Interview with Alison Drummond

“Sharing of international knowledge and experience”

Alison Drummond is a systems engineer in the small projects group within the service department of Yokogawa in Runcorn. Together with 8 colleagues and their contractors this department covers basically the whole United Kingdom. The office is specialized in the maintenance and servicing of all types of equipment and processes supplied by Yokogawa. Its aim is to provide clients from different kinds of businesses automation solutions and support facilities. The service department maintains long term relationships with its clients, due to the optimal expertise of its technical department.

No-nonsense mentality
The character of her work is largely technical and is often carried out on site. Alison confirms: “We are always on the road, working at power plants, refineries, chemical plants or pharmaceutical industries. Because of the size of our organisation, communication routes are short. There is a no-nonsense mentality and we try to deliver service every minute of the day as quickly as possible.”

In her ‘former life’ Alison used to work with DCS equipment of Yokogawa. “So I knew Yokogawa when I started working for the company.” Alison proudly continues: “We stand for the best quality and the best service”. Alison deals with clients within the UK, but she also often travels abroad to countries like Ireland and Qatar. “In Qatar I stayed for a few weeks commissioning a system for a client from the UK with a joint venture there.”

Understanding customer’s requirements
“I graduated in chemical engineering which is an advantage with respect to many of our clients. Apart from being an expert on our equipment and systems I also understand their production processes and functional requirements”, Alison concludes.

“What I enjoy very much is when we replace a system of our competitors. Recently we replaced the batch DCS of a company that used to use one of our competitors systems. After replacing the DCS, the company was more than satisfied and we now also have the maintenance agreement with them”. Alison is enthusiastic about her colleagues and the opportunities she gets from Yokogawa to invest in her own future. “We are able to follow training and courses as long as it helps us to develop for the benefit of the business and our clients.”

Open atmosphere
At the moment Alison is interested in gaining a lot of practical knowledge and a wide experience in order to be available to work on all kinds of interesting projects. Also long term projects. In due course she might be interested in having more managerial tasks.

“The atmosphere within the service department and contact with the other Yokogawa colleagues is very good. Yokogawa organises a number of excellent social events throughout the year and generally looks after staff very well. I do feel like a valued member of the team.”

“What strikes me most however, is the way Yokogawa manages its international knowledge.” Alison clarifies that Yokogawa has a facility on the company intranet for its technicians, called “Hatena”, which is a kind of internal forum for Yokogawa employees all over the world. “The exchange of experiences is very important and a great help for my daily work”, Alison states: “The sharing of international knowledge and experience is one of Yokogawa’s greatest assets”.