Accounts Department...

From an ex-worker who was there approximately 1979: “I did a two week stint at Holloways. I was in the ‘accounts’ department but it was a series of rows of desks with adding machines on – we had to add down the production sheets and cross cast them. I managed two whole weeks but hated every minute – a buzzer went and we were allowed to go to the canteen but I rarely did.”

Planning Office...

Here is a description of what happened in the Planning Office, courtesy of an ex-worker: “Basically we would received the orders that the sales and marketing team would get in and we would turn it into reality. So if Marks and Spencer wanted 5,000 cosmetic boxes by July this year we would plan how long this would take as obviously we would have to think about the time it would take to get the products made but also the time it took (lead time) to get the boxes, or mascara wands etc in too. Some things came from China etc so longer lead times.

There was a system we used called an MRP system which I believe a lot of companies still use today. Think this stood for manufacture resource planning. So if we planned to make the box in June to deliver in July it would then work out when all the eyeshadows or lipsticks etc had to be made up to be in time to make box, we would then stick this on our planning board and track things on a daily basis, so for a nice simple product like an Evette Eyeshadow lets say colour Thistledown, I think the line number was EC223TD!! We would most probably have the lids and bases in stock most of the time so we would just need to ensure the labels were produced and the eyeshadow itself was made up and pressed into a “godet” ready to put into the base. We would also need to make sure the outer boxes were in stock together with the outer labels. We would quite often have some base line products already lined up for when a line went down and these eyeshadows were easy to make up and could be put in most parts of the factory.”