About
Sébastien Chevassus, industrial performance consultant
I am an engineer in automation and industrial computing. I have held every function of a production site, from maintenance engineer to plant director. I created Metiva to put that experience at the service of industrial SMEs and mid-sized companies that need it, without being able to have it permanently.
Background
A career built on the shop floor
I spent seventeen years in an international industrial group, on a mid-sized production site. I joined as a maintenance engineer, after an engineering internship, then took on wider and wider responsibilities: maintenance manager, technical manager (maintenance, new works, methods, EHS and ICPE compliance), then plant and supply chain director, with 160 employees, 4 sites and an ICPE site subject to authorisation. I led investment projects (capex) worth several million euros, as well as the site's capex management.
I have worked in maintenance, production, methods, logistics, purchasing, EHS, quality and team management. I know what a line stopped on a Friday evening, a stock that overflows or an audit that approaches feels like. I speak the language of the shop floor as well as that of management.
- Maintenance engineerafter an engineering internship in maintenance: preventive and corrective maintenance on production equipment
- Maintenance managermanaging the team, preventive and corrective maintenance, new works
- Technical managermaintenance, new works, methods, industrial investments, EHS and ICPE management: prevention plans, audits, bringing compliance up to standard; then extension to a second site
- Plant and supply chain director160 employees, 4 sites, an ICPE site subject to authorisation: production, supply chain (purchasing, procurement, order administration, shipping, logistics), maintenance, EHS, quality; transformation projects and continuous improvement
Skills
- Industrial site and supply chain management
- Production, lean and operational excellence
- Maintenance and new works
- Capex: investment projects worth several million euros and capex management of a site
- EHS and ICPE sites
- Methods, quality and problem solving
- Management, change management, interim management
- Management tools: ERP, CMMS, dashboards, automation of administrative tasks
Education, certifications and languages
- Engineering degree in automation and industrial computing, Polytech Savoie
- DUT in electrical engineering and industrial computing (GEII), IUT du Creusot
- Six Sigma Green Belt
- ADKAR change management (Prosci)
- Lean Manufacturing: 5S, SMED, VSM, Kaizen, TPM; first-line management and leadership
- French (native) and English (fluent)
Why Metiva
What I want to bring
Industrial SMEs and mid-sized companies rarely have the means to employ an experienced plant director or supply chain director full time. Yet they need one at certain moments: a turnaround, growth, a departure, a project.
I founded Metiva to meet that need: one point of contact, who has run a plant, who comes to the shop floor and who carries out the assignment personally. No more presentations: actions that change the daily work of your teams, and results that last.
I am based in Poligny, in the Jura (France). I work first in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, then across France and in Switzerland, in French or in English. To see how I work, read my approach or my offers.
A plant cannot be run with slides.
You have to understand the flows, listen to the teams, work within the constraints of production, safety and budget, then find the solution that really works, in that workshop, with those people.
The story of the name
Why Metiva?
The ancient Greeks distinguished several forms of intelligence. There was sophia, the theoretical knowledge of philosophers. And there was mētis: practical, cunning, inventive intelligence. It is that of the craftsman who finds the right gesture, of the sailor who reads the wind, of the strategist who turns a constraint into an advantage.
In mythology, Mētis is a goddess of wisdom, Zeus's first wife and the mother of Athena. Her emblematic hero is Odysseus, the "man of many wiles". Odysseus does not win by force, but through his intelligence of situations: he observes, understands, adapts and finds the solution nobody had seen.
So mētis is the intelligence that works in the field, facing reality, when theoretical plans are not enough. It is exactly what I practised in plants, from maintenance to site management.
The suffix "-va" adds movement: mētis on the move, moving forward, taking action. Metiva is the intelligence of the field set in motion.
That is the promise I make to every company I support: an experienced eye, practical solutions, and results that last.
Let's talk about your plant
A first 30-minute conversation is enough to know whether I can help, and how.
Contact me