🔍 This article was co-created with Efren Franco USEONG Mexico, a general manager with more than 10 years of experience in the refrigeration manufacturing industry.
🎧 Keru Podcast is a series of conversations (in Spanish) with industrial leaders from Latin America about management, technology and decision-making in complex environments.
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Problem / challenge: Planning under structural tension in industrial operations
In industrial plants where external variables defy any static model, traditional planning falls short. The challenge is no longer just scheduling orders, but designing a decision-making structure that balances production, inventory, capacity and operational risk.
In this conversation with Efren Franco USEONG Mexico, general manager of a refrigeration manufacturing plant, we dig into a key technical dilemma: how do you establish industrial operations planning that connects the three time horizons (short, medium and long term) without falling into overstock, technical stoppages or obsolescence?
“Planning is not simply projecting. It’s assuming that everything you project can change, and still sustaining the operation without stopping the machine.” – Efren Franco USEONG Mexico
USEONG produces control devices for home appliances for major brands. . Its operation faces demand fluctuations, climate cycles, commercial seasonality, dependence on imported components and environmental regulations. All of this demands a robust, iterative and dynamic planning system.
The operating environment of Efren Franco USEONG Mexico is shaped by structural constraints typical of Latin America: long lead times due to customs, variability in raw material availability, and dependence on critical suppliers. In this context, planning becomes a strategic competency, not a tactical function.
Reflections on the problem: Time as a critical industrial resource
Efren Franco USEONG Mexico does not talk about planning as an administrative act, but as a systems engineering process. Planning —in his approach— does not start with the sales order, but with a deep understanding of the internal timeframes of the production system. He identifies three logics that coexist simultaneously:
- Short term: tactical action, fine-tuning, damage control.
- Medium term: operational buffers, coordination between areas, alignment with logistics.
- Long term: analysis of structural risks, regulatory compliance and future profitability.
“Each planning horizon needs a different logic. In the short term, you operate with urgency. In the medium term, with buffers. In the long term, with a risk perspective.” – Efren Franco USEONG Mexico
In this approach, planning is not a straight line, but a network of continuous feedback. It is an interdependent system where every decision must be anchored to the right horizon. This idea resonates directly with frameworks such as Wallace & Stahl’s Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) and Womack & Jones’s Lean Manufacturing philosophy.
Applying this logic in practice leads Efren to design plans that adjust to weekly cycles, while monitoring deviations over quarterly horizons and projecting technical investments on an annual basis. In his model, KPIs are not read by area, but by time horizon: reaction, stability and anticipation indicators.
This reading of time as a critical resource also relates to the concept of organizational responsiveness. Efren argues that a resilient production system is not the one that produces the most, but the one that can anticipate what to produce, how and when, with the least possible risk.
“If you plan the medium term poorly, the short term blows up in your face. And if you ignore the long term, a regulatory, geopolitical or innovation change leaves you out of the game.”
In the refrigeration manufacturing industry —where components are technical, testing is rigorous and errors are costly— this way of thinking about planning is not a theoretical option. It is an operational necessity that can sustain or bring down business continuity.
🎧 Keru Podcast is a product created by Globalita.io, where we explore with its protagonists how critical decisions are made in Latin American industry.
Solutions and applications within the company
The proposal of Efren Franco USEONG Mexico is not limited to abstract ideas. Each concept is anchored in real practices that allow his team to plan, anticipate and execute under highly demanding industrial conditions. In this second part, we detail how those solutions translate into operating mechanisms and theoretical reference frameworks.
📅 a) Horizon-based planning with dynamic buffer logic
Efren Franco USEONG Mexico structures his planning system in three overlapping time levels, adapting the principles of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) to a comprehensive plant-wide logic:
- Short term (1–26 weeks): reactive shop-floor scheduling, adjusted in real time based on inventory receipts, expected deliveries and machine load levels.
- Medium term (27–52 weeks): safety buffers calibrated by criticality, turnover and lead time. They are updated weekly with supply and production inputs.
- Long term (1–3 years): strategic scenarios with assessments of regulatory risk, obsolescence trends or regulatory, geopolitical or innovation changes..
The key is not in the plan, but in the dynamic interface between horizons. Buffers are neither rigid nor proportional, but adaptive. This logic is also supported by S&OP (Sales & Operations Planning), allowing management to align demand and capacity with realistic tactical decisions.
“My planning starts with three layers: short, medium and long. Each one has a different logic and different buffers.”
— Efren Franco USEONG Mexico
🧮 b) Scenario simulation and financial-operational planning
Every month, the team led by Efren Franco USEONG Mexico carries out a scenario simulation exercise to model possible impacts. It is a dynamic inspired by the “What-If Analysis” approach used in military planning, now applied to industrial manufacturing.
Modeled variables:
- Demand projection differentiated by channel (retail vs. institutional)
- Customs restrictions and exchange rate on key purchases
- Changes in temperature or climate cycles that alter the use of refrigeration systems
- Extended delivery times due to transport or logistics saturation
Each scenario comes with an analysis of the cost of response (time, resources, money), feeding a financial model that estimates the cost of inaction. This allows USEONG to make proactive decisions before deviations turn into bottlenecks.
“It’s not just about seeing what could happen. It’s knowing how much it would cost if it happens. And how much time we have to respond.”
— Efren Franco USEONG Mexico
🔁 c) Batch size adjustment with a Lean, DDMRP and inventory turnover approach
A key practice for Efren Franco USEONG Mexico has been challenging the traditional size of production batches. Instead of optimizing for the machine’s technical efficiency, priority is given to inventory turnover, reorder frequency and financial impact.
Combined methodologies:
- Lean Manufacturing: reducing overproduction waste.
- EOQ (Economic Order Quantity): adjusted to criticality and lead time.
- DDMRP (Demand Driven MRP): dynamic buffers based on volatility.
Result: the company managed to reduce its slow-moving inventory by 40% and improve cash flow without compromising delivery times.
“The best batch is not the most efficient one, but the one that lets you reorder on time without filling up with dead stock.”
— Efren Franco USEONG Mexico
📋 d) Implementing decision matrices for regulatory compliance
Given the technical nature of refrigeration products and the demands of regulatory compliance, Efren Franco USEONG Mexico developed a regulatory impact matrix that classifies products and processes according to their criticality.
Based on the principles of:
- ISO 9001:2015 – Risk-Based Thinking
- FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis)
The matrix crosses three variables:
- Probability of regulatory failure
- Severity of the operational impact
- Time required to remedy deviations
Thus, high-criticality products are planned with special buffers and reinforced controls. This allows the plant to maintain operational continuity even in the face of unscheduled audits or regulatory changes.
“If a part can block an audit, that part is planned with a different logic.”
— Efren Franco USEONG Mexico
👥 e) Building a planning culture at every level
Robust planning cannot depend on the manager alone. That is why Efren Franco USEONG Mexico leads a continuous training process in a culture of anticipation, planning and root-cause analysis. Each area understands its horizon and acts accordingly:
- Production: focus on compliance and flexibility in the short term
- Procurement: dynamic buffers and lead time control in the medium term
- Management: strategic decisions and compliance in the long term
In addition, every quarter a cross-review of deviations is carried out, with the participation of all operational, managerial and technical staff. This builds systemic awareness and strengthens autonomy in decision-making.
“It’s no use if only the manager knows how to plan. The team has to live the horizon logic and understand the risks of each operation as part of their day-to-day.” — Efren Franco USEONG Mexico
📍 Keru is a podcast created by Globalita.io, where we explore how critical decisions are made in Latin American industry.
📲 Follow us on LinkedIn: Globalita and Keru Podcast
Final reflection and an invitation to think further
The interview with Efren Franco USEONG Mexico leaves a cross-cutting lesson: industrial planning is not a technique, it is a stance in the face of chaos. In times of structural uncertainty, the horizon is no longer a straight line, but a living matrix of connected decisions.
The plant manager is not an executor of plans. He is a designer of resilience. His role combines financial thinking, operational sensitivity and technical mastery. Planning today means navigating complexity without losing focus or speed.
As Nassim Taleb argues in Antifragile (2012), companies should not only withstand change, but grow stronger from it. That is the logic behind the model of Efren Franco USEONG Mexico: building an organization that not only tolerates deviation, but transforms it into operational learning.
“There is no perfect planning. But there are cultures where everyone knows when to anticipate and when to adjust.”
— Efren Franco USEONG Mexico
🔁 Keru is a podcast created by Globalita.io, where we talk with those who lead Latin American industry from the inside.
Is your production system trained to think in three timeframes at once: react, stabilize and anticipate?
Efrén Franco is an industrial engineer with more than a decade of experience leading operations in regulated, highly export-oriented manufacturing environments. He was General Manager of USEONG DE MÉXICO S.A. de C.V., a plant located in Santa Rosa de Jáuregui (Querétaro), specialized in assembling water valves for home appliances under the IMMEX program. In that role, he led the plant's end-to-end operation, including production, quality, logistics, foreign trade, human resources, accounting, industrial maintenance and ISO 9001 compliance. His approach combined strategic leadership with rigorous, data-driven execution, financial efficiency and continuous improvement. He coordinated key performance indicators (KPI), operating budgets and the alignment of the local business plan with the global strategy, and ensured compliance with Annexes 24 and 30 of the IMMEX program.
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