Rajko Machold  Managing Director of APEGG Limited

My Journey

My journey in the glass container industry began in 1991 with a three year apprenticeship at Heinz Glas, where I learnt the glass business from the bottom up. Following this I spent five years in the job change/start up team where I led job changes and was responsible for the first day pack rate. During this time I developed a deep understanding of the bottle making process.

In 1999 I joined Rexam Glass as a Project Engineer where my first assignment was to assist the integration of a newly acquired plant in Poland into the wider Rexam organisation. I worked at the plant for a period of twelve months, coaching the job change, start up and maintenance crews to improve the efficiency of the forming area. On completion of this I moved on to undertake a job change improvement project (JC benchmark), analyzing the job change operation from furnace to palletiser at six Rexam plants in order to uncover the best practices and develop a standard job change procedure to improve performance and efficiency across the group.

In 2001 I relocated to the United Kingdom to join the Rexam Glass plant at Barnsley, at that time the largest glass plant in Europe with fourteen production lines and up to eighteen job changes per week, as a Project Engineer. This was the first plant to use the standard job change procedure developed by the JC benchmark. This proved successful, achieving significant reductions to job change times and raising first day pack rates. In 2003 I accepted the role of Production Engineering Manager, leading the job change and maintenance crews for the Hot and Cold end. In addition I trained in six sigma to black belt, managed six sigma product improvement projects with customers such as Coca Cola, Kraft and InterBrev and led the award winning six sigma project (NIS improvement) on behalf of Rexam Glass. This project improved the operation and performance of the three new NIS machines at Barnsley.

In 2006, after fifteen years in a glass plant environment, I took the decision to see the industry from another perspective and joined Emhart Glass SA as a project manager. After completing three complex green field projects to deliver, install and commission IS forming machines and equipment, I was promoted to the position of Manager Project Management in 2009. In this role I managed the team of Project Managers responsible for delivering Emhart Glass projects to customers in all market areas. The main focus of this role was to develop and strengthen the project management department by working with Cranfield University's internationally recognized project management consultant.

I am looking forward to working with you

Rajko Machold
Managing Director of APEGG Ltd