January 2018 marked the 5th anniversary of Jeff Hope's employment as head of manufacturing unit at AkzoNobel Ashington. In this column, Jeff talks about his AkzoNobel experience so far and how the plant is shaping up for 2018.
I can’t believe it has already been five years since I joined AkzoNobel Ashington. Having worked in the North East’s industrial sector at Rio Tinto Alcan, landing the job at AkzoNobel’s new £100 million flagship manufacturing facility was a dream come true.
Construction at the Ashington site had only been underway for six months when I joined AkzoNobel, so I have literally been a part of the plant’s journey from the very beginning and it’s amazing to see how far things have come.
The mission was to realise the most advanced and sustainable paint manufacturing facility of its kind in the world; and we’ve achieved that. Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to witness a number of important milestones, including producing our first ever batch of paint in November 2016, our official business launch in September 2017 and becoming the new home of Dulux in the UK; but for me personally, I feel the most pride when I look at the team that achieved it. We’ve got people here that can change the future, people that can show empathy in the hardest times, people that are authentic and are here for the right reasons, people that put something back through their efforts, their values and their determination and people that will take care, in some small way, of our beautiful county of Northumberland.
Looking forward into 2018 and beyond; the future looks extremely bright for AkzoNobel Ashington. Through utilising our team and the latest pioneering manufacturing technologies, our site is capable of producing up to 100,000,000 litres of paint in up to 33,000 different colours. Over the course of the year, we will be pushing ourselves and our systems to increase capacity so we can produce even more paint for our customers in the UK and European markets.
We also have an exciting venture in the form of our Dulux Academy. Only the second facility of its kind in the UK, the Dulux Academy is a customised training centre for painters and decorators to provide them with the expertise and know-how they need for business success. AkzoNobel’s ambition is to train and upskill 10,000 UK decorators by 2020 in order to play a part in tackling the skills shortage in the construction sector, which risks limiting the UK’s house building capacity.
To find out more about AkzoNobel, visit www.akzonobel.com
