From servicing instruments to examining promises

Mandate

Align customer commitments with the conditions needed to produce usable test evidence.

Outcomes

• Funded repetition of 96 affected runs after a fixture review
• Rebuilt six chamber programmes around their full technical sequence
• Corrected a report that blurred 72 runs and 24 devices

Decisions in context

The COO appointment joined capacity, expenditure and customer commitments in one operating remit. I lead five heads responsible for the people and facilities that deliver our agreed work, while technical quality retains authority over methods and conclusions. The distinction matters most when a correction makes the commercial result less attractive. I have to secure time, equipment and funding for the response and explain its consequence to the chief executive. I also present operating matters to directors, without being a director myself. The recent cases show where my own review needed improvement: accepting a completed-run total, encouraging occupancy without enough context and allowing a summary count to imply too much. My continuing responsibility is to make those questions part of how the team works, rather than rely on a personal intervention after a customer challenges the result.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; developing operating leadership around the validity of delivery commitments.

Mandate

Coordinate work across laboratories without assuming their capabilities are interchangeable.

Outcomes

• Recorded dependencies before moving programmes between locations
• Brought technical review capacity into delivery planning
• Made correction costs visible in customer commitment reviews

Decisions in context

The second laboratory created useful options, but it also made a simple capacity total less informative. A free instrument in one location might lack the fixture, prepared specimen or qualified reviewer needed for a particular programme. I worked with four managers to describe those dependencies before moving work. The appointment brought me into more commercial discussions, where I had to explain why a technically necessary step changed the date or cost. I learned to present alternatives without implying that every alternative produced equivalent evidence. Leading across locations also meant trusting managers to surface a constraint early, rather than reward only the appearance of a full schedule. By the end of the role I was spending as much time on the conditions of a promise as on its execution. That broader responsibility prepared me for the COO appointment in 2020.

Reason for the move

Promoted to COO with responsibility for the complete operating system.

Mandate

Turn agreed methods into feasible daily work while preserving technical decision boundaries.

Outcomes

• Identified equipment and operator dependencies in daily schedules
• Introduced clearer escalation for incomplete setup instructions
• Recorded reasons for invalid runs before scheduling repetition

Decisions in context

Supervising a laboratory taught me that an operating plan has to survive contact with the actual equipment and people available. I led twenty-four colleagues whose work could be interrupted by a missing fixture, an unclear instruction or a result that needed review before the next stage. My role was to organise the response and escalate technical questions, not invent an answer to preserve the schedule. I also learned how the way a supervisor reacts to a problem affects whether the next problem is reported. If every invalid run is treated as carelessness, people may spend too long trying to rescue it without asking for help. We kept the reason visible and distinguished a necessary investigation from avoidable repetition. That experience helped me move into a role where I had to coordinate the same disciplines across more than one laboratory.

Reason for the move

Advanced to delivery leadership as the company added a second laboratory.

Mandate

Connect specimens, instructions and equipment reservations before test activity begins.

Outcomes

• Matched specimen identifiers to agreed programme instructions
• Recorded unresolved configuration questions at intake
• Improved handovers between customer coordination and laboratory teams

Decisions in context

Coordination was a different discipline from servicing instruments. I had to understand what the customer wanted examined and make sure the necessary object, instruction and equipment reached the same point in the schedule. I did not approve methods or decide whether a result supported the customer's product claim. My contribution was to identify the missing condition before the team spent time on work that could not answer the intended question. I learnt to resist filling an empty field with an assumption merely because a booking was due to be confirmed. The laboratory manager helped me distinguish a routine clarification from a technical change requiring formal review. Over six years I became more confident explaining those distinctions to customers and technicians. The supervisory appointment followed because I could connect the daily work without hiding the decisions that remained outside my authority.

Reason for the move

Promoted to supervise daily laboratory delivery.

Mandate

Document instrument faults, work performed and questions needing senior technical judgement.

Outcomes

• Kept configuration and service observations together
• Recorded limitations alongside completed maintenance work
• Escalated unexplained readings before returning equipment for use

Decisions in context

I began with instrument inspection and service work under a senior engineer. A display could look stable while a connection or setting made the reading unsuitable for the customer's purpose. I learned to record what I had changed and to ask for help where the explanation remained uncertain. The job did not give me authority to certify every instrument or decide every measurement question. It gave me a practical respect for the conditions behind an apparently simple result. Customer visits also showed me why the service report needed to be understandable to the person deciding whether the equipment could return to work. After nearly seven years, I wanted to understand a wider sequence of technical activity. Moving into test coordination allowed me to connect that experience with planning, customer instructions and the organisation of laboratory resources.

Reason for the move

Joined a test-services laboratory to learn programme coordination.