Facteon People
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Facteon People: Project Management With Passion
Meet Toby, Facteon’s Project Engineer. He’s results-driven and determined to deliver for our customers. Toby shares why he loves what he does and how he propels our customers forward on their mission to achieve business success.
Why do you love project management?
From the early conversations with our Sales team through to in-house design, procurement, component manufacture and machine build in Facteon’s facility, I’m there managing the project at every stage.
I then travel to customer sites to introduce their new machinery. I also manage the commissioning process and coordinate customer training before heading home.
There’s nothing better than the flight home. Not only am I excited to see my partner and dog, but the pride in having managed a project from start to finish is immense.
I see the customer marvelling at the line we’ve built in our facility in New Zealand reassembled on their site. It’s the best feeling. It’s such a cliché but it is a team effort. We all have a role to play in pulling off these feats of engineering. Often, we’re delivering what’s never been done before. For me, there’s nothing better.
How would you describe your role as a Project Engineer?
I’m a people wrangler – I get the right people in the right place at the right time to ensure we deliver. I’m also the customer advocate. I make sure the customer gets exactly what they’re asking for.
What gets you out of bed every day?
The chance to contribute to the future of industry. The project managers before me coordinated the installation of production lines over twenty years ago that are still in operation.
To me, that speaks to more than the reliability of the technology. It shows the importance of building a relationship with the customer. They become part of the Facteon tribe. It’s an exciting group to be a part of – once you’re in, you’re one of us. If you phone us about a production line we installed decades ago, we’re here to help.
So, what gets me out of bed every day is the ability to work with leading edge technologies that stand the test of time. Facteon is a business built on relationships – both internally and externally. The trust between the teams and with our customers is the key to mutual success. How can we expect to deliver for our customers if we don’t trust each other? That trust drives open communication and accountability – two of the predictors of success in our line of work.
There are plenty of jobs that would pay the bills. But to do something I love (most) days is rewarding. Of course, there are highs and lows but having a team I can trust backing me gives me the confidence that we will deliver. Our customers rely on us to make their businesses work, so we must deliver – and we always do.
What’s the best career advice you’ve received?
I’d say the best career advice I’ve received has become a lesson to live by:
“Learning is a lifelong journey”.
It’s important to consistently seek learning opportunities. That’s a mentality I’ve applied to my professional and personal life.
You will make mistakes, but with thorough risk management, these hiccups are manageable. Just take it on the chin, learn from it and move forward.
I think this brings a healthy degree of accountability to an organisation too.
A curiosity to learn allows us to keep operating on the leading edge of technology. This results in a world-class customer experience. The Facteon team and the customer both learn throughout the project.
In the spirit of continuous improvement, the next customer benefits from the lessons learned. Team Facteon and the solutions we deliver become stronger every time.
Toby joined Facteon in 2018. Since, he has delivered successful engineering projects across industries and markets. Toby describes his current role as a Project Engineer at Facteon as providing a broad perspective of projects from initiation, planning and execution stages, through to controlling, and ultimately closing. You can find Toby in factories across the globe ensuring our customers are delighted with custom world-class machinery. Toby’s work experience is backed by a Bachelor of Engineering, majoring in Mechatronics, from University of Auckland. He also holds a Masters in Engineering Management from University of Melbourne, Australia.