Operations Manager
CurrentMidland News Association Ltd – Britain’s largest independent regional news publisher, covering the West Midlands, Shropshire and Mid Wales.In this role I am responsible for the production and printing requirements of the full newspaper and magazine portfolio. Made up of two daily newspaper titles, a series of weekly titles covering the West Midlands, Staffordshire, Shropshire and Mid Wales and several regional glossy magazines. This role is very busy and works on extremely tight deadlines. It requires agility to organise print schedules and staff rotas covering day and night, 6 days of the week, to ensure products are produced and delivered on time.Overall responsibility for control of a multi-million-pound budget for consumables. This led to building strong relationships with all suppliers which helped negotiate improved terms.Other main duties include management of the press room, maintenance, Health & Safety, pre-press, planning team, page output, security, reception, cleaning. I was promoted to the role primarily to reduce staff costs and ensure continued viability of printed products, to date a £440k annual reduction in staff costs has been achieved. Initiated a new newspaper planning team to provide an outsource solution for other newspaper groups within the UK, resulting in £150k annual revenue. Organised print schedules and complex staff rotas to achieve maximum efficiency of press time, resulting in lower printing costs of around 30%.Reduced printed waste by 66% over 4 years, a saving of around £200k per year, through continuous improvement measures within the press room.Created detailed production/stock reports that enabled the financial team to produce accurate P&L reports.
