When a leadership gap threatens daily execution, you don’t need a recruiter. You need someone who can walk onto the floor and build the operating rhythm your team is missing.
Most interim placements are about filling a seat – keeping things running until the permanent hire arrives. The person manages the status quo. When they leave, nothing has changed.
Duggan takes a fundamentally different approach. We embed experienced operations leaders who don’t just manage daily execution – they install the management framework your team has been missing. A tiered meeting cadence. Leader Standard Work. Structured problem resolution. A 24-hour accountability loop that makes issues visible and closable.
The result is an operation that runs better after our person leaves than it did before they arrived. We build capability, not dependency.
“Instead of adding more management pressure, the engagement created a repeatable system for communication, accountability, and decision-making. Daily issues became visible in the right forum, leaders were coached in role clarity and follow-through, and action items were framed to be completed within one business day rather than drifting into unresolved backlog.”
“Leadership confidence and client trust built quickly. Within the first two weeks, client feedback was described as glowing, with direct praise for the pace, drive, and quality of the work. A daily operating rhythm was established, and management capability was being built – not rented.”
— Results from Duggan’s Embedded Director of Operations engagement Growing manufacturer, discrete production environment
A growing manufacturer had strong people and clear ambitions, but lacked the management framework needed to translate goals into daily execution. Duggan embedded an interim Director of Operations who installed a three-tier meeting cadence, built Leader Standard Work across production and support roles, and established a 24-hour accountability loop. Within two weeks, client trust was established. Within the first month, reactive escalation was replaced by a defined daily operating rhythm.
Duggan Associates places experienced operations leaders into interim and embedded roles across manufacturing, production, and industrial environments. The process is straightforward – and deliberately fast.
You tell us what you need – the role, the timeline, the operational context. We ask about the environment: product mix, team size, production challenges, and what success looks like in the first 90 days.
We match an experienced operations leader from our network to your specific situation. These are people who have managed plants, run production lines, and led operational turnarounds across manufacturing, defence, and industrial sectors. Typical mobilisation is two to four weeks.
Your embedded Operator steps into the business, establishes structure, and begins delivering immediately. They install a daily operating rhythm, define Leader Standard Work for key roles, coach frontline leaders, and build the management framework that converts what your team needs to do into a workable system for how.
Roles we fill:
“The value was in providing a framework and structure to what the client already had in place — rather than simply maintaining the status quo. This is what an Embedded Director of Operations should do: not merely run the floor, but provide the structure and operating rhythm that helps a business get out of its own way.”
We place experienced operations leaders into roles including Interim Plant Manager, Interim Production Manager, Interim VP Operations, Interim Director of Manufacturing, and Embedded Director of Operations. Every placement is someone with a manufacturing and industrial background – not a generalist from a staffing agency.
Typical mobilisation is two to four weeks from initial conversation. In urgent situations, we can often move faster depending on availability and the match to your operational context.
A recruiter finds candidates. We deploy Operators. The people we place have run plants, led production teams, and built management systems across industrial environments. More importantly, they install structure – Leader Standard Work, tiered meeting cadences, accountability loops – that outlasts the engagement. You get capability transfer, not just coverage.
Everything your embedded operator installs stays with your team. Training plans, standard work templates, meeting structures, and metric definitions are all designed for your people to own and sustain. Our success metric is that you’re stronger after we leave – not dependent on us staying.
Yes — and it often does naturally. An embedded operator has deep visibility into your operation and can identify opportunities for flow design, facility layout, or value stream redesign that go beyond daily management. If the opportunity warrants it, Duggan has the methodology, the consultants, and four published books of codified methods to follow through. But there’s never pressure to expand – the interim engagement stands on its own.
Engagements are priced on a day-rate basis. Only days used and expenses are invoiced – you’re not locked into a contract or committed to a fixed number of days. If you don’t think we’re delivering value, you can stop. We believe we must earn our place by accomplishing results.
