Fin Rooney began his career at Siemens Healthineers as an intern while on and industrial placement year. He studied Business with Economics at Northumbria University.
What are the main duties of your role as Materials Analyst?
We ensure continuity of supply for all materials required to build our MRI magnets. A lot of our job involves working cross functionally with suppliers, engineering teams, and members of the shop floor. We are also local experts in the use of enterprise resource planning software. We use this software to control inventory levels, organise production orders, and as a data source for improvements projects.
What attracted you to work for Siemens Healthineers Magnet Technology?
I joined Siemens Healthineers as an intern, while on an industrial placement year. I was looking for a role that wasn’t 100% spent behind a desk, and this role is perfect, more like 80/20. Siemens is a household name, and being situated on the outskirts of Oxford, it is an attractive part of the world to move to. Medical technology is also an industry that contributes positively both to society, and the economy.
What does your typical working day look like?
A key part of our culture is lean methodology. As part of this, we use agile visual management (AVM) to organise our work through a hierarchy of cross functional meetings. The day starts with a production area AVM meeting which highlights any urgent issues to for the day. After that, my day is usually a mix of improvement projects, discrepancy problem solving work, and collaboration with suppliers to ensure continuity of supply to the shop floor.
What are the greatest challenges you face?
A key part of our culture is lean methodology. As part of this, we use agile visual management (AVM) to organise our work through a hierarchy of cross functional meetings. The day starts with a production area AVM meeting which highlights any urgent issues to for the day. After that, my day is usually a mix of improvement projects, discrepancy problem solving work, and collaboration with suppliers to ensure continuity of supply to the shop floor.
What is the most rewarding part of your job?
For me, being able to solve these problems in a cross functional way always yields the most satisfaction. When a truly cross functional effort between suppliers, engineers, materials, and the shop floor result in the resolution of an issue, everyone can gain satisfaction from that. I also enjoy the data driven approach to problem solving we employ here. It takes a lot of the guess work and politics out of problem solving and allows everyone to get to the route of the problem, with much clearer decision making.
If you were encouraging others to work at Magnet Technology, what would you say?
MT offers a great combination of large multinational company resources, mixed with smaller company culture. There’s ample scope for development through various internal schemes, as well as a solid management support structure that encourages regular 1:1 meetings. The work is challenging, meaningful, and worthwhile. There’s also a great subsidised canteen, and a free onsite gym.
