Leanne Normanshire: ‘I am the third generation of my family to work at Perkins’
Latest estimates suggest that the UK needs to double the number of recruits entering the engineering, manufacturing and construction sectors by 2020 to avoid severe skills shortages that could impede growth.
Getting registered as an engineering technician is an increasingly attractive proposition for many young people who want to kick-start their careers. Engineering technicians typically have specialist skills and solve complex problems that are important for innovation, and registration recognises this. Registering as an engineering technician can also be the first step on the road to becoming a chartered engineer. There are about 14,650 engineering technicians registered in the UK. But earlier this year Prime Minister David Cameron announced an initiative to boost the number to 100,000 by 2018.
What does it mean to be an EngTech in today’s workplace? Hear first hand from four of the country’s brightest and best.
Leanne Normanshire is a 26-year-old quality analyst at Perkins Industrial Engines in Stafford. After working for a year on the assembly line, Normanshire was invited to do a technical apprenticeship with the firm. Since then, she has gone from strength to strength, gaining engineering technician status and completing a degree in mechanical engineering at Staffordshire University. She has also won an Institution of Mechanical Engineers Vision Award for her work with local schools to get young people excited about engineering. She is now part of a team that is working to set up a Perkins factory in India.
“Perkins Engines is a subsidiary of Caterpillar,” she says. “We primarily build the big 4000 series engine, which we use for back-up power and power generation. The two tallest buildings in London have our engines in for back-up power.
“I am the third generation of my family to work at Perkins. My dad is a senior applications engineer at the moment, and my grandad used to be a metallurgist in the laboratory. Until recently I always worked on assembly lines and did inspections. But I have just moved into an office-based job where I do audits.
“We are building a new factory in India, so I am going to be part of the team helping to do the documentation and procedures for the site so that people know what they are doing in their job. With it being a new facility we have to make sure that it is all done right and it can pass to ISO standards.
“I’ve done work with the Stemnet science, technology, engineering and maths ambassadors scheme. I worked with a local school for six months to run an after-school engineering club for children aged between seven and 11. We got the kids to make model planes and race model cars powered by balloons.
“We started off with a 50/50 mix of boys and girls, but by the end we had only girls because the boys did not like the fact that the girls were beating them!
“The kids really enjoyed it and it was an eye opener for me – they wanted to know everything. They asked what jobs they could do, whether the girls do it, and how many BMXs they could buy with a year’s wages. So often children think that engineering is just for boys and it’s a big, dirty job.
“I’m not too sure what is next for me. With me now working in a new department I have lots to learn again. Eventually I want to go into services and applications so I can help customers fix problems that they might have with their engines. But in the meantime I want to work towards becoming an incorporated engineer.”
Tom Davies, 23, is a manufacturing engineer at Marston Aerospace in Wolverhampton. He came to the company as an apprentice in 2007 and now has a first-class degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Wolverhampton. He is involved in several high-profile projects at the firm, including the development of heat exchangers for the new Pratt and Whitney geared turbofan engine and updating decades-old testing methods. Davies is also responsible for interviewing the next generation of Marston apprentices. “I didn’t move around the different areas of the business during my apprenticeship so I had quite a focused time looking at specific things,” he says. “I’ve got six years of knowledge in one area, which has been of benefit now I’m qualified.
Tom Davies (right): ‘Day to day I look after the tooling for the guys in the shop’
“At the moment we have got a new line of products coming in for the PurePower Pratt and Whitney geared turbofan engine. We have won contracts to supply four different heat exchangers. It’s exciting to be working on such a big project. We are in the prototype stage at the moment and I’m working on how to productionise the units and make sure that the flow lines are as lean as possible.
“Day to day I look after the tooling for the guys in the shop and look at lean principles.
“We are trying to bring in a way of testing heat exchangers and I’m involved with that. On site now we use an air underwater method with no leaks but we are looking at modernising the process. We hope to automate it onto a rig and use different test media.
“It’s the biggest challenge of my career – taking a 30- to 40-year-old practice and bringing it up to 21st-century methods. We are trying to not only change how we test, but also change the mindset of principles on the shop floor. We are looking to test with helium, which is more searching than air and there will be leaks. So we have got to change the whole ethos at the company to bring in this technology.
“I’d like to do a masters in business in the next couple of years as well as progress towards chartership. Chartership means something to me because in places like Germany and America you have be chartered to say that you are an engineer, and engineers are seen up there with doctors and lawyers. Whereas in the UK, you can be called an engineer if you work for Sky or BT and you are installing people’s phone lines.
“Personally I think the profile of engineering should be raised within this country. To become a chartered engineer is one of the highest levels of membership you can get.”
Jason Wigmore, 24, completed a four-year apprenticeship with Rolls-Royce in 2009. He went on to run his own accredited temperature calibration laboratory at the age of just 22. In search of a new challenge, Wigmore joined the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry as a research technician in 2012. His work involves using X-ray computerised tomography to spot porosity and cracks in materials produced by new manufacturing methods.
Jason Wigmore: ‘I was probably the youngest person in calibration’
“I left school to do an apprenticeship with Rolls-Royce,” he says. “At the end of it I was employed by Qinetiq as an on-site calibration engineer at the Rolls-Royce plant in Ansty. I became a UKAS accredited engineer for temperature calibration, which for my young age was quite a big achievement. Then I managed to get my own lab which I ran myself and supervised people that came in. I was probably the youngest person in calibration in the UK.
“A big challenge for me was jumping into the Manufacturing Technology Centre and not knowing what I was going into in great depth. It’s a research and development centre, whereas I was working in production before. I took a decrease in pay to come here but my future and training came before pay.
“The centre is absolutely fantastic. It’s like a showroom – you get all the new machines to use. I operate and do basic programming on coordinate measuring machines. But the majority of my work is on X-ray computerised tomography (XCT) machines.
“People use XCT to look for porosity, cracks and extra material in parts that have been manufactured using a new piece of kit. It gives you a good look inside the part however thick or thin it is. You can’t see these things with the naked eye. With XCT you can see where it is going wrong and how that might relate to the machine they are using.
“We do a lot of work for Rolls-Royce, Airbus and other member companies as well as in-house research.
“I just got made the equipment owner so I am now training other people to get to my level.
“My short-term hopes are to start a degree in metrology. Later I’d like to step into management, though I’d like to know clearly what every bit of machinery in my laboratory does before I step up.”
Tom Goudy is a 25-year-old project engineer at Hamworthy Combustion Engineering in Poole, Dorset. After completing his A-levels he joined the company on an apprenticeship scheme in 2006. During his apprenticeship Goudy won a series of accolades, including Hamworthy Combustion Apprentice of the Year in 2009 and IMechE Apprentice of the Year in 2010. He is now working towards an engineering degree at Bournemouth University and hopes to become a chartered engineer one day.
Tom Goudy: ‘Balancing work and my engineering studies is a huge challenge’
“I have always been interested in how things work,” he says. “When I was younger I would take something apart, work it out and then put it back together. My dad is an engineer and inspired me to pursue a career in engineering. I was never interested in going to university to study engineering. I wanted to do an apprenticeship so that I could learn with a hands-on approach.
“I work in project management in the power generation sector. I make sure that projects are run to schedule, budget and technical completeness. I work on several projects at a time and have just completed a project to supply equipment for two 350MW coal boilers in the state of Orissa in India. The project started in 2011 and is due for installation and commissioning next month, so I’m looking forward to seeing it completed.
“Hamworthy supplied 48 start-up burners with safety control systems for the project. I was the lead engineer on this and from start to finish it was my responsibility to ensure it ran smoothly. I worked closely with the design engineers, control engineer, manufacturers and our commercial team.
“Winning the IMechE Apprentice of the Year award is the proudest accomplishment of my career. I don’t think I will be able to top that. Balancing work and my engineering studies is a huge challenge. The award recognised my hard work through the results in my part-time studies as well as my performance in the different working environments at Hamworthy.”