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now coming online. We believe in keeping everything in-house because it drives speed and learning. We did all this in the last year. It’ s been challenging, but very rewarding.”
Plessey is investing now to make sure manufacturing constraints don’ t limit future growth.“ We’ ll have more tooling coming online in the next few months to help remove bottlenecks in the fabrication plant. As development and manufacturing ramp up, we need capacity to keep up.”
Growth has brought new people into every part of the business, but not all that talent comes from outside.“ We have a strong track record of developing people internally. Many operators become technicians, and technicians become engineers over time. That’ s something I’ m really proud of.” This internal growth goes hand in hand with recruiting for manufacturing, reliability, testing, device physics, and program management.
The blend of internal and external talent matters even more as Plessey broadens its optical interconnect work. The new Oxford office is part of a bigger shift in how Plessey builds its optical interconnect business. There’ s a strong pool of talent across the M4 corridor, and many design, customer-facing, and technical roles don’ t need to sit in Plymouth.“ Oxford gives us access to those skills, while Plymouth stays at the heart of manufacturing.”
Managing multiple technology streams at once means you need a clear view of the whole business. Thomas’ approach is handson. He wants to know what’ s happening in the factory and uses operational data to find constraints before they slow things down.“ I’ m a big fan of being on the shop floor, seeing
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