Meet Lisa Thornberry — Technical Sales and Advanced Scheduling and Planning (ASP) Coordinator

Lisa Thornberry credits her ability to adapt to her surroundings quickly and build lasting relationships for her longevity and success with ALTEX. Thornberry has spent the last 19 years with ALTEX in one capacity or another and for the last several years has served as their Technical Sales and Advanced Scheduling and Planning (ASP) Coordinator.
“We moved around a lot when I was a kid. I went to four different high schools. But I learned to adjust quickly and make new friends wherever I went. I think that helped me become really tuned in to someone else’s needs and what was important to them — basics that I use in my customer service role here at ALTEX every day,” said Thornberry.
As the sales and ASP coordinator Thornberry strives to create an efficient, timely and streamlined manufacturing environment for ALTEX by managing and forecasting the materials that will be needed for the upcoming production of wire and cable harnesses that will ultimately be sent on to a customer to include in their end-product manufacturing. She has spent many years building strong satisfaction-based relationships with her customers, a foundation that ALTEX is built upon. By knowing her clients and their needs Thornberry can begin to take all of the purchase order information from her clients and formulate a future production plan that will meet the planned delivery date of the product that their customers have requested.
“It’s not an exact science,” says Thornberry. “It is more like a puzzle that you have to figure out. I love the investigative side of production planning, taking all of the customer provided information, including their material needs and deadlines, and then finding a solution that makes all of the puzzle pieces fit to create an ongoing sustainable and level production plan for ALTEX.”
Thornberry not only stays in constant communication with the production staff at ALTEX’s main facility in Indiana, but shares information daily with the company’s Nogales, Mexico site as well. This facility supplies ALTEX’s Supplier Owned Managed Inventory (SOMI). Customer specific assemblies are inventoried until it is needed and pulled for production. Maintaining that inventory at a steady level is crucial to planning/production management on a day-to-day basis.
“We don’t manage SOMI ‘finished goods inventory’ at the Nogales site. All of the parts ship directly to the customers’ warehouse and then they pull product as needed. Keeping inventory level so that there aren’t delays in getting our customers what they need can be tricky,” Thornberry shared. “We keep an eye on cyclical trends and try to plan as much as we can for spike’s or trends in product usage.”
Thornberry manages between 15 and 20 customer accounts usually communicating with them via phone or most likely email — some of them daily. As technology evolves many of her customers update and/or change software often and that can cause momentary communication and order glitches. But, trouble-shooting those production challenges is something Thornberry loves to tackle.
“Recently, I had a customer that required a 30 percent increase in their weekly delivery. Since their particular assemblies require a three-step process that typically takes two to three weeks to produce — ramping up production can be a challenge. But there is always a way to figure it out and get the customer what they need,” Thornberry said. “That is our number one priority.”
Thornberry shares that if she could use just two words to describe her job it would be “ever changing” and that is something she enjoys. Her customers appreciate her ability to adapt as well. She will travel to a northern Indiana customer’s facility soon to meet a new buyer liaison to get their close-working relationship off on the right foot and share expectations and knowledge.
“I always look forward to meeting a new face. But, after 19 years many of our loyal and happy customers have remained the same. They are old friends and my job is to create a plan that keeps both the old and the new clients happy,” laughed Thornberry. “And, I love doing it.”
Connect with Lisa on LinkedIn