Leading a Low Volume, High Value Manufacturer across the UK, Middle East, Asia and South Africa

Lauder: In your management and leadership teams did you hire people into this level or did you nurture them internally?

Ward: About seventy percent came through from the beginning and we have another layer of people we brought in at a certain level to develop. So it’s a combination. I don’t like people standing still for too long, unless they want to.

Lauder: An EEF report on ‘Reinventing the Manufacturing Workforce⁶ states that sixty-four percent of UK manufacturers have no workforce plan, impacting profits and training. What is your opinion on that?

Ward: I have quite strong views here because when the government decided twenty or thirty years ago it was their responsibility to train your staff, I never agreed with that! Employers are responsible for training their staff. The government is responsible for giving you the ‘stock’ and the infrastructure to work with.

Lauder: Given the sector is struggling to access enough talent, isn’t reinventing the workplace more important than reinventing the workforce?

Ward: Yes, and I think a lot of us struggle to access talent. You can have the most fantastic, automated equipment, but if you do not have the right people, nothing is going to save you. If you have got only four people in a ten square kilometre factory, those people have got to be really good at what they do. 3D printing is a good example and the biggest issue is finding the people to build the files to transfer over to 3D printing. Where are the skills to run those machines?

Lauder: Are graduates not coming through the pipeline for this?

Ward: There is such a disconnect between skills and education and the system lags behind in technology. For instance, when you hire someone with a mechanical engineering qualification they are not prepared for what is now an IT environment. So the whole infrastructure needs to change. The education sector needs employers to get more involved, but how do we find the time? And how do the schools find time? There needs to be more connectivity, facilitated by a third party.

Lauder: In your view, what are the biggest differences in industry today, versus fifteen years ago?

Ward: There are far more positives today. We have realised in the UK that we are a low volume, high value manufacturer. Fifteen years ago we were still trying to be a ‘far Eastern manufacturer,’ competing in the wrong place, which meant we lost a lot of manufacturers. The running of factories today is far better. Proper IT infrastructure has improved efficiency and stock management, while people are protected by formal health and safety policies.

A large number of people don’t know they can access government funding through their LEP. The bigger firms are applying, rather than smaller businesses for whom the funding was intended. So it is much harder to get funding now. Banks shun manufacturing at their peril, because we are the new tech companies.

Lauder: Female entrepreneurs say they, particularly, have great difficulty getting investment. How can we re-educate the market?

Ward: There is an unconscious bias in the finance industry, where predominantly male executives expect leaders of manufacturing companies to be male. There are some shining women in finance of course, but few are in leadership roles, so we have a prevailing disconnect between the finance industry and female entrepreneurs.

Male financiers constantly look around the woman to see the man behind them. I get it all the time with Corrotherm: “Is this your husband’s business?” Or “Did you inherit your father’s business?” I think it would be different if I was leading a consumer goods or cosmetics company.