High Value Manufacturing Catapult launches chief engineers team

The High Value Manufacturing Catapult (HVMC) has launched a new initiative to recruit chief engineers on secondment directly from its family of research centres.

The engineers will bring a breadth of subject knowledge and expertise from the research centres to HVMC, which was established and is supported by Innovate UK.

The initiative will ensure HVMC has the best chief engineers in the business focusing on issues of national and global importance. The engineers will also work with the government and funding bodies to help establish funding opportunities.

Professor Sam Turner, chief technology officer at HVMC at the time the scheme launched, was a driving force behind the secondment approach.

Mr Turner, who has recently been announced as the CEO of a new centre in Northern Ireland – the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre (AMIC) – said: “I’m pleased to have established this collaborative concept before taking up my new position in Belfast. In my new role I will still be connected to HVMC and will continue as the ambassador for net zero.

“I’m looking forward to seeing how the activity evolves as part of HVMC’s next chapter and have no doubt the chief engineers will make a significant contribution to driving industrial transformation.”

The chief engineers will work under direction from Professor Chris Dungey from the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland. Mr Dungey is taking over as chief technology officer at HVMC from November.

Mr Dungey said: “The chief engineers’ team is a key function helping to galvanise and shape future strategic initiatives across HVMC. Effective collaboration is crucial if we are to deliver innovation with impact. The chief engineer secondments put us in great shape to achieve that.”

The first three chief engineers have already been appointed: Professor Rab Scott, from the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre; Mike Wilson from the Manufacturing Technology Centre and Marc Funnell from the National Composites Centre. Once the recruitment process is complete, HVMC will have six chief engineers in total.

Mr Scott is director of industrial digitalisation at the AMRC. He is accountable for the delivery of the AMRC’s Digital Strategy and ensuring a digital thread is woven through everything the AMRC delivers for clients. Mr Scott has been seconded into the role for the next year and will spend 40% of his time on it. He will align the digital strategies of the individual centres and lead strategic HVMC digital programmes.

Mr Wilson is chief automation officer at the Manufacturing Technology Centre. He has 40 years’ experience in the application of automation to manufacturing. He will also commit 40% of his time to HVMC and will lead the technology team. This will involve developing and delivering technical strategy programmes for automation and establishing stakeholder networks.

Mr Funnell is director of digital engineering at the NCC and spends two days a week with HVMC. He comes in as chief engineer for HQ on ‘smart design’ and will be coordinating the strategic thinking and direction for HVMC around smart design. Mr Funnell will enhance and showcase HVMC’s credibility on smart design and develop partnerships with other centres and industries where capability already exists outside of HVMC.

High Value Manufacturing Catapult
https://hvm.catapult.org.uk