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15 December 2011 |
Angeline Albert
Increasing buyers
and reducing the number of suppliers are on the agenda for Heather Roberts, who has been appointed to lead procurement
at Oldbury UK and Boughton Engineering.
Roberts was hired
this week by Skan Group Holdings to manage and expand the purchasing operations
of its subsidiary Oldbury UK, a supplier to the UK’s Ministry of Defence, and
the company’s newly acquired engineering firm Boughton Engineering (formerly
Reynolds Boughton), which was bought in May after entering administration.
Oldbury supplies bespoke transport vehicles, including trailers for aeroplane
engines to be transported by the military, and Boughton Engineering’s products
include skip loaders.
As group purchasing
manager, Roberts, formerly a senior buyer responsible for a £20 million annual
purchasing spend at GKN Auto Structures in Telford, plans to expand purchasing
across the two vehicle equipment engineering companies and hire at least two
more purchasers.
Responsible for an
annual spend of £4 million and a three strong purchasing team, Roberts told SM she intends to reduce the two businesses’
500-strong supplier base. This includes cutting the number of hydraulic
suppliers from seven to three. She will also reduce the number of laser cut
part suppliers to save £20,000.
After buying
Boughton Engineering, Skan Group consolidated the engineering, assembly and
production activities of the company with its firm Oldbury UK at Winkleigh in
Devon. The two also now share headquarters and a manufacturing facility in
Wolverhampton.
Roberts, who has
more than 25 years’ experience in purchasing, said: “It is the supply chain that
feeds a dynamic engineering business and I thrive on personal contact with
suppliers. In today’s manufacturing environment, purchasing and cost control,
process change and supplier monitoring are absolutely critical. I am joining
Boughton and Oldbury at a particularly exciting time in their development and I
am really looking forward to the challenges that recent changes and
developments are certain to present.”
She admitted
benchmarking activity and integration of spend data on the IT systems of the
two businesses are among the particular challenges she faces.