Meet Steve Quinton – Our Quality Production Manager

You’ve had your feet under the desk for a little while, what’s it like being part of the Amcanu team?

It’s been eight months already! The team at Amcanu are amazing and everyone pulls in the same direction to make Amcanu as successful as possible. Everyone’s been so supportive, which has made joining the team really enjoyable.

What are the most exciting, interesting and challenging things you’ve had to deal with so far?

It’s been challenging to get to grips with an entirely new industry, but that’s also meant that I’ve been able to review everything with completely fresh eyes. Seeing so many individual processes come together to create such amazing finished products is really exciting. It’s similar to how I’d imagine a much larger manufacturer operating – professional and very thorough. I’m still learning new things everyday, but it’s exciting to know that I’m playing a part in delivering quality products to our customers. I’m really proud of what we’re doing.

What changes have you made already and what impact have they had on quality or overall productivity?

We’ve improved communications. It was an easy first step and the team have responded well – we just needed to formalise a few procedures. We’ve also introduced more robust quality checks throughout the entire manufacturing process. We now have a series of technical checks and visual checks to ensure we maintain quality while we continue to focus on improving efficiency and increasing our production volumes.

What are the biggest opportunities for improvement and what might customers notice in the future?

We’re currently implementing a visual scheduling tool for production, that is fully integrated with our MRP system. This will improve our internal understanding of production flow, highlight bottlenecks before they cause issues and enable us to be far more proactive when scheduling. Once fully implemented, hopefully before the end of the year, we’ll be able to share more accurate, up-to-the-minute information with our customers… particularly important for time-critical orders.

How do you measure quality and productivity and how can we demonstrate continual improvement?

The whole team at Amcanu is deeply driven by quality. Everyone always responds positively when there’s an opportunity to improve our products, which makes it easy to talk about quality concerns. Quality issues are always highlighted and resolved in the moment and then followed-up in monthly quality meetings. All quality improvements are logged and reported, mistakes aren’t made twice and continuous improvement is literally ingrained in Amcanu’s DNA! With regards to productivity, the new software will generate all the data we need to analyse productivity and efficiency… giving us the opportunity to understand everything and systematically improve everything for the rest of time!

Is there anything new you’ve learnt at Amcanu that you think every business could benefit from?

A Michelle! Every business needs a Michelle. Her thoughtfulness and kindness makes such an impact on the moral of the team. She never misses a cake on a birthday and, without fail, she cooks for the entire team on a Friday. It’s impossible to bottle-up what Amcanu has… it’s a very close-knit family business with an enormous amount of professionalism. A truly great employer and genuinely, I feel part of something really special.