James Dale

Encirc is the only company to offer a full 360 approach to the glass industry, creating flexibility, support and minimising carbon impact. We are based at four sites from Derrylin, Northern Ireland to Elton, Cheshire, Corsico Northern Italy and newly acquired The Park located in Bristol. Our three services of containing glass manufacturing, filling and distribution provide our customers with a single solution which is unique in our field.

My current role as Automation warehouse supervisor is ensuring planned maintenance for Cranes & conveyors is completed and kept to a high standard, operations are ran efficiently and any major downtimes are reviewed and explained to our customers. Ensuring my team feel valued by delivering monthly 1 to 1s giving them a safe environment to complete their tasks. Collaboration is key in my role giving regular communications or presentations to our customers regarding downtime or upcoming major projects and refurbs. I also manage budget ensuring the department is performing well within the cost.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide the team with a safe environment.
• Provide my team with a clear development plan creating training matrix.
• Monthly 1 to 1s with my team.
• PEMAC Maintenance is completed on 24 cranes using Prisma software.
• Conveyor level 1 maintenance is completed and action level 2 follow ups.
• Monitor budget.
• Analyse downtime data and action top offenders
• Ensure audits are completed.
• Delegate 7-Day maintenance plan and communicate to other business units.
• Ensure contractors working in the department are working to a safe standard.
• TMS management.
• Challenge poor quality product from customers and raise NCR’s.

My role as an Automated Warehouse engineer was to perform maintenance on 24 cranes to a high standard and kept operational with experience using Siemans S7. I was also responsible for maintaining Stocklin conveyors and keeping our conveyor system running efficiently for 24/7. I was also responsible for attending breakdowns and overcome any fault that may occur during my shift. We also challenged and collaborate with other teams if a product coming into warehouse is not suitable for storage.

Key responsibilities

• Performing maintenance in 24 cranes.
• Performing maintenance on AW conveyor system that operates 24/7.
• Respond quickly to breakdowns, perform RCA and come up with a solution.
• Work alongside contractors
• Work to a safe standard and show safe behaviours to others.
• Challenge other departments and collaborate if the product is not up to standard.
• Key Achievements
• Produce heat a heat map using excel to see history in faults.
• Installing additional “load not in middle” sensors.
• Resolve shrink wrap issues, collaborating with glass production to overcome fault.
• Assisting day staff with replacing 2 turntables at critical points and completing task within deadline.
• Replacing PLC reset switches with a designated key switch for every engineer. After being informed unauthorised personnel was resetting without permission.
• Assisting day staff replacing electrical panel on shuttle car and completing job within deadline.
• Gaining vast experience with Siemens Step 7 and SEW inverter drives.

My time as a cold end maintenance engineer was to keep 13 glass production lines maintained that consisted of a cooling lehr, inspection machines Veritas & Krones and also a palletiser. Glass production also holds 3 packaging lines and I was responsible for maintaining them to a high standard.

Key responsibilities

• Maintaining 13 production lines.
• Maintaining 3 packaging lines.
• Collaborate with operators regarding ongoing issues and action them accordingly.
• Work alongside contractors.
• Respond to breakdowns and rectify issues quickly and efficiently in pressured situations.
• Key Achievements
• Work alongside a large team of engineers and contractors to complete refurb during 2 furnace shutdowns for a duration of 3 months each and completing within deadline.
• Installing 6 horizontal banding machines on production lines.
• Improving shrink lines, replacing lift chains, and replacing with a more efficient belt system.
• Completely revamp PEMAC system with more efficient steps by step method to improve standards.
• Install 3rd leg on A2 production line and complete job within deadline.
• Installing 3rd leg on B7 production line within deadline.

Completed my apprenticeship at Capenhurst college in the first 4 years of joining Encirc, while gathering a vast amount of experience in departments such as general maintenance and electrical maintenance on a day release basis.

While only working at Asda on a part time role during my apprenticeship, I used this time to learn how to deal with customers in a correct manner. At such a young age I was put on a “Stepping stones” course to further develop my skills and eventually become supervisor within the store. Being offered an apprenticeship at Encirc brought this to an end as I was determined to have a career in engineering.