Q. Hi Tom, what is your job title at HDL?
A. Hi Richard! I am the Production Manager here at Hollingworth Design Ltd.
Q. What duties does this role entail?
A. I manage the production of all our customer’s orders, whilst ensuring they always meet customer specifications and adhere to our strict quality control standards. This consists of ensuring stock availability with key suppliers, providing customers with quotations and lead times, managing our workforce capability, scheduling our workflow, whilst managing and motivating multiple teams within the company.
Q. How long have been with HDL and what did you do before joining them?
A. Next year will be my 10th year with the company! I take great pride in being one of the company’s first employees, and watching the company grow over the last ten years.
Q. What is your biggest challenge at work?
A. This year has been a challenging year for production. As a key supplier during the COVID pandemic, we saw our order book increase threefold whilst standard lead times were required to be halved in many cases, as a response to the pandemic. This required a huge amount of strategic planning, involving many key suppliers, our entire workforce working long hours, and liaising regularly with our customer, all whilst maintaining a safe social distance! I’m very proud of the whole team, for working together, and rising to the challenge.
Q. What is your biggest achievement personally and at work?
A. My biggest achievement at work, is my contribution to the growth of the company, and its workforce. Personally, I think it might be performing at the Royal Albert Hall!
Q. What is a skill you would like to improve on?
A. I would really like to learn to code, which would enable me to further develop our existing production management systems.
Q. Do you have any phobias?
A. Spiders. Although I went to Australia last year and stayed in the Daintree Rainforest AKA spider heaven. Beer helped.
