Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Stevenson’s, one of the country’s major manufacturers of metal goods. Thank you for choosing us for your two weeks of work experience. My name is Julia Simmons, and since the beginning of this year I’ve been the managing director.
Stevenson’s is quite an old company. Like me, the founder, Ronald Stevenson, went into the steel industry when he left school – that was in 1923. He set up this company when he finished his apprenticeship, in 1926, although he actually started making plans two years earlier, in 1924. He was a very determined young man!
Stevenson’s long-term plan was to manufacture components for the machine tools industry – although in fact that never came about – and for the automotive industry, that is, cars and lorries. However, there was a delay of five years before that happened, because shortly before the company went into production, Stevenson was given the opportunity to make goods for hospitals and other players in the healthcare industry, so that’s what we did for the first five years.
Over the years, we’ve expanded the premises considerably – we were lucky that the site is big enough, so moving to a new location has never been necessary. However, the layout is far from ideal for modern machinery and production methods, so we intend to carry out major refurbishment of this site over the next five years.
I’d better give you some idea of what you’ll be doing during your two weeks with us, so you know what to expect. Most mornings you’ll have a presentation from one of the managers, to learn about their department, starting this morning with research and development. And you’ll all spend some time in each department, observing what’s going on and talking to people – as long as you don’t stop them from doing their work altogether! In the past, a teacher from your school has come in at the end of each week to find out how the group were getting on, but your school isn’t able to arrange that this year.
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