Operations Lead - Potbelly Centralized Catering Kitchen
Project lead for Chicago-based Potbelly Sandwich Works (300-stores) to create, construct and open a centralized catering kitchen in Chicago, servicing 23 store trade areas. Gray Cat was the overall project lead and led the operations, marketing, design, analysis and IT teams to get the project completed.
Working with the Senior Management team at Potbelly, Gray Cat was assigned a dotted-line reporting team within the Potbelly organization to manage all of the steps to developing and constructing a centralized catering kitchen. Included in the dotted-line report team were representatives of:
- Operations
- Marketing
- Facilities
- IT
- Accounting
- Financial Analysis
- Human Resources
- Training
Gray Cat developed a 23-page, 600-task project plan incorporating all departmental co-dependencies and task time lines. Utilizing a weekly reporting structure, the team methodically worked its way through their respective tasks while identifying conflicting issues and resource allocation.
Each milestone was recorded and the project plan was developed to ensure an on-time, on-budget accomplishment.
Gray Cat was the functional overall project lead for the centralized catering kitchen managing both the process administration but also working with each departmental head to identify and assist in executing their respective content and deliverables. Over the course of the project a series of meetings were administered by Gray Cat as well as quarterly report-outs to the senior team on progress to date.
The centralized catering kitchen successfully opened in downtown Chicago.
"John is an 'A' player. He brings a great deal of industry knowledge and experience to the equation and utilizes critical thinking and planning skills to organize and unify a team. He understands the importance of nuance in the effect of a project’s outcome and ensures the team is thinking robustly in each process and function. I hope to have the opportunity to work with John in the future and would recommend him highly to anyone looking to kick-start a stalled process, project or program that needs to be taken to the next level in your organization."
