Over the next few months, we want to introduce you to the owners at Scott & Fyfe – the employees!
Therefore, each Wednesday, for 12 weeks we will be sharing one-to-one interviews with 12 of our employee owners so that you can get to know us a little better.
This week we are pleased to introduce you to David Nicoll in the second of our Meet the Owner, employee profiles.
Can you please tell us a little about yourself and what you do?
Of course, I am David (Davie) Nicoll and I work in the weaving department within S&F. Overall I operate and carry out maintenance of our weaving looms however, I have worked in quite a few departments including extrusion, coating, slitting and beaming. In coating for example, we are currently purchasing a new extrusion coating machine that will see me working on acceptance trials and installation. This will be taking up a lot of my time next year.
My role is varied as we are a fairly small team, another project I am working on at the moment is a waste reduction initiative. Here I am working in a team to identify areas that produce the most waste for the company and we are putting in new processes to improve this.
How long have you worked at Scott and Fyfe?
I have actually been working at Scott & Fyfe for over 30 years!
I started with the company as an apprentice engineer, this took four years and I spent the next four as an engineer. I have been a weaving technician ever since although I also work significantly within development. During my 30 years I was fortunate enough to spend time in Switzerland training with Sulzer to further my knowledge of weaving.
Have you seen many changes during your 30 years at Scott and Fyfe?
Ow yes definitely, with the move to employee ownership employees have gained more benefits from the company and it is fair to say I have seen a huge difference over the past 5 years alone. For example, the Innovation Space where the offices are based used to be a storage area with pieces of old equipment and bales which actually went on fire back in 1986 – this is why there is a more modern roof in this part of the building.
Over the time I have also watched the company grow from a small company with a small product range to its present state, a much bigger company with a rapidly expanding product range.
Is there anything interesting about you others may not know?
In my spare time I am a member and stage manager of the “Tayport Amateur Dramatic and Musicals Society” building the set and props for the 2 shows the society holds each year. This year the Christmas show was Alice in wonderland and I have been spending almost all of my spare time working on the set design for this – the shows ran from the 9th of December til Saturday the 12th of December.
