Cookie monster
Andy Lill (pictured left), factory manager, Rich Products
When I left school, I didn't really know what I wanted to do, so I ended up going into general warehousing work. It was pretty mundane, although I had a fair amount of responsibility in various jobs. It's funny to see all the tricks that people use once they have sussed out how a system works - some of the picking and monitoring systems are really open to abuse!
I ended up working for a corporate hamper company. In the run up to Christmas, I'd be working seven days a week and doing 18 hours a day, so I was completely frazzled. But in January to March I'd have nothing to do. Then I saw an ad in the paper looking for a warehouse team leader for a food company that was moving to this site in Hartlebury. It was all quite secretive - it didn't say who the company was or what the products were. But I'd had enough of hampers, so I applied!
After that, I heard nothing for a while. Then out of the blue, I got a phone call asking me to come for an interview in a hotel in Stratford [Rich UK's head office at the time] with the factory manager and the HR manager. Again, I had to wait for a bit after the interview, and assumed I hadn't got it. Then they called me up for a second interview, but it was all still quite secretive. I was thinking, 'Rich who?' But then I got the job!
When I joined in September 2002, they had just opened the factory. Production was in its first week and everything was in pilot mode. There were no proper IT systems in the warehouse, just some equipment and racking. The warehouse was part of the main production facility, so I was given a hairnet and a white coat, which came as a bit of a shock. I was wondering: what's a hairnet got to do with working in a warehouse?
Everything had to be built up from scratch. This was Rich Products' first UK production facility, and the plan was to gradually switch cookie production in Europe from Holland to here with a gradual phase out until we were up to speed in the UK. We spent a long time looking at ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems in 2003/4, but we didn't go live until January 2005, so everything was running from spreadsheets for a long time.
When we started, we had about 10 people working here with one shift and one production line. Today we've got more than 40 people working two shifts across two lines. However, there's still a lot of capacity left as we could work nights and weekends, ultimately moving towards seven days, 24-hour production. We installed the second line at the end of 2005 so we could bake the cookies, but we were still using the same depositor for baked cookies and ones that needed baking off by customers, so we could only run one line at a time. Once we installed a second depositor in May 2007, we could run two at the same time.
There's been a lot of investment here in the last couple of years, particularly on thaw and serve, but we're also planning to go live with a new ERP system in January 2009 from Rich Products in the US, our parent company.
My big break came about two years ago when the factory manager left and I was given the opportunity to take over. It was daunting, as I'd come in as warehouse team leader. But I had been working closely with the factory manager for a long time, so I knew I could do it.
The perfect cookie
About 50% of our output here is thaw and [ready to] serve cookies and the rest is frozen 'pucks' that need baking off, but the biggest growth is in thaw and serve. That's going through the roof. We do everything from cookies with premium Belgian or Fairtrade chocolate to white chocolate, oats, fruit and nut, toffee, seeded, and so on.
Making cookies is not a complex process. The team calculates which raw materials we need according to which recipes we are using and the size of the mixers and orders them in on a just-in-time basis using our materials requirements planning system. Each batch uses about 250-300kg of wet and dry ingredients. Everything goes into the mixers for a couple of minutes, then goes to a hopper and to a depositor, which has different heads so that you can choose the cookie by weight.
The frozen cookies go straight to the blast freezer while the ready-to-eat ones go in the oven for about 18-20 minutes. After they are cooled we flow wrap them.
Starts are staggered in the mornings. The first people come in at 4.45am to turn on the ovens and blast freezer. Then the next lot come in at 5.30am to start weighing out raw materials. The mixers start around 5.45am and then the lines run proper from 6am with the packers starting around 6.15am.
We run a pretty tight ship here. We've got minimal waste and a 99% yield. We make to a sales forecast, which is usually pretty accurate as we work very closely with Tesco - our biggest customer. We get a daily download from Tesco of which cookies are going into its distribution centres, so if things change suddenly, we can adjust our production plan.
That's one of our real strengths - flexibility. You also have to be creative. If the price of your raw materials has gone up as much as ours have in the last year, you have to be able to give your customers options as well as just saying that prices have to go up. We can offer different sizes, different formulations, or completely new more premium products such as loaded cookies with a different price point.
Performance-related pay
My working patterns vary a lot, but the routine always includes a weekly meeting with Ian Elliott, the operations director.
We use the meeting to talk about issues that need addressing, as well as to look at performance on efficiency and yield and the use of labour and materials. It's all about where we are against the plan. But if I do my job well, I'm left to get on with it.
It's amazing to think of how far we have come. So much has developed since I worked in the warehouse, for the factory and myself. I know that Ian and the company is proud of what we have achieved and the progress we have made, as he keeps on reminding me!
Everyone here knows what they have to do. We have regular briefings and the weekly key performance indicator sheet is put up in the canteen. People are paid a monthly bonus according to performance and yield, so there is an incentive to meet the plan.
Aside from myself, we have a warehouse manager Gavin Mayson - my number two; a planner, a QA (quality assurance) manager, four line leaders and the shop floor staff. However, we are planning to add a couple of shift supervisors, which will free me up to think more strategically about how to develop the site. My goal is to have this place running 24 hours, seven days a week!
I like to spend at least two hours a day on the factory floor, so my management style is pretty open. People can talk to me. But I also trust them to get on with the job. I'm not one of those people that constantly has their mobile phone on when they're on holiday. You have to be able to switch off. When I'm on holiday, I'm on holiday, not at work.
INTERVIEW BY ELAINE WATSON
FACTORY FACTS
Location: Rich Products, Hartlebury Trading Estate, Worcester, DY10 4JB Tel: 01299 251 090
Products: Cookies
Employees: Approx 40 full-time-equivalent staff
Turnover: c. £32M across both UK factories
Customers: Supermarkets, caterers, pub chains
PERSONAL
Name: Andy Lill
Age: 42
Career highlights: "Being made factory manager here two years ago. When the original manager left, they trusted me to take over. I thought long and hard about it, but taking the job was definitely the right decision."
Domestics: Married to Glenna with three children: a son, aged 22, and two daughters, aged 17 and 18
Outside work: Travel, watching motorsport
