Production Technician

As we continue our mission to make people and nature happy through re-inventing chocolate, we’re looking for a Production Technician to join our Chocolate Manufacturing Team on a permanent basis. Our Production Technicians are vital in managing the production of our award-winning chocolates across several of our manufacturing lines – including the infamous Velvetiser. Responsibilities include ensuring that all machinery settings are correct, changing over equipment when necessary as well as mixing and depositing chocolate alongside monitoring samples. All of this helps us to continue manufacturing world class chocolates.

So, what are you waiting for?

Shift Pattern: Monday to Friday on a weekly rotating shift pattern of 6am – 2pm and 2pm – 10pm.

As well as a competitive salary and a range of company benefits including enhanced maternity and paternity leave and Company pension contributions, you’ll receive 50% discount on all products, and a 70% discount for you and your guests when you stay at our Rabot Estate hideaway on the paradise island of Saint Lucia.

The onsite location for this role is at our Factory ‘Hadley Park’, in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, right in the heart of where our chocolates are made and where weekly, we can produce between 4 to 6 million of the chocolates we all know and love.

Hadley Park is just 5 minutes off the A141 and 1.3 miles from Huntingdon train station, with direct rail links to London King’s Cross.

What you’ll be doing – Delivery

• As subject matter expert for your area, utilise your knowledge and experience to operate the asset in an efficient and effective manner, in accordance with the production plan.
• Communicate with the Production Technicians of other departments, to ensure that filling arrives on the line for processing just in time.
• Communicate with other departments including Warehouse and Hygiene to ensure all materials, equipment, and resources are available before shift and during the day to complete the plan.
• Act as the ‘subject matter expert’ during trial runs, contributing to the trial, offering suggestions and providing feedback via the First Production Run log.
• Optimise the production plan by working with the Team Managers to recommend a run order that optimises the efficiency of the asset e.g. through reduction in changeovers.
• Demonstrate high levels of targeted performance in line with KPIs, communicating any risk to plan completion to your Team Manager.
• Maintain and update relevant reports for your asset: first production run log, SIC sheet, Live Knobel plan, process non-conformances.
• Changeover assets to the scheduled changeover time whilst demonstrating a high level of due diligence and attention to detail throughout assembly and dis-assembly of machine parts to eradicate damage to equipment.
• Championing reducing waste in your area, highlighting where overuse has become the norm, targeting a 100% Works Order attainment (no over or under-builds) and identifying wasteful activities.
• Handover your asset to the incoming shift to ensure zero downtime during shift change, ensuring the next shift has all the necessary information required for a successful shift ahead.
• Ensure the asset is handed over in a clean and operational state, as you would wish to find it.
• Abide by Hotel Chocolat’s Standard Operating Procedures: improve, update and create new SOP’s where required.
• Work closely with the Engineering team: minimising line downtime and supporting Root Cause Analyses.
• Input specific Works Order requests competently into the Pirana system.

Quality

• Ensure that the asset operates in a Food Safe environment with no cross-contamination risk from the previous WO, with no environment factors posing a threat to the operational environment.
• Working proactively to reduce any risk of foreign bodies.
• Ensure full adherence with the production specification throughout the products’ journey, from material compliance to finished goods packing.
• Deliver product quality, right first time.
• Seek, and react to feedback from the end-of-line team to amend and adjust the asset output to optimise quality of product.
• Assess and approve the asset to run following engineering intervention or hygiene work.
• Employ a ‘Clean as You Go’ motto, ensuring the GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) of your asset always remains to the highest standards, consistently scoring above 96% in GMP audits.

People

• Support, develop and mentor Senior Machine Operators to a level where they are competent as a Production Technician on your asset and associated processes.
• Act as a Hotel Chocolat ambassador: driving the culture of pride for the produce by setting and demanding high standards.
• Demonstrate a collaborative working approach, constructively challenging members of your own team, and other departments to deliver improvement in ways of working.
• Seek continuous personal development and receive feedback openly.

Safety

• Ensure a safe working environment for yourself and your team, championing a zero-accident culture.
• Identify any risks and raise improvements to current practices the Near Miss / Hazard reporting.
• Where relevant, champion the use of manual handling aids in line with Health and Safety improvements.

Who you are…

Essential

• Food Safety Level2 qualification.
• HACCP trained.
• Knowledge of KPIs.
• Strong verbal and written English to clearly discuss performance of your asset / process.

Desirable

• Knowledge of Continuous Improvement skills, with the ability to deploy critical thinking.
• A proactive working style: planning ahead whilst also having the ability to multi-task and adopt / flex to an ever-changing environment.

Who are we?

We’re one of the UK’s favourite premium chocolate brands, with a range of products spanning luxury gifts, alcohol and our pioneering drinking chocolate system, the Velvetiser. A cacao pod takes years to grow – it can’t be rushed if it’s going to be just right for our products. The same can be said for Hotel Chocolat, which originally started as a mint production company before we realised it was luxury chocolate that we were really passionate about.Now, we’re market leaders in the industry. What began as an online-only business grew to over 100 stores across the UK, and we’re still growing… Today, we’re multi-category, multi-channel, and multi-territory, and our customers, colleagues, cacao farmers and suppliers all benefit from the success we make together.

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