In “A day in the life” SEKISUI employees from all over Europe are portrayed in their daily working life. This time Jason Portlock from SEKISUI Diagnostics in Kent, UK provides insights into his day-to-day work and personal life.
Since 2006 Jason Portlock has been working for SEKISUI Diagnostics (UK) Ltd. in Kent. The 36-year old works as a QA Specialist (Quality Assurance) in a team of eight people. Last year he moved into a new house in the area of Kent, where he lives with his long-term partner.
Career as a QA Specialist
In school Jason’s dream and main goal in life was to become a vet. But his plans changed after leaving college and spending some time travelling through Africa. After coming back to England, Jason started studying zoology at the university of Reading. In the time following university he went into work and his jobs were predominately lab based. In order to see what he wanted to do and what felt right for him, Jason had many different jobs, like in the care industry yet his career always lead back to science.
Before he came to SEKISUI he worked in a lab testing food for pesticides. When that job ended in 2006, Jason saw a temporary job within the QC (Quality Control) department at SEKISUI Diagnostics. After one year in QC, he moved to the QA department. Initially Jason worked as an “Assistant” in all three areas of Quality Assurance, which includes “Validation”, “Documentation” and “Compliance”. Eventually he moved to “Compliance” full time and that is where he has been ever since.
“QA represent our customers and make sure that the products SEKISUI Diagnostics sell are fit for purpose.”
Through the eyes and ears of the customer
The main role of Compliance is to make sure that SEKISUI Diagnostics UK is following the requirements of the ISO 9001 and ISO 13485 standards in their manufacturing. Therefore, procedures exist which detail how certain things are meant to be done from manufacturing a product right through to shipping an order. Jason predominantly reviews these processes.
“The manufacturing department also raise non-conformances to notify us of a change, explain why a procedure couldn’t be followed and what impact to product quality that may have. It is our job in quality to assess that from an objective point of view to make sure that we keep our customers happy, and prevent us from releasing product to the market, which may not perform or could be unsafe.”
Day to day work
Jason’s role in QA is much wider than it would perhaps be in larger organisations. Whether it is supplier management, internal audits, customer complaints, batch record review or product release, Jason and the rest of the QA compliance team share responsibility of a variety of tasks. In his job he has a preference for new projects.
“I like working on new projects because they are challenging and I have to think about new ways of working. These often provide opportunities to improve which benefit everyone at SEKISUI.” What Jason likes most about his job is the people. “I don’t think I would have been at SEKISUI for eleven years if it wasn’t for the people.”
Engagement within SEKISUI Diagnostics
Besides his job in Quality, Jason contributes to different activities within SEKISUI Diagnostics. He is anactive member of the CSR team, which is divided into three sub-teams – the well-being team, the community team and the environment team. Jason leads the environment team and co-organises the annual Environment Week at the site. “Building Biodiversity” was this year’s theme and the team began to implement the recommendations of the “Global Nature Fund” biodiversity survey from 2016. “We want to increase local biodiversity by planting of a Wildlife (and also staff) Friendly garden.”
A typical working day
On a typical working day, Jason has a usual morning routine. “I am a creature of habit, so everything is always done in the same order.” And it looks like this: He wakes around 7am and starts with a cup of tea and feeds the cat. Jason then showers and gets dressed before feeding the two chickens. Just before he leaves for work he makes a coffee for the journey and then out of the door. Jason leaves the house at 8:20 am and arrives at site usually around by 8:45am, depending on the traffic.
When he arrives at work the first thing Jason does is turn on his computer and then makes a coffee, back at his desk he checks his calendar and looks at his emails to see what is coming up for the day, plan and prioritise tasks: “Batch release comes always first because that enables product to ship to customers.” Afterwards Jason works through his To-Do list and his inbox, whether it is non-conformance management, batch reviews, dealing with suppliers for change notifications or approving document changes.
He generally breaks for lunch around 12 o’clock. Jason usually has sandwiches whilst reading a book or talking to colleagues in the lunch room or will go off site, do a little shopping, or visits his mom, who lives just down the street in Maidstone.
After lunch break Jason returns to his desk and continues with his daily tasks. Almost every day he attends at least one meeting e.g. a site meeting, a QA meeting or of any other department in the organisation: “We attend a lot of meetings, and we are usually there in an advisory capacity. Quality runs through the entire organisation which means QA interact with every function at some point, and we get to understand all of the different processes.”
Leisure time in the garden
Jason’s working day ends at 5 pm. After arriving at home and doing some domestic chores he likes to spend his evenings in the garden, where he grows herbs, fruits and vegetables. He is also very interested in “wild food” and loves walking so he likes to go out and forage for a lot of free edibles. Jason is also a qualified Aromatherapist and is occasionally called upon to help out a friend in distress.
