This second introduction was long overdue and even though most of you will know Bram already, he deserves a proper introduction!
Bram, how did you come to work at Marcelissen?
Well, in 2006 I busy with my study technical engineering and ended up at Marcelissen as an intern. After successfully completing this internship, I was offered a job with a permanent contract and since I really enjoyed my internship and the atmosphere in the company, I took the job immediately.
Well that must have been quite the journey, from intern to Production & Service Manager, or not?
Yes, it definitely was. In the years that followed after I started at Marcelissen, I gained a lot of experience and knowledge in both production and by assembling machines as well as executing service & maintenance at customers all over the world. Step by step I was able to develop myself and I received more and more responsibilities within the company, for which I’m still very grateful today!
Finally, in 2015 I got the opportunity to take on the job of Production & Service Manager, my current position within the company.
How do you like your current position within the company and the tasks that accompany being part of the management team?
At the start it was an immense challenge for me, from one day to another I was in charge of leading the production team, consisting of 12 people. Where I had always been the hands-on type of guy, I also got typical management responsibilities like annual performance reviews, mentoring new interns and employees and more intense customer contact for example. This was all new for me but luckily I got the time and space to grow into this position and develop my own personal style of management.
What does a typical day at Marcelissen look like in your position?
Normally, we start at 07.30 with a small, 5 minute meeting with a production employees and we go through the planning for the upcoming day as well as discuss topics that might have risen concerning tasks from the day before. Then I get a couple of customer calls concerning the purchase of spare parts or wanting to schedule regular maintenance of their machines by our service engineers.
After having gone through my emails and a project meeting, I make a round through the production hall to see if anybody needs any help and in case they do I’ll work alongside them to make sure that we finish the machine together on time for shipment, if quality and production procedures are taken into consideration and to see if everything is going according to schedule. Also, sometimes I still go on maintenance and/or service trips to our customers. This way I keep in touch with the practical side of production work as well as with our customers. All in all, the work is very diverse and challenging but I still love going to work every morning.
How do you see the future?
It’s going to be good! We made quite some changes over the past year from which we are now yielding the results. For example all the work we did on online marketing but also the new internal processes we set up to further optimize our production and engineering processes are starting to pay off.
In practice, we are noticing that, still after 70 years and even in Corona times, more potential customer are finding us and our machines online and are contacting us to see what we can do to improve their processes. Taking all this in mind, I think the future will be bright for Marcelissen and will only get brighter by time.