Giles Simcock

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Giles started his career as an apprentice at Dowty Fuel Systems in Cheltenham.  Working his way through the training school Giles spent a further four years progressing through the manufacturing center spending several months with each team from gear cutting, jig grinding, CNC turning and milling. Giles further progressed onto a technical apprenticeship completing his ONC and HNC whilst spending time in design office, commercial team, and procurement team. Upon completion of his apprenticeship, he secured a role within the procurement team until Dowty Fuel Systems was acquired by Lucas Aerospace Shaftmore Lane. 

Sub Contract Manufacturing

Giles relocated to Birmingham, where he took up a role with a precision machining aerospace sub-contractor supplying into Lucas Aerospace and Rolls Royce, where he managed the communication with these key accounts as well as the planning and scheduling of the shop floor to meet customer demands and revenue targets.

Introduction to Electronics

Two and a half years later the call came from an ex Dowty colleague who was working for the Advanced Power Group in North Yorks. The opportunity for Giles was at a company called WK Test based in Bognor Regis on the South Coast. Another relocation later and Giles had his first introduction to electronic sourcing, managing the production transfer of the PCBA line from North Yorks to a sub-contractor in the South of England. Giles completed his diploma in management at Chichester University whilst his role now grew to encompass master production scheduling and planning, goods inwards, stores, dispatch as well as the procurement function.  Giles completed the essential MRP limited - Material Requirements Planning training and this led to Giles’s first experience of the introduction of a new ERP system, Giles was part of the core implementation team supporting the successful go live.

Going Lean

Several years on and Giles sought out the automotive experience and lean training he so desired. Another move back to the Midlands and Giles found himself in the world of Tact time, SMED, Kanban, Re-order points and JIT deliveries. Value Stream costing and Lean accounting were introduced via Brian Maskell at BMA Inc and Giles also completed his Masterclass Lean Champion Training with the Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Centre in 2004. Giles travelled and worked with his US colleagues driving intercompany supply and planning processes whilst smoothing the flow of replenishment stock orders outside of customer led demand. During this Giles also completed an extensive experiential Leadership development programme with the leadership trust, this course had a lasting impact with many topics still at the fore of today’s leadership programmes.

Supply Chain and Manufacturing Transfer

Late 2005 and via a colleague from the Leadership Trust, Giles interviewed for a role at Malvern instruments. This was to be home for the following 13 years, where Giles established much of what Lodestone can offer today. Here Giles initiated a programme of low-cost sourcing, with huge success and with significant impact to the bottom line, setting up his own local team in China, accelerating the programme of cost reduction. During this process, extensive supplier engagement was necessary, not one UK supplier was lost, but the work balance changed from batch to more product development and quick turn. In most instances the UK supplier accounts continued to grow. There followed several acquisitions where Giles led the supply chain design, until 2010 when Spectris made their first China domestic acquisition. Here, with Giles’s extensive China supply chain background, he was selected to lead the acquired acquisition and managed the final integration into the Malvern business. Giles relocated and spent 4 years working in China, whilst also maintaining his global supply chain role, and supporting further acquisitions into the business. During this period Giles re-located the acquired factory and also set up an additional completely new manufacturing site in China, and led those manufacturing transfer activities. In 2014 Giles returned to the UK taking up the role of Operations Director. Here a rationalisation programme began on the consolidation of seven manufacturing sites from acquisitions into now three. This furthered Giles’s experience in manufacturing transfer, fitness for transfer and leading significant teams through periods of change.

Operational Excellence

 Following the merger of Malvern instruments and PanAlytical (also a Spectris company) in 2017, Giles then in addition to his UK operations director role also took on a new role of Group Operational Excellence Director. Here Giles led a team of lean experts, auditing all manufacturing sites creating a current and future state map. Giles then supported the transition of current to future with a series of Kaizen events, lean training and resource support to implement business change.

Recent Achievements

In mid 2019, Giles took up a new role joining Oxford Instruments as Operations Director.  Here Giles led the manufacturing facility through the pandemic, including support for the Red Bull ventilator challenge with several visits and supply of components being made. Giles successfully led the resourcing of key components after a supplier strategy change, navigated a way through the supply chain constraints post Covid, and then planned for a complete factory move from an aged site through to the planning and fit out of a new build manufacturing space within a 140,000sqft facility. The successful manufacturing transfer took place at the end of 2023, with no disruption to customer deliveries. Over the period of Giles tenure, the business output doubled, with numerous lean activities and events ensuring the delivery of profitable growth along the way.  The use of RPO consultants, building an excellent  management team and driving cross functional engagement all contributed to the success of the business.

Lodestone Technology

At the end of 2024 Giles has taken the logical step of founding Lodestone Technology.  Here Giles's breadth and depth of experience will be put to use supporting OEM's and their Supply chain with both management consultancy and advise, through to low cost sourcing and supply chain development.

The management consultancy and advise is primarily focused on Strategy development and deployment, using tools such as Hoshin Kanri to develop objectives,  action plans and meaningful KPI's.   Here team building and development, coaching and mentoring can also be provided.  The low cost sourcing and supply chain development takes Giles's rich experience in successful outsourcing and manufacturing transfer.  Here the vision is to support UK manufactures growth by supporting the daily batch manufacturing, allowing their capacity to be utilised supporting lower volume, higher complexity, developmental quick turn across motorsport, nuclear, scientific equipment and instrumentation, medical devices etc.   Giles has a vast network of partners across Asia as well as lower cost European countries. This provides Lodestone with access to a wide range of commodities, volumes and locations to support your business, manufacturing and supply chain strategies.