Germany
Chartered Engineer and Eur Ing (European Engineer) with senior-level experience leading engineering and capital project delivery within the chilled and frozen food manufacturing sector. I operate at a strategic level, providing technical leadership, project governance, and direction across greenfield developments and large-scale capital investment programmes, with a strong focus on safety, reliability, and long-term asset performance. I bring proven leadership experience in building, developing, and coaching multi-disciplinary engineering teams, alongside deep electrical and automation expertise. I am a strong advocate for health & safety, food safety, and continuous improvement, with a clear focus on manufacturing excellence and sustainable operational performance.
As Site Engineering Director for Bakkavor USA, I was responsible for leading the engineering, maintenance, and Health, Safety & Environment (HSE) functions at a food manufacturing facility employing ~400 people across 12 production lines producing fresh ready-to-eat foods in three categories. Accountable for the site capital investment plan, maintenance, and health and safety departments for site of 11 lines of fresh ‘ready to eat’ products, including Ready Meals, Hummus, and Burrito’s. A team of 20 people; $3M maintenance operating budget, circa $4M capex each year. $15M invested in 4 years. More than 500 assets including PLC-controlled automated systems and critical utilities. My role encompassed strategic planning, preventive and corrective maintenance, utilities management, and food safety compliance, while embedding continuous improvement, cost control, and life-cycle asset management practices. I directly line managed the HSE department, which included a Health & Safety Manager, Specialist, and Trainer, ensuring compliance, training, and cultural development across the site. I established performance standards, procedures, and KPIs, and ensured succession planning, training, and development to build a motivated, skilled team. In addition, I led supplier and contractor management, drove the implementation of innovative maintenance practices, and contributed to long-term business planning, ensuring engineering performance, safety, and capital investments aligned with business growth and regulatory requirements.
At McCain Foods GB, I served as Senior Electrical Engineer and Senior Electrical Duty Holder, with responsibilities spanning both major capital investment and regional electrical safety leadership. Working on a record capital investment project in excess of £170M. Team of 6x to rebuild the Scarborough Manufacturing Site for expansion, modernization, automation, best in class safety, food safety and hygienic sanitation design, to reduce the cost per kg (£/kg) of product and set McCain UK up for the future. Responsible for £35M of the overall budget and head of the electrical and automation discipline; HV to MCC; managed the regional automation strategy, electrical standards, and specification development for use across all sites in UK. In addition, I also had responsibility for a new build (Automatic Truck Loading (ATL) building) as part of the overall project scope with an additional budget value in excess of £15M, and responsibility for multiple site projects in conjunction with this project. Strategic planning and budget management for regional synergy.
As position as Plant Engineer, I had responsibility for the engineering function on site in its entirety. Capital investment ▪ Engineering and maintenance work ▪ Compliant to food safety and health and safety standards ▪ Legal compliance ▪ People leadership & development ▪ Labour and material budgets ▪ People performance. Key Achievements: ▪ Implementation of health and safety management including PUWER (150 assets), risk assessment, safe systems of work, lockout / tag-out, CDM management on project work, and behavioural safety training and auditing. ▪ Implementation of new engineering structure and 24/7 shift pattern from a 3 shift 5 day operation. ▪ Capital budget and project management. ▪ Asset Criticality and RCM/FMEA analysis for all assets completed with my team to optimise plant reliability. ▪ Lean manufacturing methodologies implemented including '6x meetings', PPS, Kaizen events, SQDC board metrics and dashboards, to improve up-time, design out problems, and fix re-occuring issues. ▪ ISO14001 / ISO50001 champion and supported the site achieving both standards. ▪ Supported the implementation of OHSAS 18001 standard. ▪ SAP maintenance super-user for regional SAP implementation in GB. My focus was in maintenance modules. ▪ Part of a small committee to create and implement the 'McCain Technician Apprenticeship Scheme' (as of 2017, >35 home grown apprentices trained and working in McCain maintenance teams.
Role Summary: Based at the Barton-upon Humber site reporting on a day-to-day basis to the Site Manager; reporting also on a frequent basis to the Manufacturing Director who represented engineering at executive level. Responsible for all engineering systems on site, plant maintenance, capital projects, and health & safety. Key Achievements: ▪ Effective maintenance management through exploitation of Computer Aided Maintenance Management Systems. ▪ Increased maintenance productivity and reduced plant downtime (circa 15% to 2%). ▪ Spares inventory control based on criticality assessment, component standardisation. ▪ Engineering stores implementation with bar-coding and maintenance management system integration. ▪ Plant efficiency improvement through “design out” projects eliminating recurring issues. ▪ Implemented Engineering KPI development & reporting. ▪ Developed and managed SCADA and Auto-Coding System Integration incorporating automated OEE performance measurement on productivity. ▪ Proactive health & safety management implementing system to ensure all maintenance functions were compliant, and audit ready at all times. Summary of Responsibilities: Budget control ▪ Engineering KPI’s ▪ Planned preventative maintenance ▪ Plant efficiency ▪ SCADA & Auto-coding administrator ▪ Continuous improvement projects ▪ NPD projects ▪ Team training & development ▪ Site utilities ▪ Health & safety ▪ IT champion
Site Summary: Bakkavor Barton site is a fully automated bakery producing 1.7 million garlic injected half baguettes per week across two lines. The site is a fully automated and controlled through SCADA controlling recipe, QA testing, and parameter adjustment with full remote interface. Role Summary: Based at the Barton Pasta site reporting to the Capital Projects Director. Responsible for procurement and installation of a new production line in our existing bakery factory to produce fresh baked, injected half baguettes using a fully automated process from raw materials to finished product. The project included a new building extension, new equipment and utilities for a new production line, with full site SCADA system integration using Allan Bradley PLC architecture over Ethernet. Capital investment value £4.3 Million. Key Achievements: ▪ Project delivered on time and within budget. ▪ Highly automated manufacturing plant with SCADA control system and real time data acquisition. ▪ Operational performance measurement in line with manufacturing excellence model. ▪ Business management systems integration between ERP, MRP & SCADA. ▪ Management of multi-disciplined commissioning team ▪ Manufacturing plant operating at design capacity within three months from start-up. Summary of Responsibilities: Project feasibility study ▪ Business capacity planning ▪ Capital investment proposals ▪ Health & Safety CDM ▪ Functional design specifications ▪ User requirement specifications ▪ Supplier selection ▪ Contract negotiation and appointments ▪ Supplier & contractor management and review ▪ Plant installation & commissioning ▪ Cost control & cash-flow ▪ Critical path analysis ▪ KPI reporting.
Role Summary: I was responsible for participating in and co-ordinating an internal cross- functional project team to deliver agreed objectives. This involved encouraging local ownership of equipment and to promote successful outcomes, selecting appropriate suppliers and contractors capable of delivering required objectives and standards at optimum cost, with effective management of risk, and managing suppliers and contractors to achieve and demonstrate the required performance within agreed timescales. The role also included identifying efficiency gains and minimising waste in processes by utilising continuous improvement tools to identify gaps and then finding solutions and engineering out route causes. Key Achievements: ▪ Project management of a £400,000 packaging line in to a running production environment. ▪ Successful implementation of many continuous improvement engineering projects Summary of Responsibilities: ▪ Project management ▪ Supplier selection ▪ Cost control ▪ Health & Safety ▪ First line management ▪ Continuous improvement ▪ Engineering design