Down and dirty

29-Jun-2008 - Last updated on 14-Mar-2017 at 16:12 GMT

Over 12 years ago, Sam Wrist took a temporary job on the production line of an ice cream factory. Now he's general operations manager and ready to muck in

Sam Wrist, general operations manager, R&R Ice Cream

After leaving school it was always my plan to go off and study chemistry. But pretty soon I realised that wasn't what I wanted to do, so as a temporary thing while I was trying to decide what to do instead, I applied for a job at the ice cream factory at Leeming Bar [One of R&R's two UK plants]. Twelve-and-a-bit years later, I'm still here - well at least half the time - I'm now in charge of operations both at Leeming Bar [ice cream tubs] and at the Crossgates site, which makes lollies, choc-ices and extruded ice cream stick products such as Thorntons, Skinny Cow and Fab.

I started as a production operator, which gave me a really good insight into what was going on, and after a couple of months, I got trained up as a machine operator. Within a year, I was a shift supervisor.

After that, I moved over to mixing, and got much more into the engineering side of things, getting involved in everything from welding to electrics to programming.

By 1999, I was mix plant manager in charge of 25 people covering three shifts on an automated plant, which brought its own challenges. The biggest was relying on automation to do its job and stopping people interfering with it because they thought they knew better. It was around this time it really struck home that you can know all about the engineering and put in the best pieces of kit, but if you don't have the right people, you won't get very far.

My next job was manufacturing manager at Leeming Bar, which at the time had a turnover of around £25-30M, but had just embarked on a project to more than double capacity.

This was a huge learning curve. While some of the kit was second-hand as it was coming from a site we were closing down, all of the associated process infrastructure like the silos, spiral freezers was brand new. It felt like we were trying to cram five years' worth of work into three or four months, but it worked. It was a real team effort.

The staffing changes that came with the expansion completely changed my approach to work. We went from 60 to 120 people a shift virtually overnight in an area of zero unemployment, and we had to bring in a lot of foreign nationals, which has been fantastic for the business, but brings its own challenges.

For example, when you're employing people who are still learning English, you can't just stand there and tell them to do x, y and z, because they will all say, yes boss, and then leave the room without having a clue what you actually want them to do. You have to work with people and show them what you want.

You have to keep communications simple. If you're new here, you wear a yellow hat instead of a white one so people know you might need extra support. I'm all for keeping things simple. I don't want people leaving briefings thinking, what the hell was all that about?

Chipping in

I spend as much time as possible on the shop floor because I want to build a culture where everyone chips in and I'm not just another manager sitting behind a desk sending out an email saying 'we've got to reduce waste this week'. You need to walk around, listen to the team, work out where the waste is coming from and help them put in solutions.

You also need to keep people informed, to make them feel part of the business: is it doing well? If not, why not? I always refer to R&R as 'our business' because I want people to feel part of the team, that they are contributing to the business, not just people that clock in and clock out every day.

As for training here, the more you learn, the more you earn. Again, for me, it's all part of keeping things simple. If you want to make progress, this is what you have to do, and it's black and white for everyone.

The R&R blueprint

We have a pretty flat management structure. Below me at Crossgates is my manufacturing manager, and below him are the shift managers. At Leeming, there's a production manager and then shift managers.

I report to group operations director Ibrahim Najafi, who is responsible for all the sites, including R&R's factories in Germany, France and Poland. Although we all make different products, we do benchmark where it's relevant.

We're also moving everyone on to the same IT systems, and eventually, we'll all report together. The key people from the Continental sites have all been over to the UK and spent a week going through our reporting structures, measurements and controls - the R&R blueprint if you like.

We have daily meetings at 8.30am and 5pm at both sites, but I also have a weekly meeting with Ibrahim, in which we look at key performance indicators like downtime, variances in labour or overheads to budget, plant efficiency and absence.

Everything we do here is measured, but it's measured for a purpose, so that it can be controlled. It's easy to get into the trap where everything is monitored but not a lot of action is taken as a result.

Avoiding the blame culture

In terms of products, you've got to strike a balance between making something appealing and exclusive and producing something efficiently. As for growth, we're not chasing volume at any price, although you do need a steady volume going through your plant for efficiency, so it's a constant balancing act.

The way we operate here works really well. Ryad [Dr Ryad Apasa, UK group engineering & project manager] looks after the engineering and I look after operations. We both know what the other one needs. A lot of people coming into the business from the outside say it's really refreshing, because there isn't a blame culture, with production blaming the engineers and vice versa if things go wrong. We also have a highly skilled project team that works across both UK sites, so when we do have ideas and development concepts, we can run a lot of trials and do a lot of modifications on site at relatively low cost without looking at a huge capital cost from the very beginning.

Lump sum

We've spent close to £35M on this site over the last eight years, including £7M on a 1,520m2 factory extension and new ice cream stick line that can produce more than 2M products a week plus a new freezing tunnel and an automated packing and shrink wrap system.

We've also invested in all the associated infrastructure, including ammonia and nitrogen plants, so it was a major piece of work. We've probably spent another £500,000 modifying it to drive up efficiency even more. We've also spent £6M on upgrading the mix plant and on ice cream ageing silos fitted with valve locks that feed directly to the production line.

Singing in the rain?

Accurate planning and forecasting is obviously a big challenge for lollies and ice creams; you can get an uplift of 30-40% in a week's sales if there's a heat wave. Last year, it was red hot, and then it rained for three months. You do get long-term forecasts, but really, beyond a month, it's finger in the air stuff.

On average over the summer we hold about four weeks' stock, whereas in the winter we might have 20 weeks' stock. As for staffing, we're running now with 75 people a shift, but this will drop to around 50 people in the winter. The challenge is being able to meet customer demand without tying up all our cash in stock. You often end up erring just on the side of caution because if you're buying packaging from all over the world with six-to-eight-week lead times, you have to plan ahead.

Burning the midnight oil

It's a challenging time right now as we're facing big increases in energy costs and dairy ingredients. It got to a point last year when we were actually struggling to obtain skimmed milk powder, so in some recipes we switched to using liquid skimmed milk.

Some costs we have been able to pass on, but inevitably, you have to take some of the pain; but we are fortunate in the sense that we've got a lot of new kit, so that helps with efficiency. There are times when you're gearing up to a big launch or new kit is coming in that you have to put in long hours. This summer is particularly busy as we've launched 21 new products.

When it comes down to it, I do really live and breathe this job. I don't think you ever quite leave it, even when you've left the building. I do trust people to get the job done in my absence, but I also want them to feel like they are not on their own if there is a problem, that there is a team here that will give them support.

interview by elaine watson

FACTORY FACTS

Location: R&R Ice Cream, Manston Lane, Crossgates, Leeds LS15 8SX. Tel: 01677 423 397

Employees: About 420 at peak times over three shifts

Turnover: £61.5M

Output: Up to 2,500 pallets/week

Products: Own-label and branded ice lollies, ice cream bars and sticks, choc ices. Brands include Munchies, Fab, Skinny Cow, Ribena, Thorntons, Treats

Customers: All the leading retailers (85% by volume) plus wholesalers supplying the impulse sector (15% by volume)