My Career: Derek Scott, Quality Manager at Rubberatkins

Why did you become a quality professional? 
I chose a career in quality after having been inspired by the quality advisor on a project early on in my career in the oil and gas sector. The base principle that she was applying to the project, getting things done right first time, really resonated with me. Particularly as I hate seeing a team’s efforts going to waste. Short cuts are rarely fruitful routes to long-term success on a project. 

What are your main responsibilities, and how do you get results?
I am presently the Quality Manager at a rubber moulding company, Rubberatkins. I have two teams, one that deals with quality, health and safety, and environmental matters and the other team deals with metrology, the science of measurement, factors. I'm ultimately responsible for ensuring that our quality management system provides a reliable and repeatable service to our global customers.

Short cuts are rarely fruitful routes to long-term success on a project.

What is the biggest achievement in your career so far? 

I'm particularly proud of having been the designer and project manager for the development and implementation of a piece of bespoke inspection management software, which was adopted worldwide by the company I was working for at that time. The company was a significant player in the Subsea Construction market and had many distinct regional requirements, so this was a significant challenge. 

What has been one of the hardest challenges in your career and how did you overcome it?

One of the most interesting challenges I have facedwas when I joineding a company and very quickly had to mergeing five different management systems in a mergers and acquisition scenario with the aim of attaining tri-certification to ISO 9001:2015 Quality management systems, ISO 14001:2015 Environmental management systems and ISO 18001:2007 Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems. I hadn’t had a great deal of experience in management systems at that point, so it was a few weeks of learning very quickly. We succeeded and attained certification at the first audit. The main driver for our success was ensuring that an effective gap analysis was conducted and that the findings from that were turned into an actionable plan.

Looking back, what would you do differently?

I would have focused earlier on my professional development earlier. I felt confident I already had a broad  knowledge of the quality profession, but wanted to test myself against the highest requirements I could find. However, you need to pass the lower level certifications first.

What do you want to have achieved in five years’ time? 

The impending birth of my second child will be taking up a significant portion of my personal life. Professionally, Rubberatkins is part way through the implementation of a Lean Program and we will be looking at driving our organisational excellence programmes to the next level by introducing a non-contact measurement programme. Non-contact measurement offers the ability to assess the dimensional integrity or profile of a part quickly without touching the surface.

What advice do you have for others in their careers?

Get yourself an education. If you find you can't rely on your employer to deliver the training you want or need, then do not hesitate to invest in yourself. The results will be worth it and you can never fail if you're always learning.