Mike Bartlett (pictured), a former managing director of Fujifilm Electronic Imaging, takes the new role of operations director.

Bartlett was hand-picked by chief executive Barry Hibbert, who worked with Bartlett at Harman Int-ernational and has known him for over 15 years. Hibbert described Bartlett as "results-orientated and profit hungry, with vision and excellent strategic planning and financial skills."

As a result chief operating officer Chris Pavlosky extends his remit to Europe. "Ive put in place continuous improvement, key performance indicators and kaizen, and Mike will move that forward," explained Pavlosky. "I will have an overview of that and look at corporate strategy, the international market and mergers and acquisitions."

The management cha-nges will also see David Holland relinquish his UK sales remit to concentrate on estimating and planning, with John Ashfield returning to his core sales role.

Polestars move to its new Milton Keynes HQ means it will also recruit a fresh finance team, including a group chief accountant, treasurer, systems accountant and corporate tax manager. The group said finance was "a fundamental driving force behind the business, as opposed to a back-office function". It is also implementing Hyperion busi-ness planning performance software.

* Polestar is understood to be in discussions with KBA regarding a new
3.5m wide gravure press for its Varnicoat plant, which, at the moment, runs one 3.5m press, twin 2.5m machines and a 1.2m TR5.

Story by Jo Francis