Role Description
Within manufacturing you may also have the chance to get involved in supply chain reorganisation projects. You will be able to work with colleagues from a variety of disciplines to drive innovation through our business. The variety of opportunities available is huge and can be tailored to your skills and development needs. We constantly challenge ourselves to be better than ever we need to take fresh ideas and new approaches to the way we plan, source, make and deliver our products to our customers. Projects may include deciding where to source bought in goods, optimising our production capabilities and product lines or bringing new products to life.
Within supply chain reorganisation you will be involved in cross functional teams to add real value to our business. You will be expected to build strong relationships and take accountability for project activities. You will need good project management skills to work with a wide range of stakeholders, suppliers and customers. It is important that you are able to see the detail of your task but at the same time the wider issues and considerations.
Profile: Programme Manager – Andy Yates
"My most recent placement is with the programme management team for a large business transformation project taking place over then coming years. My key accountabilities are working with stakeholders to share information and ensure potential problems are unblocked and to help maintain the momentum of the projects we manage. This has been a challenging and high profile role which has involved preparing information to be presented to senior business leaders and stakeholders both inside and outside the business, managing meetings for the project team and bringing different groups together to define the course of appropriate action.
"As well as travelling to a number of manufacturing sites within Britain and Ireland I have also had the opportunity to visit some of our global manufacturing sites and worked with a people from a wide range of backgrounds across the business and some external consultants too. It has been fantastic to work with some really experienced people and learn from them as well as getting directly involved.
"From this placement I have really seen the opposite end of the scale to my experiences as a production scheduler. The activity I’m involved in looks very carefully at the strategic decisions we need to make as a business. Instead of looking at how we can be ready for next Christmas or Easter this placement has been based around where is the best place to source our winning brands from in the future, what capabilities we need to develop for the products of tomorrow and how we ensure our factories are better than ever as we go forward.
"The projects I’ve been dealing with cover topics as diverse as reducing our environmental impact to how we get more out of a cocoa bean and buy our milk. I have learnt how important it is to control projects with strong governance and how building and maintaining stakeholder relationships is vital to the ongoing success of any initiative."