Dan Jackson’s Process Leader Level 4 Story with KMF Group

KMF Group is one of the UK and Europe’s leading sheet metal fabrication and precision engineering businesses, delivering metal fabrication, CNC machining and specialist manufacturing services to original equipment manufacturers across Europe.

Established in 1971, KMF has grown into a substantial manufacturing group, with UK and Slovakia operations spanning 255,000 sq ft of manufacturing space. Across its facilities, KMF delivers high-quality parts and assemblies for industries with complex and specialist requirements, including food, aerospace and precision engineering.

These are sectors CQM Training & Consultancy also works closely with, where operational discipline, compliance, people capability and continuous improvement have a direct impact on performance.

For Dan Jackson, Environmental, Health and Safety Manager at KMF Group, that operating environment brings wide-ranging responsibility. His role covers environmental health and safety strategy, compliance, standards, audits, facilities, sustainability and risk management across multiple areas of the business. He directly manages a team of five people, while also influencing safety, compliance and environmental performance more widely across the organisation.

Dan joined KMF in 2017 and moved into his current management role around the same time he began the Process Leader Level 4 apprenticeship with CQM Training & Consultancy. The timing was significant. KMF was looking to strengthen management capability, support succession planning and give people stepping into wider responsibility the tools to lead improvement with confidence.

“KMF were looking at more strategic and succession planning for the future, and they wanted me to backfill the position of EHS Manager,” Dan explained. “That’s why they put me on this course, to support the development and transition into the role.”

Within the first six months, Dan had taken on the manager role fully, with additional responsibility for strategy, standards, compliance, facilities and people leadership.

For Dan, the apprenticeship became much more than a qualification. It gave him a practical way to grow into the role, build confidence and formalise the leadership and improvement tools needed in a complex operational environment.

“At the start, I don’t think I had any expectations in terms of just how much I would gain by the end of the programme, not just in terms of knowledge, but also from a personal development perspective.”

The Process Leader Level 4 apprenticeship brings together leadership development, process improvement, project activity, communication, stakeholder engagement, problem solving and operational performance management.

For Dan, the value came from being able to connect those areas directly to his role. Some of the tools and language helped formalise what he had already experienced in practice, while other parts of the programme gave him new ways to think, communicate and structure improvement.

“When you start the course and relate it to your work, that’s when you see the benefit,” he said. “A lot of the topics and tools, once they’re explained, help you make sense of how and when to use them for the right situations. It also solidified some of the activity I was already doing.”

That practical connection is central to the programme. Learners are not simply attending sessions and completing assessments. They are applying what they learn to real responsibilities, real teams, real processes and real operational priorities.

For Dan, this helped bring together the technical, people and improvement elements of his role. It gave him a clearer framework for making decisions, engaging others and turning an issue or opportunity into something structured, visible and actionable.

One of the biggest personal outcomes for Dan was confidence, particularly around communication.

In a health and safety role, Dan often needs to be clear, direct and persuasive, while still building trust and supporting a positive culture. The programme helped him think more intentionally about how he communicates with different audiences, from team members and operational colleagues to senior stakeholders.

“The biggest takeaway isn’t one single piece of knowledge I gained, but more the building of confidence in myself, the way I communicate, and the way I share my knowledge and experience,” he said. “The programme really helped me understand how to talk to different audiences.”

That learning has become part of Dan’s day-to-day work. Whether he is delivering training, meeting new people or influencing how a process is followed, he now thinks more carefully about where the audience is coming from and how best to communicate with them.

For KMF, that matters because improvement depends on people as much as process. Colleagues need to understand why something matters, what needs to change and how they play their part. The programme helped Dan build the confidence and communication skills to support that in practice.

As part of the apprenticeship, Dan completed a workplace project focused on contractor management at KMF.

Contractor control is an important part of environmental health and safety, operational governance and audit readiness. For a manufacturing group operating across multiple facilities, robust systems help protect people, support compliance and give teams confidence that key information is accurate, accessible and easy to evidence.

Dan’s project created an opportunity to improve the visibility, consistency and efficiency of contractor management. Contractor documentation compliance was at 70%, client audits had highlighted contractor control as an area for improvement, around 234 hours of administrative time were being spent each year, and there was an opportunity to make ownership across departments clearer.

“The project was identified through client auditing and looking at how we could strengthen the system,” Dan explained. “It was about creating a clearer process, improving control and making sure the information was there when we needed it.”

Dan introduced a digital contractor verification system, standardised the approval process and centralised key compliance checks. This gave KMF a more streamlined way to manage contractor information, reduce manual follow-up and make documentation easier to access during audits.

“I like to ensure, where possible, that we digitise our processes and the way we do things,” Dan said. “For me, it was about improving traceability, making information easier to access and giving the business a clearer view of what is happening within the process.”

The project also enabled Dan to apply Cost of Poor Quality thinking from the programme. By looking at the time, effort and potential risk associated with the process, he was able to show how a more robust system could support efficiency, audit readiness and day-to-day confidence across the business.

“When we have an audit, the information is there on the system,” he said. “It gives you that peace of mind.”

Dan found the programme’s tools particularly useful because they helped him turn ideas, observations and project thinking into something easier to explain and share.

That was important in his contractor management project, where he needed to define the opportunity, map the process, evidence the need for change, make the case for improvement and show the impact of the solution.

“One of the things I enjoyed the most was the visualisation using different tools,” he said. “Different tools, different ways of thinking about things. When you’re going into your projects, or even in your day-to-day role, it makes it so much easier to share with people.”

The same thinking has continued beyond the apprenticeship. Dan has used the structure from the programme when planning other areas of improvement, including work linked to air quality, digital systems and ESG.

“I have used the same thing again and again,” he said. “When I look into projects and planning, it helps me put a case together and explain my point.”

That ability to select the right tool, define the issue, evidence the opportunity and communicate it clearly is central to effective process leadership.

Dan completed the apprenticeship as part of an open cohort with learners from KMF Group, AB World Foods and COOK. The group also came together in person during the programme, including a session hosted at AB World Foods in Reading.

For Dan, the open cohort format was a valuable part of the experience. It gave him access to people from other organisations and helped him see that many operational and leadership challenges are shared across different sectors, even when the context is different.

“I think it’s great to all get together, especially the in-person sessions,” he said. “Everyone was experiencing the same thing, but in a different scenario. The cultures, the way management works, the way workplaces operate. It was real-life relatable experience.”

The programme also helped shift how Dan thought about influence. Although he did not initially see himself as having a defined team reporting into him in the context of health and safety, the discussions helped him recognise the wider reach of his role.

“When I first came into this, I was thinking I haven’t got a defined team as I’d just started in my new role. Alan, my development coach at CQM, said to me, ‘you’ve got 400 people in your team.’ It’s business-wide. Your role impacts everyone.”

That insight was important. Process leadership is not limited to people with direct reporting lines. It is about influencing across teams, improving systems, engaging stakeholders and helping people work in a more consistent, effective way.

Dan was supported throughout the apprenticeship by CQM, including Development Coach Alan Clark and additional assessment support from Angela Southgate.

He described Alan as experienced, pragmatic and effective in helping learners take ownership of their progress. The support was there throughout, but it was designed to encourage responsibility rather than dependence.

“Alan was very good at the beginning, in respect of making sure you were a self-starter. You have to put the work in and make it happen for yourself,” Dan said. “You have to arrange the meetings. It’s not all organised for you on a plate. It gave you some good lessons even outside of the programme.”

CQM’s coaching provided guidance, challenge and structure, while still keeping ownership with the learner. That balance helped Dan and the wider cohort develop independence as well as the knowledge, skills and behaviours required by the apprenticeship standard.

“Alan was great,” Dan said. “The way he held the cohort together, the interactive delivery of workshops and each coaching session, it wasn’t forced on you. It was delivered in easy to understand, bite-sized chunks, and what you discussed was relevant to your role. He is so experienced, with lots of good usable examples.”

Dan also valued Angela’s support during the later stages of the programme, particularly around mock assessments and preparation for end point assessment.

“Angela was so good as well,” he said. “She helped with all the mocks and assessment preparation, which gave us the best preparation for the end of the programme. They were both amazing, but they both had their own style, which added a fresh perspective.”

Dan completed his Process Leader programme and achieved a Distinction in April 2026. His cohort has also performed strongly, with all completed learners achieving Distinctions so far, reflecting the commitment of the delegates, their employers, line manager support and CQM’s approach to delivery and assessment preparation.

For Dan, the value of the apprenticeship is that it does not just develop knowledge. It builds practical experience that can be evidenced and applied.

“Just go for it,” he said. “You can go anywhere with what you will learn on this apprenticeship. It doesn’t just prove your knowledge, it proves your experience if you’ve actually practically done it. It’s leadership, it’s continuous improvement, it’s delivering a project.”

For KMF, the value was practical and timely. The programme supported Dan’s transition into a wider management role, strengthened confidence and communication, and delivered a workplace project with clear operational value. More broadly, it aligned with KMF’s investment in people, succession planning and consistent ways of working across a growing manufacturing group with multiple facilities, specialist areas and demanding customer requirements.

That combination matters. Employers need people who can understand risk, communicate with confidence, engage others, select the right tools and turn improvement opportunities into practical outcomes. The Process Leader apprenticeship helps develop that capability through real workplace projects, structured coaching, open cohort learning and assessment preparation that builds both competence and confidence.

Dan has continued to invest in his own professional development beyond the apprenticeship, including achieving TechIOSH status and joining an IOSH committee. His next ambition is to continue progressing his environmental health and safety qualifications and professional status.

For CQM, Dan’s story reflects what the Process Leader programme is designed to do: help people apply learning in the real world, develop leadership and improvement capability, and create evidence of impact through workplace projects. As Dan put it:

“The biggest thing for me has been confidence. The programme helped me understand how to communicate better, approach different situations and use the right tools to make improvements happen.”

Would you like to find out more about our Process Leader Level 4 Programme?