31 WEEKS TO LAUNCH

The Start of Something Big

“I can do this,” Laney said to herself as she pushed through the revolving doors and went in, leaving the mild fall temperatures outside for the air-conditioned lobby.

In front of her was the luxurious reception of Wistful Beauty’s Manhattan head office. Even after three years with the company, this was her first time here, and the place was a bit intimidating. The lobby’s sleek, stylish decor made her feel slightly underdressed, and she was glad she’d at least remembered to change out of her safety boots before leaving the factory. 

Her first position was as a Quality Engineer at the factory in New Jersey. Quality was essential, of course, but was very far from the Marketing and Sales teams at the head office. Her days were filled with testing the packaging components that came into the factory to make sure that they matched the specifications. Were the cartons decorated with the right artwork? Did the plastic bottles have any deformations? After the products were filled, the questions were different. Were the bottles filled to the right weight? Were the tubes sealed properly? To her, in her Quality lab, the world of Wistful Beauty was confined to the walls of the factory. The goings-on at the head office were a mystery to her and a far stretch from her daily life and preoccupations.

She had always been a hard worker and eager to learn. After graduating from college, she jumped straight into her career, starting on the production floor and gradually working her way up to a management position. She was quickly promoted to lead the team. It was rewarding–fun even. Her team was great and she had plenty of ideas about what they could do next. Then, one day, the factory manager, Hector Lopez, invited her into his office with an offer for a promotion she had never seen coming.

“We think you have a bright future here, Laney,” Hector told her. “You have shown you can lead, you’ve done great work and you’re innovative. Quality is important, but it’s time for you to take the next step in your development, see the world of Wistful beyond the factory walls and become a Director. We’d like you to become our next Manufacturing Planning Director.”

She’d have to learn on the job, he explained as he sipped his coffee. Her predecessor had left the company suddenly, but Hector seemed completely confident that she was up for the task. The team was composed of either young, inexperienced staff not ready for promotion or solid, longtime planners, but none of them were cut out for management. “You, on the other hand, show real potential,” said Hector, smiling.

At Wistful, the Manufacturing Planning team was responsible for preparing all of the operational plans that the factory needed, starting with the monthly production plan that laid out what the factory had to make each month. The business unit in New York would send them sales forecasts, and her team would look at the production department’s capacity and decide what the factory would produce each month to be sure that Wistful could meet its sales targets.

That seemed simple enough, but Laney quickly learned that there were other constraints to consider. Even if the production lines had enough capacity, there had to be enough operators to run them all. There were also processing vessels to consider, since making beauty products was a two-step process. First, they had to make the bulk in large mixing vats, then the bulk mixtures would be used to fill bottles, tubes, or jars on filling lines. Keeping track of what could be batched or filled on what equipment was a real puzzle. Her Production Planner somehow kept track of all that in her head, for hundreds of products and two dozen filling lines.

There was more. It turned out that the biggest bottleneck for the factory was often Wistful’s suppliers, the companies that provided the hundreds of chemicals, jars, bottles, caps, labels, tubes, and shipping boxes that the factory needed for production. The team called this ‘material supply.’ To make a single finished product, all of those elements had to arrive on time. If there was so much as one missing, then the product could not be made. It was only her second week on the job, there was plenty more to learn, she thought to herself with a grim smile.

But none of those responsibilities were why Laney was at the head office this morning. “Laney Jones, Manufacturing Planning Director,” she announced to the receptionist, “here to see Carole Burr.”  The General Manager of Haircare, Carole Burr, had asked her to come in for an important meeting. Laney had never met Carole, so today continued to be a day of firsts.

She was surprised to see that Hector was already there when she entered the conference room. This is indeed important, thought Laney. In her short time on the job, she had already figured out that the less Hector had to deal with the business side of things, the happier he was. For him to have left the factory and made the trip up to Manhattan, there had to have been a good reason. In addition to Carole and Hector, seated around the table were the Marketing VP, Jasmine Aziz, the CFO, Cate Washington and the Sales VP, George Lee.

Hector had saved Laney a seat, which she took as Carole got right down to business. “Hi everyone. I believe Wistful has gotten too complacent in hair care. It’s been far too long since we’ve had a major product launch. This has to change. We must be bold, we must be innovative. Wistful should have products that no one else can match and do things that no other company can do. Today, I’m happy to announce that R&D has met that challenge!” And with that she put a box on the table with 24 little white tubes.

“Team, inside these tubes is a breakthrough technology from R&D. It’s a gel that reacts to sunlight and changes the color of one’s hair. I’m not talking about just lightening it but changing its color entirely! It’s really incredible. It lasts for about three washes, so it’s not a permanent hair dye, but we think this could be the hottest product of the season. So far, we’ve developed 24 different colors and we’re calling the product line ‘Rainbow Sun!”

Everyone was stunned. This was truly remarkable. Laney and the others reached out to pick up a tube and stare at it. Each had a piece of white tape glued to it with a name. One read ‘electric blue,’ another read ‘perilous pink.’

Carole continued, “Each of you are going to work together to make Rainbow Sun a success. George, you’ll need to get the retail accounts ready, very quietly of course. We don’t want word getting out about this. Cate, you’ll figure out how much money this is going to make us. Jasmine, we’ll need a full marketing plan, with target market, advertising approach, social media strategy …. everything. And of course a packaging design. Feel free to break the mold and come up with something out-of-the-box. This will be your chance to shine! I’m so convinced that Rainbow Sun will change the haircare universe that I will be working on selling it worldwide. It’s always summer somewhere!  This will finally make Wistful a global player.”

George and Jasmine looked at each other with nervous excitement. Cate continued to stare impassively at her tube. It read ‘ferocious violet.’

“And lastly, Hector and Laney, we’re counting on the factory to ensure product delivery. If Rainbow Sun is going to change the world of haircare, we need this on the shelves in the stores by the end of April. I realize that we are already too far behind to imagine a spring break release, but it has to be available by the same time vacationers start buying their sunscreen and heading to the beach in different parts of the country.

Carole banged her hand on the table and beamed. “This is going to be the launch of the century!”