What Do Factory Managers Do

A typical day for me can consist of any number of things, from working on the factory floor to solving machinery issues or even ordering new materials for our projects. I work for Pro Moulds, a plastic injection moulding and tooling business which means that we work mostly with other businesses or individuals who are looking for a manufacturer for their prototypes or mass-produced products. With that in mind, I will liaise with our new clients in order to get an idea of what they’re looking for. We’ll often discuss their needs and if they don’t have one already, start to design the product that they need. After going back and forth with the client to confirm the designs, we’re able to create a prototype product to ensure that everything fits and works perfectly. We’re then able to create however many products they’re in need of, quality-check them, and ship them out.

The part of my job that uses the most of my time is the design phase. Due to the fact that we handle a lot of custom manufacturing, one-off pieces, and even the replication of broken parts, the design phase can take some time. This is because each and every part of the design needs to be perfect. Without this attention to detail, the items that we create could fail or damage something else which would be counterintuitive to everything that we’re doing. so, we take a little more time to get the design just right before we even create a prototype.

Pros

One of the biggest advantages of working our portion of the manufacturing industry is that we get to challenge ourselves. As mentioned, we work with a number of bespoke, one-off pieces, these are often parts of machinery that have broken and are no longer supplied by the manufacturer or they’re bespoke pieces that need to design for a specific purpose. With that in mind, we need to be creative and analytical at the same time. We’re challenged with creating something from scratch to suit a specific purpose and it needs to last a long time which can be tricky to achieve.

Cons

For me, the biggest disadvantage of working in the manufacturing industry is that it can be dangerous depending on the type of business you work for. Whether you work with machinery to build cars on a conveyor system or you’re bending sheet metal, there will always be dangers within the workplace that you need to be aware of at all times.