Blog » Julie Shannon

Julie Shannon

17th June 2015

Role: Group Support Manager

Company: Almac Group

Track Record:

Julie joined Almac Group in 2001 from Fujitsu. Since then she has progressed through the Information Services team, and now has responsibility for leading a global team to support Almac’s Information Services (IS) infrastructure, network, databases, systems and hardware. Based at the company’s headquarters in Craigavon, she has also worked at Almac’s Pennsylvania facility, giving her in-depth knowledge of their global business and regulations.

6.45AM: Wake up, check any overnight e-mails and have a cup of tea. As I am a working mum, I also need to get my two boys out of bed and ready for school.

7.45AM: Leave home in Moira and drive to the school bus stop to drop off my eldest son, before heading on to Almac in Craigavon. I’m always happy to go to work as I genuinely really enjoy my job.

In the 14 years that I’ve worked here I’ve seen a huge amount of changes, as the company has enjoyed great success and expanded rapidly.This has meant that we need to keep growing our team and we are always on the look-out for talented IT staff.

8.15AM: My first task for the day is to meet with our UK Service Delivery Supervisor to identify the critical tasks for the UK team and agree objectives for the day.

Almac Group is at the forefront of pharmaceutical and clinical development, and it is therefore critical that all systems remain available 24/7 to keep all of its business units and over 3,600 employees working, uninterrupted.

I am also responsible for the release management process which requires me to ensure that all appropriate approvals and documentation are in place prior to any change being made to any system, network or hardware element within Almac. This keeps me pretty busy every day!

8.30AM: Review my calendar for the day with our departmental personal assistant, plan my meetings for the day ahead and respond to any outstanding e-mails.

9.00AM: Log on to our service management system to assess system health and review any new user requests which have been logged overnight.

In Almac we follow an ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) Best Practice model which requires all user requests and issues to be logged, tracked and closed out via formal procedures. As we develop pharmaceutical compounds and work with pharmaceutical drug products, we also need to comply with all pharmaceutical regulations both in the USA, Europe and more recently Asia, ensuring that quality is always maintained.

10.00AM: Almac is in the final stages of opening its first Asia Pacific facility in Singapore.

To ensure that all systems are set up in compliance with our global procedures, members of my team have travelled to Singapore for extended periods so it is necessary to meet with them while on site to support the implementation of these and resolve any issues as they arise. This is now part of the final phase of our IS delivery, and follows on from 12 months of development, planning and implementation of our global enterprise resource planning application.

11.00AM: I have a regularly scheduled meeting with software development heads and external consultants who are responsible for support of our systems to review new or urgent user requests.

This meeting will ensure there is collaboration between different teams and a shared understanding of the actions and next steps with the aim to close out the user requests in a timeframe that is acceptable to the user and in line with business expectations.

12.30PM: Lunchtime. I usually go to Almac’s canteen ‘The Alcove’ as I find it good to get away from my desk for lunch each day and have the opportunity to have non-work discussions with my colleagues.

Sometimes a meeting will run through lunch and I need to grab something at my desk.

1.00PM: As the US has now come online it is necessary to meet with the US service delivery supervisor to review critical actions for the US team and agree objectives for the day.

1.30PM: To ensure that all changes to the IS infrastructure are controlled and approved, it is necessary that the Almac IS team has a Change Approval Board (CAB). This CAB consists of a team of managers within the department who meet, review and approve all infrastructure changes in advance of them being implemented.
All changes are documented on a change control template and presented to the CAB at a weekly meeting. It is the responsibility of the CAB to challenge the proposed change and ensure that all risks and impacts have been assessed in advance of approval.
Once approved it is my responsibility to ensure all required paperwork is in place before scheduling the deployment of the change into the appropriate environments from system test to user acceptance testing and ultimately into the production environment.

2.30PM: It is important for the IS department to meet with the senior managers across the group to ensure IS understands the individual business strategies and that we can have input into the design of systems which are being implemented. I attend a monthly meeting where I present information on the work undertaken by my team along with metrics associated with key performance indicators for the IS service.

4.00PM: Catch up at my desk, review emails and prepare meeting actions for the next day. Check my voicemails and make any necessary phone calls.

5.15PM: Leave the office to collect my children from after schools activities and the bus stop.

6.00PM: Dinner.

7.00PM: Most nights my children have activities in the evening so I spend the next few hours driving from music lessons to scouts to judo practice or rugby training, depending on which evening it is. On nights when my children don’t have any activities we’ll generally relax together as a family and watch TV or play a game.

9.00PM: After getting the children to bed it’s time to put the feet up for a few hours before bed.

11.00PM: Bed and rest ready for the busy day ahead!

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