We are delighted to announce that Ian Mallett has joined us as our new Group Operations Director to take over from Julian Jamieson’s existing role. Ian will be overseeing and developing operational activities at Omega Plastics and Signal Plastics, including moulding and assembly, NPI and continuous improvement, quality and compliance, facilities, maintenance and HSE. Ian will be based across both our Washington and Gateshead sites.
Ian joins us from RICOR where he was Plant Director. He previously worked at National Oilwell Varco where he worked as Plant Manager and UK Operations Manager, as well as JDR Cables and Schmitz Cargobull.
Ian has over 27 years’ experience in automotive, oil and gas, and renewable energy manufacturing sectors. Throughout his career, Ian has worked in various senior managerial level roles whereby he has managed or overseen large operational teams. Ian is Six Sigma qualified and experienced in team leadership/building, team development and training, optimising output, production schedule adherence, line balancing, maintenance management, waste reduction, KanBan/FIFO, health and safety, quality control and KPIs.
Ian will work with Craig Swinhoe (Chief Executive Officer), Gary Owen (Group Finance Director) and Dave Crone (Senior Technical Director) to lead our areas of key operational focus – putting safety first, delivering on time, right first time for our customers, having the right people in the right roles, training and development, maximising our efficiency and process improvement and reducing our waste. Ian will be supported by Ged Pattison (Head of Operations – Signal), Ron Dunlop (Head of Operations – Omega) and Steve Norton (Head of Facilities, CI and HSE) and the wider operational teams.
Julian Jamieson will move from his current Group Operations Director role to the Group Commercial Director role to take over from Peter Sayer’s existing role. Julian’s previous background in commercial roles, experience in operations, combined with his understanding of our industry landscape and operational insight, will allow us to lead our commercial initiatives with a renewed perspective on understanding our customers, their needs and focusing what we do on their experience with us.
Julian will be responsible for overseeing and developing all commercial activities across the Group, including our sales and marketing strategy, marketing, business development, tooling sales, moulding and assembly sales, estimating, quotation and standard terms, sales pipeline management, new deal closing and rolling sales forecasting, customer and supplier contracts, pricing models and pricing reviews and account management.
As part of the changes, we have agreed by mutual consent that Peter Sayer will step down from his Group Commercial Director role and leave OPG at the end of November. Peter has been a key part of the team for nearly 4 years and has shown an exceptional level of commitment and personal integrity throughout. It has been hard for the last 12-18 months with increasing costs and pricing challenges and it is the right time for both us and Peter to make a change and have a fresh start. Peter will leave with our best wishes and will continue to support the transition to Julian and Ian in their new roles and work on strategic projects and customers over the next 3 months.
