Employee Spotlight: Christopher Holder, Group Quality Compliance Manager

Group Quality Compliance manager, Christopher Holder has been instrumental in the development of Rebound’s quality management system over the past 5 years, with his most recent role focusing on client and supplier relationships, audits and certifications, anti-counterfeit and obsolescence.

Initially joining Rebound as Quality Manager, Chris has recently been promoted to Group Quality Compliance Manager which is designed to bridge the gap between Rebound’s quality department and the rest of the business. He focuses on client relations, providing a more direct point of contact for the client and account managers when issues or queries arise concerning quality. Additionally, providing a link between Rebound and our suppliers when problems need resolving, managing this, and liaising with the quality team and sales department.

Alongside this, all external audits are overseen by Chris. Rebound currently hold a multitude of certifications, ISO13485, AS9120, ISO9001 and ANSI-ESD S20.20. He deals with our external certification bodies, ensuring we remain at the standard required to be compliant. On top of external audits, Chris aids and oversees all client audits and visits to our UK warehouse.

Within his new role, Chris has expanded his global travel including visiting various clients as well as attending conferences relating to anti-counterfeit and obsolescence. He comments on his recent visit to Washington, US for an anti-counterfeit symposium which was headed up by leading industry standard and committees:

“It had so much information about the changes to standards that you don’t often hear, you don’t get notified of why changes have come in, what the purpose of the changes are. Whereas we had two speakers at the symposium who were chairman of the standards, so we had first-hand why they’ve made the changes, what the changes are, what the impact will be and what the timescales are. It was a really good visit.”

As part of his continued work on anti-counterfeit, Chris has played an active role in Rebound recently achieving the IDEA-STD-1010 membership and IDEA-QMS-9090 certification. Rebound has been operating to this standard for years and working to achieve membership status, however Covid put a holt to it. Now, Rebound is able to promote that we are members and conform to the standard set during the inspection process.

Chris’ first project within Rebound was to attain the ANSI-ESD S20.20 certification which was passed with zero nonconformities is both stages 1 and 2. He talks about how this was a huge accomplishment. “For a standard that I’d never really been involved in or know fully what the requirements are. This was a quick learning curve and to then to produce a documented control plan that allowed us to pass first time was a great achievement.”

The restructuring of the quality management system is additionally one of Chris’ biggest achievements whilst working at Rebound. He, along with the quality team, have worked to modernise the system, creating a more streamline approach that it still compliant with all our standards. This has helped to ensure a better understanding of the processes across the whole business, a common understanding of procedures and standards, meaning the level of service our clients receive remains high across the board.

When asked about any challenges he has faced within his time at Rebound, Chris discusses how Covid was the biggest challenge he has faced in his adult career. Having to navigate lockdowns and working from home on top of a shortage market, where there was a huge ramp up in work for not only the quality team but the entire company. As a company, we continued to match our level of service, with our warehouse team willing to work on location throughout the pandemic and a management system and capabilities that enabled us to otherwise work without a fixed location to the same standard and keep the business running.

“I think with the procedures and the things we do internally, we’ve shown that no matter what the market throws at us, we can adapt.”

Moving forward for the quality department, Chris aims to continue to promote quality and make it the heart of the business, with the quality management system as the “nerve system”. He intends to maintain the level of service we provide now at the standard we are at and promote sustainability across the business on how queries and issues are dealt with and resolved. “It’s what we do differently and that is that service. Especially our capabilities and our warehouse, over the years we’ve developed test equipment to really ensure that the service the clients are getting is the best.”

Thank you, Chris, for your continued hard work, we look forward to seeing how you continue help to develop our quality commitment at Rebound!