If Trimax want to drive their famous "˜continuous improvement' philosophy right through their British production line, then they've found the right man.
New UK Operations Manager, Rod Kennedy, brings with him 35 years ops experience from a range of industries including valve manufacturing, commercial vehicles, leisure homes and most recently, agricultural machinery.
As well as his experience, Trimax have also found something of a soul mate in Rod: he's just as devoted to continuous improvement, innovation and high standards as the rest of the Trimax family. "It's important for me to be with a company that has the same business philosophy as I do" says Rod. "There's nothing better than going home at the end of the day knowing you've done the best job you could possibly do."
He wants to instil that same appetite for excellence in his team of two new assemblers. "There's such a culture of teamwork at Trimax. We're new but we already feel like part of the family. My job is to make sure all the team's energy and attention to detail gets embedded in our processes like the regular pulse of continuous improvement." Customers already value Trimax for reliability and innovation and Rod is looking forward to delivering on that: "Trimax already has customers' trust, I'm looking forward to reinforcing it with every machine we make."
Rod started his career at the age of 16 as a mechanical engineer and worked his way up from the shop floor to ops management, gathering expertise in supply chain, logistics and production engineering. Even though he's spent the last 18 years in ops management he's still a nuts and bolts kind of guy. In his first week at Trimax, he took the whole warehouse to pieces and put it back together again. "I wanted to know exactly how it works, bit by bit," explains Rod. "I wanted to be sure our workflows are the best they can be from suppliers to factory floor to customer."
Apart from some experience producing flail mowers for farmers, Rod is new to the grasscutting industry and is keen to learn it day-by-day. "Come spring, I shall be trying out a machine or two I'm sure," says Rod.
