A Day in the Life of an EMS Program Manager

A Program Manager (PM) arrives at work in an Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) company at 8:15 am. Before he even gets his coat off, he takes a phone call from an angry customer (12 hours difference across the globe) whose new assemblies do not work. After calming her down and convincing her to let him fix the problem, PM calls an emergency meeting with the staffs of Production, Engineering and Quality Control to go over the process and determine what went wrong. Next, he figures with Production Planner out how to adjust the production schedule so that he can refill the order as soon possible, but still meet his other obligations on time. He also figures out how much the reproduction will cost.

Later that morning, he meets with the Program Director to review the sales plan for the next quarter.

For lunch, he meets with another customer who needs to change out semiconductors on an existing order. During the conversation, he is asked to explain if and how the change will affect delivery and pricing. Upon returning from lunch, he examines his purchase orders and existing inventory of semiconductors to determine what he will need in order to fulfill the customer's requested change.

Next, he sits down with the heads of the Production Department and Quality Control to resolve a dispute as to why a certain assembly has not been released for shipment. PM's last task before he leaves is to call back across the globe the angry customer from the morning and give her a status report on her replacement order. Usually, a PM's work for the day end about 9:00pm.

What was the most important skills an EMS Program Manager need to make it through the day? Is it customer service skills, to help save a business relationship? Or is it technical expertise, needed to determine why the assemblies had failed? Or is it the ability to juggle the production schedules and still meet company obligations? Or is it financial aptitude to estimate the impact of changing semiconductors? How about managerial skills, which helped the manager take charge and direct teams? Don't forget problem solving skills, which are needed to find solutions to numerous challenges.

The answer is obvious. All of these skills need to be woven together in the course of the day as an EMS Program Manager. Program management is based on the concept of providing centralized management authority over all business and technical aspects of a project. By definition, the EMS Program Manager is multi-functional.

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