Holden build boss started as fitter

But just because you're sitting on the Elizabeth production line strapping wiring looms to Cruze or Commodore bodyshell doesn't mean you can't run the place one day.

New executive director of manufacturing for Holden Richard Phillips has done just that - starting his career in the northern suburbs as an apprentice fitter and machinist in the maintenance team at the Holden plant in 1987.

Fast-forward to 1991 and there's an Apprentice of The Year Award on his mantlepiece and a career path through the ranks of Holden's sole car-building facility.

"It's 25 years this July, from my perspective it's one of the great things about Holden offering a broad range of career options within the plant. "My role has changed every two to three years, I've had a pretty interesting career and never had an opportunity to get bored," he says.

In 2001, Mr Phillips moved to the role of VE Program Manager within the manufacturing engineering team that wrought major changes in the factory in preparation for the all-new Holden Commodore platforms.

Two years later he took on the manufacturing engineering and facilities director role to oversee and the execution of manufacturing requirements and plant readiness for Holden's billion-dollar VE Commodore. Mr Phillips says the plant's manufacturing future will benefit from the changes made for VE but says the future is global architectures.

"It's smoother sailing looking forward, we have a portfolio laid out over the next few years, nothing of the magnitude of VE/WM, which was fully locally-developed and produced, so working in conjunction with the global teams lowers the workload, we're sharing lessons learned from around the world," he says.

The company spent around $500 million upgrading the Elizabeth plant for the VE Commodore, as well as being able to accept global platforms as it has for the Cruze small car.

"For Elizabeth, one of our goals has been to be set up to accept global architectures going forward. That gives us the capability to look at the porfolio as we move forward and make the right portfolio choices to bring into the plant, that's the advantage of setting up the plant to bring in the whichever architecture or model that makes sense for the Australian market," he says.

One of the key advantages of the Elizabeth plant is its workforce, which Mr Phillips believes is underestimated by the general public and in reality is "highly skilled and motivated."

"My predecessors have come from a broad range of backgrounds and they all commented on how engaged and innovative the staff were here, willing to get in and solve problems - that's not say our sister plants are basket cases, not by any means," he says.

"We run one of the most complex model mixes of any GM facility, we have people here that are called on from around the world in terms of managing complexity and managing through-put, some of our people are considered best-practice and subject matter experts within GM," he says.