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You may wonder why I feel qualified to offer my services to you to help with your test systems so instead of listing impressive numbers of test cells and dollars I have worked my way through in my career I thought a short Bio would be more meaningful.
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Qualifying as a Marine Engineer via a sponsored cadetship with ESSO in the UK I set about establishing myself as a marine engineering officer. A fantastic life for those of us who are hands on engineers, you could not always go to the store for spares or sometimes even tools, occasionally you had to fabricate them yourself. Along with an academic education the cadetship gave a good background in practical skills from welding and machining to wiring and electronics diagnostics. After a couple of years, the British Merchant fleet collapsed under the increasing pressure of the British Seamans Union, most British registered tanker operators registered their ships offshore to avoid the need to employ a British crew.
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Esso did a great job of redeploying their now redundant Marine Officers within the company and I was transferred to the fuels and Lubes industry at ESSO Research in Abingdon UK. There were 85 test cells at that location doing a multitude of tests for Paramins, the chemical arm of ESSO that developed the additive packages to make the oils perform as needed. During my time there I got to “hands on” rebuild every type of standard test engine from the small single cylinder W1 to the 6-cylinder Ford Tornado Diesels and the BI a large single cylinder ships engine burning crude oil. Eventually I got involved in facilities upgrades and to specify equipment to enhance our testing data. We upgraded many test cells and started a heat/energy reclamation policy. AC regenerative dynos were chosen over Eddy current or water brakes and heat was reclaimed from the exhaust, not entirely successfully I might add but it was early days and we learnt a lot as a pioneering team. Moving on to the Vehicle Test Department I ran the Vehicle Emissions Test Facility and had responsibility for the Climatic Chamber, Mileage Accumulation, Strip and Rebuild, and Fuel and Emissions test. The chamber was mostly used for diesel waxing or carb icing before fuel injection came along. It was an ageing facility which needed a complete overhaul of the data acquisition, control, refrigeration and fan system, which I enthusiastically volunteered for.
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I took a career move to Ford Dunton to become a Test Engineer. “Dunton” was also an aging facility that needed an upgrade from the old PDP 11 systems for data acquisition to something that would be scalable to the future. Ford had originally designed and built the systems traditionally, but we made the decision to buy Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) system. Following an in-depth study involving 15 potential suitors we settled on a vendor. We proceeded to upgrade 85 existing test cells and build 16 new over the next 10 years. I, with the help of the test systems team, vendors and the contractors specified, project- managed, installed and commissioned the complete laboratory. The first 2 test cells I designed were to be called High Dynamic North and South. These test cells had some of the first engine only vehicle simulation test cells at Ford, we used ABB DC dynos with a belt drive to 8000rpm to overcome inertia in the rotor (no PMM’s back then). The cells were built to replicate the emissions rolls test facilities matching every aspect of the emissions systems in an attempt to entice the calibration engineers out of their expensive prototype cars and into the laboratory environment, that paved the way for the future of simulation. The crowning glory of the project being a completely new test facility of 14 test cells. Mainly for powertrain hub testing, for R&D and Calibration; they were highly complex, having cold fluids to -40 deg C in some and full road load simulation and lights out automated calibration capability. This was paving the way for road to rig process change.
Final position at this location was Supervisor Test Instrumentation.
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Having finished the West Wing at Dunton and looking for a new challenge I moved with my family to America to work for AVL as Technical Sales Support with Data Acquisition and Control/Simulation being my specialty. The next 16 years were a wonderful set of challenges which introduced me to just about every aspect of Powertrain Test, from giant single cylinder research engines through powertrain testing and simulation for HD trucks, Emissions to Electrification. I was involved in probably the biggest Test facility consolidation in the automotive history with the building of GM One Lab in Pontiac. We helped to introduce full electronic engine only lap simulation to the NASCAR industry bringing AVL’s success from
Formula One to North America.
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I was involved with the preliminary design, layout and specification of a 29-test cell electrification, hybrid and powertrain development test facility in Shanghai, China and served as technical consultant to GM. I lead a team of 20 Technical Sales Support Engineers and represented AVL North America in the Global TSS Leadership team. There are too many projects to mention but we took the PUMA data acquisition in North America from 26 installations in 1999 to over 400 today. AT AVL I was Director of Advanced Projects before I left to pursue further opportunities.
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My aim is to offer the confidence that the specification is written to correctly deliver the end goal, which is to run specific tests in a specific way. We need to control the boundary conditions so our tests are repeatable and consistent. We must never lose sight of the fact that the job of a test facility designer is to deliver a product by which business decisions can be made and that
product is “DATA” good, accurate and repeatable quality data.
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In summary, having designed, specified, sold, purchased, built, project managed, installed, commissioned and operated many test cells and many applications. I thought it would be both appropriate and exciting to be able to offer my sound knowledge, experience and expertise gained throughout my extensive career in this industry to help you with your
project requirements.
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Risk mitigation and attention to detail is the key to success,
often,
it is not what we know, but what we don’t know;
not what we see, but what we don’t see that influences the success of the project.