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• Company
• Employee Ownership

Written by Michaela Millar

As an employee owned company our employees are at the heart of everything that we do. Therefore, each Wednesday over a 12 week period we are sharing interviews with our employee owners. Now in the 7^th of our Meet the Owner Profiles, meet Wendy.

Can you please tell us a little about yourself and your role at Scott & Fyfe?

Hello, I’m Wendy and I work within Scott & Fyfe’s Composite POD as a knitting operator. On a daily basis my role includes tasks such as setting up the machines to run the different products we produce, to run the fabrics and to ensure that the quality is of a high standard. As well as my standard role, I am also on our Health and Safety team, our Response team and our Risk Assessment team which keeps me very busy!

What type of products do you manufacture on the knitting machines?

We manufacture using both single and double needle bed warp knitting machines which allows us to make a wide variety of products. Some examples include a monofilament core that we knit to use internally as a flow media within our Polymat range of core mat reinforcements. Other products that I knit include our Polyknit Easyform fabric for the knitted hose industry, this is manufactured using glass, aramid or polyester dependent upon the customers’ requirements. I have also been involved in our new product range, Alphashield which is an innovative range of seamless knitted glass, carbon and felt liners for pipeline rehabilitation.

What is your favourite part of the job?

My favourite part of my role is the setting up of a new product on the machine, specifically the threading up. This is where we pull all of the ends of yarn through the needles of the machine so that they are in the right route and position. It is a repetitive task and I find it very calming and destressing.

Anything interesting about yourself that others may not know?

I love to keep active and do a lot of cross country running in my spare time. Later this month I am running in the third part of the Winter Cross Country Series, a competition over winter where you run four races against people in your age range. The events are roughly 6 miles each, with plenty of uphill running and going through forests.  After this event, we get an overall score for the four ............. I am looking forward to the finishing line!

• company
• employee ownership

• Company
• Employee Ownership

Written by Guest Blogger

Tell us a little about yourself and what you do within the company?

I am Robert McGregor (everyone calls me Rab) and I work in the company’s warehouse as Packaging and Distribution Technician. My main responsibility is to manage the incoming and outgoing stock by ensuring it is all stored correctly with the right paperwork, loaded onto lorries etc. Of course, I also make sure to cheer people up every day.

How long have you been working at Scott and Fyfe?

I have been working at Scott & Fyfe for over 17 years now and plan to retire in the next few years. I was going to retire this year but I enjoy my job so decided to stay on.  When I joined the company I worked in our flooring department where we stitch bond, print and crepe paper for the carpet underlay market. However, the majority of my years were spent making our loop reinforcement fabrics for the abrasives market. It was more recently that I began working in the warehouse as a result of an injury. This injury saw me off work for 51 weeks…. what I call my “gap year”!!!

What changes have you seen over your 17 years at Scott and Fyfe?

Employee ownership has been a great change for us. I believe the company can be even more successful which will allow each of the individual employee owners to benefit. I have also seen the company takeover Flemings Textiles which is now our Composite Department here at Scott & Fyfe.

In what way has becoming employee owned been a great change?

Being a part of an employee owned company to me means that if we succeed then we can all benefit in this. It also means that people who go the extra mile are recognised for it. I have actually won Employee of the Month twice over the two years we have been doing it, the first time for working my holiday to ensure we got a customer’s order out on time and the second time was for finding a company who would pay us for our old pallets when before we were paying out to have them removed.

Is there something/someone who inspires you?

My wife and kids inspire me.  Being able to come home and have my loved ones close by as support - my family is a huge inspiration to me.

• company
• employee ownership

• Company
• Employee Ownership

Written by Michaela Millar

Over the following weeks we will continue to introduce you to the owners at Scott & Fyfe – the employees!

Therefore, each Wednesday we will be sharing one to one interviews with 12 of our employee owners so that you can get to know us a little better.

This week we are pleased to introduce you to Iain Greig in the fifth of our meet the owner, employee profiles.

Can you please tell us a little about yourself and what you do?

I currently run the Coating Department working as team leader to ensure that everything is running well within the department. Simply put, our coating plant is an extrusion / laminating process, working by applying a layer of polymer over materials of various widths for adhesion and coating purposes.

How long have you worked at Scott and Fyfe?

I have worked here for 22 years in a few different roles. I began as a spool cutter in our extrusion plant and worked there for a year before moving onto beaming. Since then, I have worked in coating learning constantly and building my experience.

What changes have you seen whilst at Scott and Fyfe?

When the company become employee owned I was unsure of what it meant and if it would be a positive thing for Scott & Fyfe. However, little by little I can see progress and believe that in years to come we will be able to see the company develop much more.

There has also been a massive change in our production within the company due to employee ownership and our innovation culture. This has directly impacted upon me in my role as nowadays there is much more freedom. The experience and expertise of the machine operators and team leaders like myself are taken on board as we have lots of ideas on what will work best and most efficiently.

Is there anything interesting about your time at S&F that others may not know?

I have an identical twin, Kieron who also works for the company. We sometimes pull pranks on our colleagues pretending to be the other. Sometimes we pull it off but nowadays it is harder to convince people!

Another memorable moment and definitely a highlight for me was when a whole load of us went to watch our colleague Brian Roberts charity skydive for his birthday. He is petrified of heights and the video footage of him before, during and after the jump is hilarious.

• company
• employee ownership
• guest blog

• Company
• Employee Ownership

Written by Guest Blogger

Over the next few months, we want to introduce you to the owners at Scott & Fyfe – the employees!

Now in the fourth of our employee profiles, please meet Peter Thomson, employee owner, chair of the Employee Forum and much more.

Can you please tell us a little about yourself and what you do?

My job role at Scott & Fyfe is project technician of knitting and development and I am also chairman of the Employee Forum. The forum is a group of nominated employees who are tasked with driving engagement within the company. This manifests itself in many ways including improving communications, organising social events and improving the working conditions.  

How long have you been working at Scott and Fyfe?

I have been working here for almost 16 years now and in that time I have covered a lot. I was brought in primarily to develop the knitted product range for the company as they had not been heavily involved in knitting to that point and I had a strong knitting background. My role then expanded into more development work where for example, I worked on a projects developing woven and extruded products such as our flexible micro drip irrigation solution and a range of stitch bonded products for the Composite POD. 

Have you seen many changes during your 15 years at Scott and Fyfe?

In regards to change, employee ownership has been a big change in the company over the past few years and it really was a step in the right direction as it is beneficial for both the company and employees.

Another key change over my time is that the company is now more innovative, we tap into the resources that we always had but never used. An example of this would be that we now take advantage of the varied skills of our employees and this has resulted in drastic changes from the markets we go after to the way we now recruit new and different types of people.

Is there anything interesting about yourself others might not know?

There's lots, I was previously a member of the Arbroath Royal British Legion Pipe Band as a part of the drum core. I never set out to join this but whilst taking my son to his lessons there was a space available and a need to fill it so I stepped in. After that I kept going back and enjoyed it thoroughly for many years. In doing this we became Grade 4B Champions in 2001 and I was fortunate enough to play my last gig centre spot on Murrayfield for a Scotland Vs Italy match!!

I also used to break and school horses alongside my day job which is fairly different.

What has been the highlight of your time at Scott and Fyfe so far?

We used to make a side impact air bag product and the previous owner of Scott & Fyfe wanted to film the whole testing process which was to increase the pressure until the bag burst. So he brought in his camera and three of us tested this constantly from 9am to 3pm with no breaks, painstakingly increasing the pressure by 0.01 bar at a time. Finally the bag burst at 3pm… only for us to realise he hadn’t taken the lens off of the camera so had shot nothing the entire day!! I think his exact words were “well guys, I will see you again tomorrow morning” I have never laughed so much in my life.