A baker born and bread
MARK PICCONI, FACTORY MANAGER, WARBURTONS, ENFIELD
I love what I do. I've got a passion for the baking industry; I've been in it since I left school. I started off as a van boy and it's now my 18th year. My interest came from my father - he's worked in the industry for 28 years.
I started with Warburtons in January 2004. I'd worked for British Bakeries (part of RHM) for 15 years, latterly at Forest Gate. For me it was the right move. It wasn't about money, it was the idea of coming to work for a family business and I'm really pleased that I did it - I should have done it sooner.
The site has been open for about three and half years now. It was a new build on a 9.5 acre site and formed part of Warburtons' strategy to grow its business in the south east and become 'Britain's favourite baker'. Although I was not involved in commissioning the plant, I began shortly after. I was faced with a number of operational challenges - not least in getting the best out of a new plant with new staff, many of whom were completely new to modern bakery operations. That gave me a few sleepless nights.
We had to do a lot of recruitment initially. The first three years were about getting the basics right. Now, it's time to move on to the next stage of the site's development. These days it's a lot easier to recruit staff because people in the local area know our brand; they know the heritage of the company and they know it's a good place to work. Over the past 24 months staff retention has been absolutely exceptional, with turnover at just 6-7%.
My career in bakery actually began in distribution and then I moved into finance and administration as a trainee management accountant. But I had the opportunity to move around a bit - including stints in store management, hotplate production and as a trainee operations manager. Then I had an opportunity to take on technical and hygiene management roles. However, I soon realised that what I really enjoyed was the cut and thrust of the production environment, so I moved into production management and was then given an opportunity to manage as site manufacturing manager designate.
We make 13 different SKUs (stock keeping units) on site, which are delivered by our own fleet to all the major retailers and many independent symbol stores. Products are all Warburtons branded, apart from some Weight Watchers products manufactured under licence. That's quite a lot, but it means we make as much bread as we can locally for our customers. It ensures freshness and high availability of our products on supermarket shelves.
Our aim is to ensure customers and consumers get the freshest product in the market - but you're only as good as your last delivery. While some customers work on a 48h ordering basis, the majority are 24h. This gives us planning, scheduling and distribution issues. It's a real challenge to manage - especially knowing you've only got 6 to 16 hours to make a product. But it does give you a buzz and gets the adrenaline pumping!
However, in May this year we opened another depot at Thetford in Norfolk and that's taken some pressure off the Enfield site, servicing East Anglia and parts of Essex.
We have grown enormously. I am most proud that in just three years we have come from 100,000 van sales per week to 1M. That is a massive, massive achievement - and we are hoping to double that over the next few years.
The initial investment of £35M in the Enfield bakery, which produces 400g and 800g loaves at a rate of 11,500/h and 8,400/h respectively, has been followed by a further £2M investment in a crumpet line producing 2,000 packets of six an hour, which was commissioned in November last year. In total, around 1.1M units of bread and 130,000 packets of crumpets are produced per week at the site, which amounts to around 60M units a year.
Next year we will be spending £17.5M on a second bread line, which will raise our production to 100M units a year. We will be looking to appoint another 60 to 100 staff to manage the operation including maintenance, hygiene, and distribution teams. We have also reserved some space for a second hotplate line for morning goods, which may go in some time during 2008.
Our plant is modern, using cutting edge technology from raw materials delivery through to mixing, dividing, moulding and proving; then on to baking, depanning, bread cooling, slicing, wrapping/bagging and collation into baskets for despatch. Even the tin cleaning, cooling and storage operations are automated. The whole process takes just four hours from start to finish.
That's one of the biggest changes I've noticed in my time in the business - the move from labour intensive operations to high levels of automation where health and safety now feature prominently. The new bread plant will include even more sophisticated technology covering mixing, dough hydration, moulding and packaging, ensuring even better product quality.
As with other Warburtons sites, we use SAP R3 as our enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to capacity plan and link into the rest of the business. Our operators play a fundamental part in ensuring that information in SAP is maintained in real-time. We use Factory Link as our supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, which captures most of the data for entry into SAP. In the future we plan to link our SCADA system to SAP to create a totally paperless production environment.
We also have a paperless warehouse in which distribution is managed via an overhead item recognition system. Automatic readers are located in 'streets', in which products are marshalled and made ready for despatch by the company's own fleet of lorries.
Increasing energy costs have focused our attention over the past year and the company has undertaken a number of projects to reduce energy consumption, including piloting monitoring and targeting to deliver savings by improving aspects such as oven control. Over the next 12 months we plan to carry out a number of energy efficiency and environmental initiatives at the Enfield site.
Currently we employ 400 people across the site. We operate a 24/7 shift system, which covers 365 days of the year. On Bread Plant 1 staff work two days and then two nights on a four-on, four-off shift system. On the crumpet line, staff work five days out of six. Production staff are also rotated so they gain experience of different jobs around the bakery.
When appointing staff, we look for people who are passionate and who care; people who take pride in what they do; people who want to make a difference for themselves and for the business - people who are looking for an opportunity to grow. It's not just about employing arms and legs! We also believe in developing from within, which is shown by the number of individuals that have been promoted from operative level to more senior positions and these people have been key to the running of this operation.
Earlier this year we began a journey of continuous improvement (CI). I don't like to use the term lean manufacturing because I think this would send the wrong message to staff. It's about becoming better at what we do and continually improving. Using approaches such as total productive maintenance and the 5S philosophy of good housekeeping will be fundamental to our growth. They will ensure that we maintain our assets to the highest possible levels through giving our operators more involvement in their care.
From a cultural point of view, we are still a very young site. But our people are receptive to change and want to make a difference. We've got buy-in from the top down. I suppose it's really about evolution over the next five years rather than revolution in the next 12 months.
Interview by Rick Pendrous
FACTORY FACTS
Location: Warburtons, Delta Park Industrial Estate, Mill Marsh Lane, Enfield EN3 7XE. Tel: 020 8344 4400
Products: Warburtons branded bread and crumpets, plus some Weight Watchers products made under licence; 13 SKUs in total
Operating hours: 24/7, 365 days/year. Production: four days on, four off
Employees: 400 (incl 68 production operators and 14 maintenance)
Site turnover and output: £40M sales/year, circa 60M units/year
Customers: Major retailers, independents
PERSONAL
Name: Mark Picconi
Age: 34
Career highlights: worked for British Bakeries for 15 years before joining Warburtons as factory manager in January 2004
Domestics: married to Paula. Been together for 13 years, with two sons - Louis (11) and Franklyn (6) and living in Chelmsford
Outside work: taking Louis to football training on Saturdays and matches on Sundays. Supports Manchester United. "Being a dad is my main preoccupation when I'm not at work - my wife says my job is my other hobby!"
