Christophe Ruis, 44 years old, joined the company in 2003 as a multi-faceted worker and has since moved up within the company to become production manager. He is currently in charge of planning and ordering: a position at the heart of the industrial process that requires patience, organization and rigor. A job that is perfect for this sportsman who is used to long-term challenges!

 

I will be celebrating my 19 years with Galland in June. I joined the company in 2003 as a multi-faceted worker, with a BEP diploma (Brevet d’Etudes professionnelles) as a maintenance agent. I had already worked in big companies as a joining agent or as an operator of digitally controlled tools. I left the Bélier foundry to join the Galland company. The company had just invested in new premises in La-Lande-de-Fronsac. Everything had to be done: we were somewhere between an arts and crafts workshop and an industry, but I felt there was talent, energy and a fantastic capacity of adaptation there.

 

“My first piece: a riveted steady arm in aluminum”

I remember my first pieces; the riveted steady arms in aluminum, the 204895 and the 204902. Then Galland made a big technological jump going from a small series made manually (with a drill) to a bigger series requiring a mastery of tools controlled digitally. In 2003 there were 7 of us to make between 700 and 1000 section insulators.

Five years later we were making 5 times that many with only 5 operators. New employees can sometimes hardly believe that so many pieces were manufactured and in shifts of 2/8 in a smaller workshop (twice as small)! Since then, there have been more staff, the site was industrialized and extended in size, but without losing a sense of proximity with the team: there are still three families working in the personnel department, and management knows how to listen.

 

“To plan is to predict the unpredictable”

My profession has also changed. I guarantee the delivery of customer orders at the agreed date. I make sure that there is always raw material in stock, that there is machine capacity and personnel for production. We enter a maximum of data in the ERP – the management software – in order to be more and more precise, more productive and so more profitable. It is a complicated period, because the pandemic and recent geopolitical events make this management very delicate. The rise of prices in raw materials, the health crisis, the logistical difficulties – all of these factors are additional challenges to our production organization. More than ever, to plan is to predict the unpredictable: it’s our job to organize production in such a fashion that these unforeseeable difficulties are accounted for in order to gain rapidity and adaptability and to deliver to our clients at the agreed time. The context is not easy, but it also allows our team to be dynamic and to work well together. It’s this team spirit and a willingness to rise to the challenge that I also find in sport which is a passion of mine.

 

His hobbies

I am training for the “Tour d ’Aquitaine” bicycle race and I am also going to try the “Tour des Charentes” mountain bike race. Having participated in the “ultra-trails” for a number of years, at the end of March, I am participating in the 24-hour multisport for my association: the French spondylarthritis team where you can show that you can overcome the problems linked to our disease thanks to sport.

 

His mantra

“Dare and keep fighting!”