For over 50 years, Magog have served the plastic rubber and other specialist industries with the design, manufacture and supply of extrusion, injection moulding, blow moulding, preform and compounding screws, barrels and precision components. Director and General Manager John Allsop has been in the engineering industry since 1995, with four years running Magog. He is the next PlastikCity Partner to face the HotSeat…
What trends do you think will shape the future of UK plastics? How will Magog respond?
How plastics can make a positive contribution to the Circular Economy will I believe be a continuing trend over the coming years. Significant focus and activity appears to be in 3 specific areas a) the development of polymers with recyclable and biodegradable properties, b) re-processing of Post-Consumer Plastic Waste in to usable products and c) development of reprocessing systems to produce fuel oils, gases and other heavy oils from waste plastics.
As a company we have a great interest in developing technologies; working closely with customers on specific, screw designs and wear resilience technologies to suit their unique processing and production requirements. – We will continue to build close relationships with end users, material manufacturers and our specialist suppliers to ensure we maintain a leading position within the sector.
How has Magog developed during your tenure?
We recognised several years ago that manufacturing expertise alone would not be enough to sustain our business, over recent years we have focussed our investment in engineering and materials processing knowledge in order that we can provide solutions rather than simply replacement parts.
What do you credit as the key to your success?
Our success in recent years is 100% attributed to the flexibility of colleagues across the business to embrace change, whether that is in the changes we have made in manufacturing technologies, individuals training and skills development to be able to take on new responsibilities or engaging fully with changes in processes and procedures designed to improve our reliability as a supplier.
What has been the greatest challenge in your career?
I have been very fortunate in my career to have visited many countries across the globe, one of my greatest challenges in the early years of my career was learning to be resourceful and open minded enough to adapt to different business cultures, whilst at times this was challenging, the experiences and personal satisfaction establishing close business relationships has been very rewarding.
What advice do you wish you’d had on entering the industry and does that differ from the advice you would give to an Apprentice joining now?
I started working in the Plastics Processing Machinery Sector as an apprentice back in the late 1970’s – at that time the only advice I was given was keep your head down and you’ll be OK – Over the years I have come to appreciate how diverse our industry is, my advice to young people joining now on either apprenticeship in manufacturing or as a graduate engineer is to exploit every opportunity to learn as much about the industry as possible; plastics will be with us for many years to come and for those that wish to progress a rewarding, challenging and interesting long term career is out there.
What hidden talents do you have?
I have enrolled on a course to learn stand-up comedy.
