Our team

The Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service is staffed by manufacturing specialists with a proven track record of troubleshooting across a wide range of technologies and industrial sectors.

Find out more about our team of experts:

Steve Graham

Steve is Director of the Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service.

Steve has extensive senior management experience in supply-chain, commercial operations and business planning within the drinks and chemical industry sectors. He has lived and worked outside the UK for over 12 years and has sat on the European board of a number of multi-national businesses. He has held a variety of global senior roles in supply-chain, commercial operations and manufacturing and has been instrumental in leading a number of global business change programmes.

Areas of expertise:

Business value-chain analysis and strategy development.
Financial planning and business performance improvement.
Supply-Chain management.
Commercial planning.
Transformational change programmes and culture change management.
People and team development.

Gordon Bell

Gordon is the National Operations Manager for SMAS

Gordon has extensive senior management experience in supply-chain with a particular focus on logistics and procurement. This experience has been gained with major UK plc’s in the FMCG, Tobacco and Aeropspace sectors. In addition he is a qualified accountant.

Experience includes leading teams through mergers and major change programmes, development and implementation of out-sourcing strategies, supplier and customer partnership development, rationalisation projects, margin improvement projects, and team and people development programmes.

Areas of expertise:

Supply-Chain management
Strategy development
Financial planning and business performance improvement
Change programmes and culture change management
People and team development

Nick Shields

Nick Shields is Regional Lead Practitioner for the West

Nick has worked across a range of manufacturing environments including electronics, capital equipment and Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG). He has held positions in engineering and operations management both in multinational and SME businesses.

His experience has been gained through operational management in several areas such as: operations management of high volume FMCG where he was responsible for restructuring the global manufacturing operation across the US, UK and Far East, ERP implementation and green-field factory build for a capital goods manufacturer, new product introduction and product development within the electronics industry and management of a number of change management programmes using lean techniques.

Areas of experience:

Lean manufacturing
Organisational change and development
New product introduction and development
Quality management systems
Business planning systems

Jerome Finlayson

Jerome Finlayson is Regional Lead Practitioner for the East

Jerome is an award winning TPM project leader, with experience working in the food and drink and pharmaceuticals sectors. He has held senior manufacturing management and international consultancy project management roles.

Areas of expertise

Lean manufacturing
People and team development
Application of process improvement tools and techniques with focus on delivery of results
Cultural and transformational change
Flexible manufacturing (5S/SMED)

Neil Freckingham

Neil Freckingham is Regional Lead Practitioner for the North

Neil's experience has been acquired through a number of senior operational management roles within the food and drink industry sector. This knowledge in manufacturing and supply chain has been gained with FMCG companies across the UK and Europe.

With a recent focus on logistics Neil has been accountable for site efficiency improvement, budgetary performance and developing multi disciplined teams. His experience in manufacturing covers project management, continuous improvement and cultural change programmes.

Areas of expertise:

Supply chain management
Organisational development and industrial relations
Project management and outsourcing
Culture change programmes
Coaching and team development
Site infrastructure and capital investment programmes
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Leanne Hughes

Leanne is the Senior Administrator for the team and PA to Steve Graham, Director of SMAS.

Alison Munn

Alison is the main point of contact for companies wishing to contact SMAS. She deals with all enquiries and co-ordinates the team to provide an efficient and effective service.

Practitioners

Agnes Pollock

Agnes' experience has been gained through extensive training, implementation and day to day senior operational management in a large FMCG research and development/manufacturing/retailing company and several SME companies across manufacturing, distribution, engineering, retail and tourism sectors.

Areas of expertise:

Lean manufacturing techniques
Business improvement consultancy
Senior production management
Leadership
Team development
Culture change management

Steven Borris

Steven is the author of "Total Productive Maintenance” and has worked as an independent consultant. He has experience in physics, electronics, high vacuum, high voltage, pneumatics and other electro-mechanical sub-systems gained through working within radiation treatment, nuclear medicine, bio-engineering and surgery; electronics/semiconductors and equipment installation. Steven recently gained consultancy experience within the food and drinks industries.

Areas of expertise:

Lean manufacturing
5S
SMED
TPM
RCM
Kaizen
Problem-solving techniques

David Gardner

Having initially trained as a mechanical design engineer, David subsequently built a highly successful career in manufacturing and operations management. He has held senior positions with several major US and European multi-nationals, many with full P&L responsibility for significant manufacturing operations in the UK and in Europe. He has extensive experience in a variety of manufacturing sectors, including steel and aluminium foundries, defence and commercial electronics assembly, electro-mechanical assembly and plastic injection moulding.

Areas of expertise:

Lean Manufacture
Change Management
Continuous Improvement Culture
Supply Chain Management

Robert Cowan

Robert's Manufacturing experience has been gained in a number of sectors including Aerospace and Food and Drink.

A degree qualified metallurgist, his experience in manufacturing management includes Production, Engineering, Supply Chain, Planning, Quality, Project Management and Continuous Improvement.

Areas of expertise:

Change of Working Practices/Change Management
Performance Management
Staff Development
Planning Processes
Quality Management Systems

Colin Allan

Colin has held senior positions within a world class US multi-national organisation and also UK based organisations, with responsibility for design, manufacturing and operational strategies. Colin has extensive experience in a variety of sectors including: defence and commercial electronics and industrial and commercial electro-mechanical equipment, incorporating design, development and manufacturing disciplines.

Areas of expertise:

New product development strategies and project management
Development and implementation of lean manufacturing programmes
Continuous improvement (Kaizen, 5S)
Development of key performance indicators to drive forward business performance
Factory layout and creation of manufacturing cells

Gary Caunt

Gary has pursued a highly successful career path in Manufacturing starting with the role of Production Manager in light engineering for a global company, over a 7-year period. He later moved to the Soft Drinks industry taking the role of Manufacturing Manager before moving into premium branded and own label food in the same role. He was later promoted to General Manager before holding the Group Continuous Improvement Manager role for the same multi-site business.

Gary has formal training and practical experience in:

TPM
5S
SMED
Bottleneck analysis
Kaizen
Lean manufacturing
Six-Sigma

Ian Gibson

Ian studied manufacturing engineering at university, which led to career as a development engineer and production manager within the spirits industry. Ian recently gained experience in consultancy, managing large change projects for clients in the petro-chemical, marine and FMCG sectors. Ian’s experience includes leading cross functional manufacturing teams through major change, development and engineering projects.

Areas of expertise:

Lean manufacture
Kaizen
5S
SMED
TPM
New product introduction

Barry Munro

Barry is experienced in a variety of disciplines (Design, Engineering, Project Management, Product Management) within the manufacturing environment, having held senior key roles in several multi-national organisations supplying products to the automotive, telecommunications and industrial goods industries.

He is practised in the deployment of quality management and six sigma techniques to deliver new products and process improvements.

Areas of expertise:

Strategic management and marketing
Innovation and new product development
Product and process design
Project management
Process improvement

Ian Collinson

Ian has 21 years of industrial experience and has held senior management roles within many sectors of the food and drinks manufacturing industries. He also has 17 years’ experience of quality management systems and continuous improvement exercises within customer facing and KPI driven roles in blue chip multinational companies.

Areas of expertise:

Lean manufacturing
People and team development
Company and supply chain continuous improvement practices
Quality management systems
Production management
New product development and implementation

Jamie Sansom

Jamie’s experience has been acquired through operational management and continuous improvement roles within SMEs and multi-national FMCG businesses. Jamie has also worked as a management consultant focusing on operational efficiency within the Scottish manufacturing sector and carrying out due diligence and operational risk programs across Europe.

Areas of expertise:

Value Stream Mapping
Layout design and production line philosophy
Change of working practices / change management
Lean manufacturing
SMED
Bottleneck analysis
Structured problem solving

Richard Henderson

Richard graduated with an Honours Degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Glasgow University. Following this, he gained several years experience in a design, research and development environment before moving into the Aerospace Industry. Working within the repair and overhaul of large gas turbine jet engines, Richard gained accreditation as a Six Sigma Black Belt. He performed this role for several years delivering varied, high benefit improvement projects/programmes, subsequently moving into production management where he led the development and production demands of a new logistics Integrator. Richard’s experience includes leading cross functional teams through significant change management projects. Richard is also a Chartered Engineer with the Institute of Mechanical Engineers.

Areas of expertise:

Introducing business improvement framework/strategy
Six Sigma toolset
DMAIC methodology
Measurement System Analysis – GR&R
Statistical Process Control
Project Scoping
Introduction of process measures to understand performance