some brainstorming or at least address it with the right people, saying, hey, we need to do better. And one of the weaknesses, and that's just my point of view, Littlefuse is always asking the same people to do it, and they all have their day-to-day jobs. So it's so hard for them, and I don't want to blame Greg, Ryan, Mary Beth. They're all doing that on top to their normal activities. Same with you guys, right? Same with you. But that's a general thing Littlefuse needs to reconsider. We're paying a lot of money for infosys. We're paying a lot of money for every other consultant, but why not training our own people, having our own people who can focus on that, who can bring the people together, because we're all too busy to really follow up and find solutions, because the next problem is already waiting for us. So we need to really rethink how we go, or how we operate with this project and integrations in general. I mean, you've seen that with the general integration Littlefuse, it was like a ton of people coming in, asking hundreds of questions, walking away. Some things changed, some questions were never answered, some were still pending. Now we are all at that stage, okay, we found our way of working, but we know some processes never got completed, some explanations from Littlefuse are still missing, why you had to change and how you changed, and there's nobody listening about what could be better, what could be improved. So this is more like a general issue we have, and I would like to use that feedback, and this project, also to talk with AR, to talk with, like we have that sponsoring group of that project, where we have all the key people, deep AI, saying, hey, even if you don't want us to hear or listen, it's again the same problem we're facing. Again and again, the Littlefuse step-up. Maybe in the next life they will change it. But again, it's picked a battle. If nobody is saying it to them, they're not going to change it. Maybe at a certain time someone will listen, and we can do it better next time. But for us, it's also like, how can we do it better next time? How can we create our solutions, our improvements, without the whole support or the whole group? Yeah. Yeah, that's the main change for what we have in the past, because when we do some issues for the job, for the process, we directly ask for IT, for mapping, and they work on it. They understand the need, and they work on it. We work to find the solution. This way, for the team who work on it, and for IT, they propose a solution, and we work together to find the solution. Now, in fact, yes, we don't have this support anymore. And it's very difficult for us, because we see that it's completely crazy how it works today in SAP on some points. You have just to do that. But we don't have this support anymore. Keep in mind, it's a global system, right? If you change something, you might lift it up for someone else. Yeah, of course. And that's somehow the challenge. But it's still, I mean, we just, from time to time, need to be a little bit more creative how we can bring up solutions. If we don't use our IT support, if we hire someone and we find a solution for them, and then next time, if we're nice, we can introduce that idea for other locations as well, right? Because we put the effort on developing a solution. And sometimes, if it's not SAP-based, maybe there are systems, workflows, whatever, can support you, making that manual shift a little bit easier. Even if it's not an SAP-based solution. Maybe it's a program you put next to SAP doing the work for you. Maybe. Just an idea. I'm not sure if it works in that scenario. But let's be a little bit more open and creative how to solve some of the issues. I mean, that's the fun part, I think, for me. To think how to do better and how to create a better environment and create solutions. And I know sometimes it's frustrating if you run against walls and nothing is happening. It's just the size of the company losing the agility. But sometimes it's easier to create solutions and offer solutions. It's always about don't ask, how can I fix it? Say, that's the solution. What do we need to implement? Bring up the solution. But sometimes before you ask 100 people about who can help, 50 of the 100 don't read your email. The other 25 are saying, oh, I don't understand what he's saying. And the other 25 are saying, oh, I'm busy. But let's say, OK, that's not working for us. I have a solution or an idea of a solution. Do we get 15K to implement it? Yes. I probably didn't know myself. But at the end, we can decide. It's better money. OK. Good. Or not good. I know it's frustrating. I cannot change that. Yeah. For us, in the shipping team, it's really frustrating. Because it's like we go back 20 years. We go back to the way it was. Now, everything, each time we have something, it doesn't work. The world changes. The system changes. Everywhere. We get the change through the system. It seems that we need to choose nothing. We still have the document from 20 years ago. It's not compliant. Oh, yeah. It's not compliant. And so what? For all the world, it's not compliant. It's not all for France. Only for France. I don't understand why nobody wants it. I don't understand. It's just all the way. Nobody wants to be responsible and take the extra amount. Yeah. And you say work on your side, find solutions locally. Yeah. But at the end, everybody is doing that. And we spend more money than we do only once for all the world. It changes. It's not the way that we worked in the past. It's not easy to change. Okay, we're going to try to work like that. Even if it's completely crazy, it's not the efficient way. It's not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Understood. Yeah. But let's, as I said, let's use the work in Europe. Yeah, yeah. See what are common problems. And then we're not saying we're not engaged to find a global solution. Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying as more people get involved at the beginning. Of course. As more complicated it gets to find a solution. And if we just find a solution, cross-check with the other two locations, and say yes, solving the problem for all of us, that's proposed to the global world. If you can share to us the contact in your part-time, because I'm not sure if they're all. I have only one name. I think it's the boss, but I'm not sure. I can't remember his name. Yeah. To ensure that we have good contact, because we don't know them. And that's an issue. Why don't you know them? Why don't you know them? I mean, why was nobody involving them? They have to think. I mean, it was nice to be there, one. But at that time, you had no clue what you're talking about and what you're looking at. Sorry, but at that time, nobody did know what other people looked like and what kind of problems you will face. So how could you ask the right question at that time? I mean, why is there no connection? Why is... It's another point. It's another point that I just learned during the end of May that Paul... Yeah. Oh, it was during the... When you prepare the document for the audit. Yes, for the audit. At this moment, I learned that Paul was my MTSWAP for validation of the cost of adjustment of the inventory. Oh, really? You? Right. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm the regional logistic manager. Yeah. Yeah. First of all, very happy for you to know that. Why? Why nobody tell us how it will be managed for the day figure? Why? Because it's crazy. So I'm sure, I do some adjustment of inventory, but I have not the right to do that. I don't know. But before, when you asked me, it was crazy. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I don't know what's the problem, why nobody told me. I mean, that's on the function area. I mean, that was probably the starting point on training and saying, hey, that's the organization. You know, part of that organization. I mean, even independent from FFP. Yeah, yeah. Both there is... Yeah, that's the thing. I don't know what are the tasks that I'm responsible for. Yeah. I don't know. But the problem is, you're not the only one. And I think it's, in the meantime, there are too many... I think people are not knowing anymore what their responsibilities are. Yeah. I think that's only the acquisition. Yeah. I think somewhere, you know, something with the shipping manager is responsible of that. Yeah. Somewhere, but I don't know where. No. I don't think so. Yeah, I think so. Far. That's crazy. So that's why, yeah, the communication and the structure is weak. Because today, I am in charge of things that are not... Were not in my charge before. They are in charge of finance, for cyclical, for example. Yeah. Those parts of buyer for transport. Yeah. For example. And now, that's me. Yeah. Why? Why not? I mean, it's a few things changing. That's part of the game. But it would be good if people explained the changes. I should have the capability to do that. And the time and everything I need to do that. Yeah. And nobody can give me more than I have previously. That's very strange and stressful to have so much additional tasks with no training, with no information. Yeah. And just, oh, you have to do that now. I hope some of it will become better after a while by just learning by doing. But I know that shouldn't be the case. I know it's not the best way. I mean, I know the weaknesses, but I mean, it's still good to see and to keep thinking about what you're doing. I mean, that's the strength also of the whole team. And that's how you were operating before. And it's really important to keep the people thinking. And that you not become one of the people who's just like, well, not my problem, right? I don't touch it. I will leave it there. No. Someone else will ship it. Or not. If not, I put it in customer service. And if customer service, then I put it in production. Or if you don't get into that kind of neighbor, it's really, we can improve things if we keep thinking and trying to changing it with all the frustration linked to it. That's the only way to become better and to improve. And that's also like, I've lived with these people and others. It's just more complicated from time to time. It's a setup of the size and the missing structures. It was just like also growing too fast. The business was just growing too fast in the last years. And we did not invest in system, people, processes. Yeah. Right. And maybe change. It looks like our new CEO is going back to a more centralized way of thinking, not producing this island solution, bringing teams more together, and having a clearer communication of responsibilities and sharing with each other. Too early to tell if that works or not, or how he will bring that up or implement it. But for sure, there will be a change. Hopefully a good one. But it seems that we also get a little bit more proactive in decision making under that guy. Let's see how the new CEO works. But I hope he can get back some of the agility we were seeing. That's what I see in here so far. It will probably still take some time. But I mean, let's try to make this situation workable and to have you in better shape of going back to enjoy the job you do and attending to the job you do and see what changed and is that what you need, what you want, what you... Right? After all that. Today I enjoy nothing. Nothing at all. It's very frustrating. I know. I spend more than 100% of my time for shipping. Yes. But I don't manage only shipping. Yes, yes. The incoming, the warehouse, and all the supply of all the factories. No time for that. No time for that. Oh, and that's again, that's the problem we need to raise, right? I mean, it's also like... Again, we're not changing it overnight, but if it means we need to talk about an extra headcount, we need to talk about it, right? It's not that you or you getting totally buried by that work and... I mean, if you're too busy with handling all of it and all that manual adjustment, it's also like, it's a risk. Yes. And that you will miss something at the other responsibilities and also a risk of losing you. And so we should bring up a headcount discussion. If you feel ready for that one, I mean, put together the arguments and then find one so we have some more time of you dedicating to the problem, solving the problem. Because if you keep going, being busy, just handling the problems, there's no time to solve the problems and the issues. And you need some time and patience to solve them. So it is a time convenient to send these emails and look for a solution, discuss with the people. No doubt about that one. But yeah, if you don't solve it now, I mean, if you ask for a headcount in a year from now, they're asking you, and how did you do it in the last year? But this is really like, the two of you should sit together and say, like, what's really helpful in this situation, right? Is it really like a temp headcount? Is it more attention? Do we need to... Yeah. Solving a problem, you can make a lot of proposals, but you know what you need. And we also need to argue about, okay, we need to make sure the business is running and not interrupted. What happens in this situation if you get sick? Yep. Or going on vacation. It's difficult for us. We close the company. At the end, nothing will happen. In fact, from May, as we move into a city, I stopped to work on the real work, to ship parts and to package and stuff, and only to solve issues. So I stopped working on the daily work. I don't do that anymore. So we train different people to ensure that we can process everything, but not enough, so that's why we move one to our team to ensure that the shipping activities... That's, yeah, dangerous. If somebody is missing, it's going to be difficult. And I mean, if people want to listen or not, people will always listen if they hear a business interruption. That's the best pressure we have. That's good. And that's... I mean, I don't want to report the same problem we have in May again. What happened with the revenue missed in Q2? Do you think that the pressure will be put on that to solve all the issues that we have in the paper and so on? The problem is we did not miss revenue in Q2. Why? Because there was some cut-off in Q1? Yeah, we reversed. Like, the cut-off was really, like, on 2.6 million favorable, just changing the model from CMK to the Crossox, to the Lefebvre band, so it was, like... How many did you put? 2.6 million was favorable, just by reversing what we had. And Q1 for Q2? Yeah. Just because there was 6 million in IBM FQ1 for CMK and 2.6? At the end of Q1, IBM, the cut-off was about 6 million for IBM and 2.6, no? If you want, I can say that... No, no, don't stop until... Tomorrow, I stop everything. No, it's okay. I can do that. I know that you can do it. You just say that it will be... You are sure today? Don't change anything. It's okay. It's an hour and a half. Isn't that enough pressure? Thank you, miss. You are not doing any shipments for one and a half hours. No, no, no. We do, we do. I lost 6 million, if I do remember. Thank you. No, no, no. So Q1 was... No, it was 4 million. 4? For IBM and Europe? Yeah. And US. Right. Whatever you shipped to the US. So it was 3.9, let's say 4 million. And we now, like, 2.6 were reverse. And that's just for the quarter. Because we don't have the situation now that shipments are somewhere on the way to the US or to Asia. They might be on the way, but that's an intercompany thing. And we don't see that anymore with that cross-stock model. Yeah. So we have really small, like, for... I think for Europe, this is Europe, has like 200k cut-offs for shipments. Only for such quarters. Because you... Yeah. Just to be sure, for the end of the quarter, you look only up for shipping. Is that right or not? Sure. Because... We look for... All the cross-stock, you still wait that the switch transfer goes to PTI. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there is only for the... There are shipments from Europe, for example. You ask for... If there are... That's a... There's a file. Yeah. So you turn to them and follow... The file that I didn't see because I don't have a copy. You don't have a copy? No. I don't have. I never see the file they send to you. That's why I was just answering into the mail. Because I don't have to accept my... Because I'm somehow... And that's also something I would like to discuss with Paul. How he's getting the information from those. Because he's saying he's looking at the tracking details. Does he have access? Yeah, he should have. He's now using the same forwarder, right? Yes. And even if you don't have the same forwarder, you can check for yourself. Yeah. And everybody can check. Yeah. So what happens is... There's a report. And at the end, Paul just discovered that one. He was not doing it in the past. So we use all the shipments. And now, he really used all the shipments done in June. He's looking only for customers with the D-terms, with INCOTERMS, saying, hey, you're not realizing the revenue? Yes. So we look at them. And then for them, he's looking at the tracking details from the forwarder. So he's going into the portal, saying, is it delivered or not? Where is it? Is it already recognizable? Yes. I mean, is it already in the port? And we have that port in our INCOTERMS graphics. It's not, so he's going really line item by line item. Customers with the D-terms of the shipments we make. Mm-hmm. And with that, we have a really low impact for the cutoff. Mm-hmm. Because most of the exports, we don't have any big shipments which are really stacked between the dole and the customer. I mean, most of the time, it's delivered within one or two days. And everything that is on risk, if you deliver overseas or whatever, it's not in here, because you deliver to a limited standard that's on a single company. Yes. And not on the revenue. Okay. So all the intercompanies that we use, we don't particularly do the Q2 revenue. The intercompany, it's like, I mean, we don't realize intercompany revenue, right? If mark shipping to the warehouse, to the cross-border location in the U.S., it's like received by Littlefields Inc., and dole, like Littlefields Europe, and Littlefields Inc., they have Britain Transit Index moment. But that's not impacting our revenue, right? Because that's just intercompany goods in transit. So that's on the balance sheet. You probably have exports, so dole is already showing inventory gone. Well, Littlefields Europe at that moment. Yeah, inventory is still in SAP. Yeah, and that is still in SAP. And that is just below, just look at the transaction, if the SAP location, like Littlefields Europe, Littlefields Inc., Far East, they send to the customer. And most of the time, I mean, if Littlefields Europe, if you send out of dole, you send to the European customers. And most of the time, things are received within a couple of days. So we don't see, like, other than mark shipping to a customer in the U.S. It ends up more and more in a shipment or the work is to them. But it's now, like, we have an interim step, right? You were shipping directly to U.S. customers from here, right? Yeah. So that one, in that moment, Waltham was realizing the revenue. Yeah. If you shipped, you said, look, out of the door, and Waltham was saying process-wise, the message was saying, oh, 200,000 revenue. So we shipped, we are kind of on a boat, nutshell. Something was on the way for a week, if you don't use air freight or whatever, it was on the way for a week or two. So the customer hasn't received the goods end of the quarter. That revenue was already realized with Waltham, because triggering point was then shipping. So we already realized the revenue, but there was a long shipping trail for these goods. So even if we shipped last week of the quarter, most likely it was not received in the U.S. by end of the quarter. And now we don't have that anymore, because we have that interim step. Mark is shipping to Lipschitz Inc., and that Lipschitz Inc. is shipping to the end customer. And again, for them, it's a shorter distance, because also even in the U.S., it might take one, two, three days to deliver to the end customer or the distribution center. So it's minimizing the risk that we see that big cutoff impact. It's also like for aero. I don't know how aero was. It was usually something you had as a cutoff as well. Because aero, you shipped to the Netherlands. If you had like a last-minute shipment for aero, it was most of the time cashed by the revenue cutoff. If you had like a light shipment to… Yeah, it takes one day to go from there to the Netherlands. So I think to the quarter, it's time. Yeah, it would be like, or they just collect it somewhere and they put it on a different truck when they're shipping it the next day. Now, with aero, I mean, aero is next door to the warehouse in the Netherlands. So it's like a two-hour distance. So usually, aero revenue is not, and that's the high revenue we have, is no longer being impacted by the revenue cutoff. Because we're using the warehouse close to the end customer and not shipping from Dole to every end customer in the world. So that's minimizing the cutoff. But that's what the one-time payment will impact. So if you two have that change from mapping to SMP, in the shipping month, let's say, like in that trail, next quarter, we don't see that same robotic thing. So we will really see if something gets stuck or if we don't, or if we're not able to ship what was expected. Someone's looking angry at us. I'm not sure if this one is booked or not. We will come. Okay. So what was the expectation for Joffrey today? Do you know Joffrey? Do you understand all the programmatic implications? I was talking with Joffrey about all this thing, like the changes, the revenue cutoff, the statistical changes we did, how is that impacting and how we can improve the process of catching the cutoff, of catching the potential delays, and what's impacting the whole setup. And also, like, starting with you, but then also, again, talking with the other location, saying, okay, how they do it, how they change the focus with the B-terms, which is a nice one. I hope that's sustainable. If we keep that revenue cutoff approach, because it's really based on shipping, on details, I don't know how much effort it's going to take to look at all that. Yeah, and that's something we need to talk about, like how we can simplify that one for him to see what was really shipped and what was not shipped for the revenue. But I think that the whole discussion should go in a little bit different direction, but that's a helpful one, and we really need to know how to summarize that one so we can catch that one. But originally, it requires both, like, the revenue cutoff, the revenue realization, the impact of the change, and how we, in future, can make sure we know what was shipped and what to be realized with. I can ship on this. I have the degree. I see that. Not so much. Yeah. So don't worry, we need to deliver it on time. No, but that will be, like, maybe the cutoff, the financial adjustment due to the system change that covers some of the issues. But, yeah, that's critical. And it's more critical that our customers won't be also getting upset about us delivering late. I don't know. As soon as I have a delivery note, it's packed in the same day and shipped. As soon as we have a callback or it's due to be shipped, it's shipped in the same year. But if it takes you a couple of weeks to get a delivery note? I have no advance of a delivery note. I don't know if we are missing delivery notes, not creating. It's more of an issue with the system or some parameters that we don't understand very well why it doesn't create it automatically. That's very, very, yeah, I don't know. But today, we are in line with all the delivery notes we have. We are shipped in a short time, as it would be. But, yeah. Sure, we lost, I would say, we lost one day with the move between BNK and Formatix. One day, not always. But in the bad way, we can use one day. Not yet. But we have the project. It works. We can move the parts from Formatix to SAP. It works. We can move them all the day. And, yeah. But the differences between Formatix and SAP, that in the past, all the time, we can have automatic delivery notes created. And now, in SAP, it's only three times per day. And only two days per week for clusters. And instead of CNK, all the time, we can create shipments to Hong Kong or to US. But you didn't want, I mean, it makes sense to consolidate them. So, you think, can I prepare it? It's just... Today, we have, for example... I can explain a little bit. On Monday, we have the delivery notes created for shipment to US. They are going to be shipped on the Wednesday. But between Monday and Wednesday, no more delivery notes created. Even if we have parts available, it will be created only for the second one. Because you're consolidating the shipment. Yeah. No, because IT in SAP consolidates only on one day, authorizes only one day to create delivery notes. Even if the day after, we have...