Rebecca Scott Davies

Year one

Placements and highlights

Auto Store and internal systems

The Bentley Manufacturing System

She’s only been on the graduate programme for 12 months, but already Rebecca Scott Davies can count the highlights. “For my first six months I was in my home department, production maintenance. Next came a short placement in logistics, building relationships and connections. Then came a project I’ve only just finished, in the manufacturing systems department, an event that hosted over 2,000 Bentley colleagues. That’s by far the biggest project I’ve ever been involved in.”

For early careers entrants like Rebecca, placements provide a valuable insight into the way the company works and different departments interact. “I'm now on placement for six weeks with the technical assistant to Andreas Lehe, board member for manufacturing. It was literally straight after the event finished that I learned I was going to work with a board member. I thought straight away, what an opportunity!”

Rebecca’s introduction to production maintenance involved the umbrella internal system that links all of Bentley’s departments in a shared database.

“We had about 5,000 assets in our internal system. I was tasked to reduce that number to about 3,000 by cutting the redundant ones, like print outs of service documents that we don't need anymore. It reduced the clutter, so it made everything a lot more efficient.”

Another project involved auto store, an automatic storage facility for the small parts warehouse. “We have 35 robots that run around on the top of a big cube that's 17 storage boxes high. They go down and pick the box they need and a different set of robots put them onto a conveyor ready to be taken to the line. I'm making sure that we have everything we need in place so we can avoid disrupting production at all costs.”

For her next placement, Rebecca was part of the team launching the Bentley Manufacturing System. The event was held in the new production facility where Torcal is assembled and was designed to communicate Bentley’s ‘Driving Excellence’ strategy to over 2,000 colleagues. Twelve stations, like market stalls, communicated the values behind the strategy and hosted up to 15 colleagues a time in a carefully choreographed sequence. “It was very quick fire; two minutes of information, four minutes of interaction, then on to the next. It was like a production line! Four of us worked on the project, supported by 150 presenters over the four days, with 70 chaperones to take people around the tour.”

The final stage took colleagues past a timeline of Bentleys, from the Mark VI, the first car to be produced in Crewe, finishing with a photo opportunity alongside the new Torcal. “The feedback was great – people really appreciated and enjoyed the journey.”

Yelena sat at a desk, typing on a laptop.

Career Path

Choosing Bentley

Bump caps

Rebecca graduated from Birmingham University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, but the automotive industry wasn’t her original ambition. “When I was younger, I wanted to go into the navy! For as long as I can remember I wanted to make a difference and have an impact on as many people as possible.”

At school, Rebecca’s drive to make a difference saw her working with local communities in Borneo. “I was part of a group of 40. We had a lot of fun, but we also did activities like tree planting, beach cleanup and building toilets for local schools. We taught local children some English as well.”

A placement at Bentley during her university studies saw her career ambitions change. “I am from the Cheshire area, and the local word of mouth was yes, Bentley's really good, you should apply. They had that reputation already.”

Rebecca first experienced the Bentley culture on industrial placement while at university. “I was a technical assistant for the head of the Continental GT production line. One of my projects was to analyse minor incidents on the production line. I extracted the data of incidents from the last eight years, mapped them on the production line so you could see the hotspots, and then broke it down into where and why the accidents were happening.”

The data revealed that there was a risk on workstations where colleagues worked underneath the cars. “My manager took that finding to Health and Safety and the manufacturing board and said, hey, we've got an issue. Let's fix it. And that's when bump caps for colleagues on those stations were introduced. I've since come back and seen that they're still wearing them, which is great.”

Work-life balance

Sporting prowess

Ambition

Looking ahead

When she’s not hard at work at Crewe, Rebecca puts in an equally hard shift on multiple sports. She plays water polo at a national level in a team representing the city of Liverpool. “I've just found out that I'm going away to Finland! Our group includes a Greek team, a Polish team and an Irish team. That should be fun…”

Rebecca also plays rugby for the Chester Devas. “I've got rugby on Monday, swimming on Tuesday, gym on Wednesday, polo Thursdays and Sundays, matches at the weekends. It's so busy.” As if that wasn’t enough, she recently completed the Antrim half marathon with a team of Bentley early careers graduates. “I’m not a runner at all, so it was one of the most difficult things I’ve done. But the scenery was beautiful and we raised money for the Cancer Fund for Children.”

Rebecca Scott Davies is just at the start of her career at Bentley, but she’s already thinking about the future. “I really enjoy working in manufacturing. I'd love to get as much experience as possible of different areas within the company and see what difference I can make.”

Meanwhile, her next placement awaits, working with board member Andreas Lehe. “The Bentley Manufacturing System that we launched to 2,000 of our colleagues is a new beginning. We’ve built the dream factory, we have the hardware, now it’s about implementing the fine detail. I can’t wait to get started.”

Varun’s career at Bentley is only just beginning, and he’s looking forward to getting a bigger picture of the company through placements in different departments. “I'm currently with the concepts team, and I’ve got another placement coming up in manufacturing with the aim of rounding myself out as an engineer. I want to get a strong technical grounding within R&D, so I can be in the thick of the design process and implementing technical changes.”

Does he have any advice for other students who might be considering a career or a placement at Bentley? “From my own experience, everyone at Bentley has been really accommodating with seeing what your skills are and then coming up with a plan for you. So I’d definitely say give it a go and speak to the early careers team.”