I began at Warwick in November 1989 as an operator in the Granulation department. Within 18 months I had been promoted to shift supervisor, which coincided with a period of rapid growth in the early nineties. My key role at this point was commissioning our newly built multi million pound granulation plants..
Over the years I have been offered opportunities to self develop and increase my broader skill and knowledge base. I trained as a Six Sigma DMAIC Black Belt and was instrumental in the establishment of the site's National Vocational Qualification program. A big turning point in my career was being sent to St Louis to attend a 'train the trainer' course. The skills I developed as a result were to play a major part in my future career at Warwick.
In 2008 I was given the role of Process Improvement Coordinator. The areas of my responsibility are now improving our site processes, being the Site NVQ coordinator and I play a major role in the training and development of staff.
As the company strives for continuous improvement I was asked to be involved in an initiative called Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) This involved training a group of employees in the methodologies which foster a close working relationship between maintenance and manufacturing staff. By developing their knowledge of the plant equipment and its functions, staff are better able to look after the equipment and reduce equipment failures. The teams are empowered to improve the operability and establish best practices which maximise the capabilities of the production facilities. In the pilot zone for TPM, we were able to demonstrate a 100% increase in capacity and reduce maintenance costs significantly. The success was then used for justification to continue rolling the program out to other areas of the site.
