This week Luci is celebrating five years at RDD, and what a meteoric rise it has been!
Hi Luci, five years already?! How did you come to join RDD in the first place?
I moved to the UK from Romania when I was just 19. I’ve always been crafty at home but didn’t have any formal experience or qualifications in manufacturing techniques. I spent my first year at RDD in the fabrication team, quickly picking up the necessary skills and proving myself so capable I was promoted to Prototyping Assistant. From there I learned general workshops skills – using CNCs, laser cutters and so on.
And now you are heading up the Print Department?
That’s right, I manage a small team offering an ever-increasing range of print services to our clients. We bought an AGFA Annapurna 2.5m, flat bed printer back in 2017 and have since added a Roland TrueVIS VG2 640 Printer Cutter and a ZUND 1800x1200 CAD Cutting Table. We’ve just acquired some exciting new kit and are having further clean rooms built to house it… watch out for announcements on further new services soon!
We also have a Stratysys 250Mc FDM 3D Printer and stereolithography capabilities for rapid prototyping and model making.
That’s a lot of kit to learn…
Yes, but I love learning and am always looking for the next challenge. Migrating from AutoCAD to Illustrator and other packages keeps me interested. I’ve also written training programmes on all our equipment for the team.
And how have you found working in print different to, say, your time in the workshop?
There’s a lot more creativity involved in my role now, which I love. I’m trusted to run the department my way and given plenty of freedom to implement improvements and new ways of working as I find better solutions.
Can you give us an example of a ‘better solution’?
Sure, we ‘ve recently added xx colour matching to our services, overcoming the issues working with so many different production methods to ensure a consistent colour across the board.
What’s next?
We’re really just scratching the surface of what’s possible with some of our kit. I’m looking forwards to developing our cardboard engineering offering and also driving sustainability through intelligent design and use of materials.
