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12 MACHINERY UPDATE JULY/AUGUST 2018 www.machineryupdate.co.uk
News
News
Is manufacturing really
pressing for progress?
This year’s International Women’s Day campaign theme of #PressforProgress prompted
Machinery Update to talk to three women about their experiences in manufacturing from different
perspectives to see if times were indeed, a-changin’
With the World
Economic Forum’s
2017 Global Gender
Gap Report findings telling
us that gender parity is over
200 years away - there has
never been a more important
time to keep motivated and
#PressforProgress, says
the International Women’s
Day website. And so how is
engineering/manufacturing
faring in this whole debate?
Juliet Canney has worked in fmcg
manufacturing for over twenty years
Juliet Canney graduated
with a degree in Chemical
Engineering from The
University of Bradford in
1988 and joined the graduate
scheme at United Biscuits.
She was introduced to the
idea of engineering as a
career firstly by her father
and secondly by her female
physics teacher who had been
an engineer with Vickers.
“I was drawn to
manufacturing, specifically
fmcg, because of a fascination
with how stuff is made,”
she tells Machinery Update.
Canney’s first challenge in
making it into manufacturing
was getting an A level in
physics. “I was the only
girl in my mid-80s mixed
comprehensive school to
take the course, but once that
was out of the way, having a
few other girls around me on
my subsequent degree course
was a bonus,” she says.
From United Biscuits,
Canney moved to Campbell’s
Soup as plant manager before
being promoted to production
planning manager where
she was first introduced to
all-things MRP/ERP.
LOGISTICS AT CADBURY
She joined Cadbury in 1993
as logistics manager where
she says not letting the (male)
managers pull the wool over
her eyes was vital to getting
the factory service level up
and inventory down.
After several other roles,
Canney joined Reckitt
Benckiser (RB) as European
supply chain project
manager, working across
27 sales organisations and
15 factories in every corner of
Europe. “In my eight years
at RB, I had three children,
three lots of maternity leave
and went back to slightly
different jobs each time,
to the point where my role was
far removed from my first,”
she explains. This is when she
decided to concentrate on her
family for a while.
CAREER INITIATIVES
Canney witnessed many
changes over the 20 or so years
she spent in manufacturing
but she says that from the
female perspective, she
definitely thinks that postmaternity
leave career
planning and opportunities
need to improve. “I think
some industries such as
accounting have addressed
this and have definite post
career break recruitment
initiatives, but I am not sure
manufacturing has this in
place,” she says.
The current general
manager at Festo is Eliza
Rawlings, a chartered
engineer by profession,
with a degree in electronic
engineering and a masters
in management from Bristol
University. She has enjoyed
a 25-year career in the
engineering and technology
sector and thinks that
engineering needs to appeal
to both men and women
students equally in order
to maximise access to the
country’s talent pool.
“It can be done: look at
medicine, where women
Post-maternity leave career
planning and opportunities need
to improve across manufacturing
Eliza Rawlings is general manager
at technology company Festo
applicants now represent over
50% of university intake,”
she says. Unfortunately,
engineering is still very much
behind in making progress in
this area and we should look
to learn lessons from other
sectors, she says.
“There’s also an issue
around retention,” she
continues, “as engineering
loses too many of its brightest
people to other sectors – such
as law and financial.
ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES
“We have to get across
the message that in the
vast majority of cases,
engineering companies are
good employers and make
young people more aware of
the endless possibilities that
a career in engineering can
bring,” she asserts.
“In engineering, you
can do anything and there
are so many avenues to
follow.”