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In our NORMAPeople series, employees around the world talk about their day-to-day work, how they came to the company and what they appreciate most about their jobs.
Liliana Castillo, Functional Rollout Manager Purchasing at the site in Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA, helps NORMA Group globally to ensure that everyone in the purchasing department is speaking the same language. In this interview, she talks about the challenges she faces and what impresses her most.
Liliana, could you describe the progress of your career at NORMA Group so far?
I started working for NORMA Group in 2015, so I’ve been with the company for eight years now. I come from Queretaro City, a place close to Mexico City. After I submitted my application to NORMA Group, I received an invitation for an interview in Juarez, which is in the north of Mexico. I traveled there by airplane and only a week after that I moved there.
The opportunity to join the USA team came two years later. So I moved to Auburn Hills and began supporting the manufacturing and purchasing departments there. After another two years, I moved back to Mexico. Not to Juarez, but to Tijuana. That was a great experience because I was able to see a new plant being built and I got to be a part of it. At that point, I had become the Regional Fasten Leader for all sites in the United States and Mexico.
That was when my current supervisor approached me and asked me if I would be interested in joining the Business Process Management (BPM) team. She told me about the ambitious NEMO D365 project, which aims to standardize ERP processes globally across all NORMA Group sites.
Because I had been working in purchasing for many years and had worked at a number of different sites, I was very much aware that standardization would help NORMA Group to move forward. I happily accepted the offer and started working on a global level in 2019. I moved back to the US and now live in El Paso, Texas.
An impressive journey!
Definitely! I moved nine times in six years. Not always from country to country, but from one rental house to the next. I learned a lot during this time, both professionally and privately.
“You really have to know how to make yourself independent of things and people.”
What does your job involve?
In my position, I support all sites that are currently in the implementation phase of D365. For the most part, my job is to make sure that the current on-site purchasing process is integrated into D365. This means that I have to understand the current process and integrate it into the new system.
In a nutshell, my main task is to make sure that all of the implementations fully comply with NORMA Group’s global standards from a purchasing process perspective.
That sounds like a big challenge.
Yes, we have many different locations and different systems at NORMA Group. D365 was also a new system for me at the beginning.
“I had to learn a lot to become an expert at it. Obviously, you can’t teach something that you don’t fully understand yourself.”
For me, the key to a smooth transition was to combine my knowledge from the purchasing department with my newly acquired D365 knowledge.
D365 is a very important global project. We want to speak the same language and report in the identical way through standardization, so that communication between sites is improved. Everyone speaks the same language – and that language is D365.
Is the implementation carried out on-site or remotely?
When I joined the global team in 2019, we very quickly were confronted with some challenges due to the Corona pandemic and associated travel restrictions. Especially in the beginning, most implementations had to be done remotely.
Once the pandemic ended, I was also able to provide support on site, including a number of different sites in the USA, Mexico and Brazil. In the EMEA region, I have been on site in Poland, Croissy Beaubourg, France, and Italy. And in the APAC region, I mainly worked remotely with the locations in Australia, Malaysia, China and India.
Getting to know so many different people and cultures is fantastic – I really love my job. But there are also quite a few challenges. Starting with the language: Not everyone speaks English – but with translation programs and mutual understanding, things have worked out pretty well.
Another challenge has been the uncertainty of the users. Just think about it for a moment: We come along and tell the people who have been working with the previous system, in some cases for many years, that they now have to learn and perform their daily activities in a new ERP system.
“An important part of my job is to ease their concerns, to support them and to guide them through the process.”
I am a huge D365 and purchasing enthusiast, so I share my passion with all the users. And I am very happy to report that up to now we have always been able to overcome all concerns together.
What has impressed you the most in recent years?
The people. They give us their time and continue to do their daily tasks while also carrying out the implementation at the same time. They are always willing to learn and to share their knowledge. That’s amazing. Without the people on site, without their commitment and their dedication, the implementation of D365 would not be possible.
And when you’re not at work, what do you like to do in your spare time?
I love animals, I have two dogs, Camila and Benito. Camila is a Great Pyrenees mountain dog and Benito is a Labrador mix. He is a street dog, I rescued him in Tijuana. I love spending time with them.
I also like music. When I have the opportunity, I like to go out with my husband and listen to rock music.
What are your goals for the future?
My immediate professional goal is to successfully introduce Purchasing D365 at all NORMA Group sites. I also want to learn more about the processes in the field and I can’t wait to work with and guide the next rollout teams.
Once this project has been completed, I would like to keep supporting the BPM organization taking advantage of everything I’ve learned from all regions and a huge number of employees and cross functional teams. BPM is a relatively new area and I am convinced that a lot will happen there – I want to be a part of it.
On the personal field, I would like to do more for animals and open a shelter for street dogs. I really want to help those animals that don’t have anyone else to help them and inspire as many people as possible to help dogs who live on the streets.
