Rolls-Royce dominates life in Derby, and it’s impossible not to notice. As you drive around the city, the company’s distinctive blue logo is forever coming into sight, cropping up on the walls of traditional red-bricked buildings and on a growing number of modern manufacturing facilities. The company has a huge footprint in the city and is far and away the biggest source of employment in the wider region.
It’s from Derby that Colin Smith, director of engineering and technology, oversees the company’s global army of engineers – numbering 11,000 in total. Smith joined Rolls-Royce as an undergraduate apprentice in 1974, and has progressed steadily through the ranks, holding roles such as chief engineer on helicopters and subsequently on the Trent 700 and Trent 500 civil engine programmes. Although he now occupies an elevated position, with a seat on the main board, it’s that hands-on background that gives him a true appreciation of the value of engineers within the organisation.
“Engineers are hugely important within Rolls-Royce, they are at the heart of everything we do,” he says. “Their importance is reflected by the fact that I am on the main board. There are not many other companies where engineering is represented at the highest level. Rolls-Royce is a products and services company, but all our services are based on our products. So those products have to be right – and that responsibility comes down to the engineers we employ.”
Crucial pair of engines
On the civil aerospace side of the business, Smith is currently overseeing important milestones on two crucial projects – achieving entry-into-service of the Trent 1000 on Boeing’s 787, and continuing the development of the Trent XWB for the Airbus A350. The 787 test-flight programme now comprises four aircraft powered by Trent 1000 engines, while two XWB engines are running on test-beds in Derby in advance of flight testing next year.
These two projects will be the mainstay of Rolls-Royce’s civil business during the next 10 years, potentially accounting for thousands of engines over that period. But Smith and his team of engineers are already taking a longer view, assessing radical new designs such as open-rotor engines for introduction in the middle of the next decade. Open-rotor engines have a higher bypass ratio than turbofans or turbojets for an equivalent-sized device and so, theoretically, can deliver much-sought-after efficiency improvements.
The company has recently completed a third set of wind-tunnel tests of potential open-rotor designs, but engineering obstacles still need to be overcome. “Open-rotor excites me, but it remains a huge challenge to the airframe and engine developers in that it will need to be a truly integrated product,” says Smith. “Yes, it offers significant potential fuel-burn advantage, but the integration challenge will be massive if we are to minimise noise and drag. I think open-rotor is going to be for mid next decade, and there needs to be a lot of research and development to get there. There’s a lot of work to be done.”
Meanwhile, away from what would be considered Rolls-Royce’s traditional markets, the company is pushing forward with a venture in the renewable-energy sector, with its wholly owned Tidal Generation (TGL) subsidiary. TGL has developed a tidal-stream turbine consisting of a three-bladed, upstream pitch controlled rotor with a relatively standard drivetrain and power electronics. The turbine unit itself is buoyant to allow it to be retrieved to shore for maintenance within a single slack-water period of around 30 minutes. The foundation is a lightweight steel tripod, installed using patented fast drilling techniques. The ease of deployment and retrieval allows all maintenance to be carried out on shore, significantly reducing the need for costly marine operations and allowing a spare machine to continue generating while maintenance is completed.
A 500kW concept demonstrator turbine was installed at the EMEC marine test facility in Orkney earlier this year, and Smith remains positive that it’s a good market to be in. “The device began to generate electricity for the first time a few weeks ago,” he says. “We think it’s a good product and it’s certainly creating a level of excitement for us, but it is early days.”
Engineers at Rolls-Royce have also been looking at other low-carbon products. These include a solid-oxide fuel cell for stationary power generation applications which could be developed subsequently for transport, military and marine uses. The fuel cell is produced by screen printing on low-cost ceramic-type materials and has the potential to nearly double the simple-cycle efficiency of existing power generation technologies with negligible air emissions. However, Smith recognises that the project has not been without challenges.
“We have focused the fuel-cell work on research as opposed to product development. It is definitely a long term project for us” acknowledges Smith.
Underpinning the work of Rolls-Royce’s engineers across its businesses is a global network of 28 University Technology Centres, each doing vital, targeted research in a specific set of engineering disciplines. The most recent UTC saw Rolls-Royce join forces with both Imperial College in London and Manchester University to carry out research into nuclear technology focusing on areas such as improving fuel performance, so that reactors can run more efficiently, and developing better methods for monitoring the performance of reactors.
Smith is a passionate supporter of UTCs which he sees as a means of ensuring that Rolls-Royce stays ahead of its competitors. “We decide on what area we want to carry out long-term research, and then we find a five-star university, pick a professor and let him set the team up,” says Smith.
“We passionately manage the UTCs, and there is always an internal manager responsible for their development,” he adds. “It’s no surprise to find that the UTCs that deliver the best results are the ones that are managed with the most enthusiasm.”
It is not just in research and development where investment is being made. New facilities, tooling and capability have been installed in the UK in recent months, with modern manufacturing capacity being added in Derby and at other sites across the country. But Rolls-Royce is a global company, and it has also built new facilities in other parts of the world, including a mechanical test and operations centre in Dahlewitz in Germany, a facility to support the Joint Strike Fighter in Indianapolis in the US, and Singapore was chosen as the location for a new facility to manufacture wide chord fan blades. Smith says that, although Rolls-Royce has its headquarters in the UK, it operates in global markets and decisions on locations for future investments will be based on the business case.
Backing Britain
“In the UK, we’ve put our money where our mouth is for a long time by investing in capability and capacity, way before manufacturing got fashionable again,” he says. “I like putting stuff in the UK but we have to look at the business case at each opportunity. Around 85% of our products are sold abroad, yet a huge part of our footprint is in the UK. That doesn’t help the balance of the business. There are all sorts of economics behind these investment decisions.”
Looking forward, Smith is hopeful that the coalition government has grasped that a strong manufacturing sector is crucial to rebalancing the economy. But he says that there needs to be greater cohesion between the government and the academic sector to deliver the skilled young people that Rolls-Royce requires.
“People in other countries really like manufacturing and are willing to slot university courses into their education systems so that they match what industry needs. We are building a facility in Virginia in the US and the university next door is changing its courses so that we’ve got the skills we need. That kind of flexibility is important. That level of coherence, from top to bottom, doesn’t quite seem to be there in the UK. The environment needs to become more business friendly.”
Like father, like son
Having been an engineer for all of his working life, Colin Smith remains a vocal advocate for the profession. But he gets frustrated that engineering as a discipline isn’t valued as highly here as it is in countries like Germany and Italy. And he thinks that if it is to achieve the same kudos, the many disparate engineering institutions need to talk with a unified voice. That’s why he is a supporter of the Royal Academy of Engineering, which he thinks is best suited to this role in the UK.
But, despite having concerns over how engineering is perceived, Smith is still keen for his own children to follow in his footsteps. His third son is hoping to start studying engineering at university and his eldest is assessing his options after completing a physics degree.
“I’m trying to persuade my eldest son not to go and work for the banks,” he says with a smile. “I genuinely think engineering gives great job satisfaction. I’ve certainly gained a real sense of achievement from what I’ve achieved. I have friends in the service industry, and all they worry about is retiring in their mid-fifties. I’m thinking, crikey, there’s a lot more to do yet. There’s more kit to put out there still.”
Why does he think engineering is such a fulfilling career? “Engineers genuinely make a difference,” he insists. “No one is going to solve global warming or solve global hunger sitting on their backsides writing posters. It will be engineers or scientists who are going to do it by developing water systems or designing higher-efficiency kit. So I would totally encourage youngsters to consider engineering.”
