Consultant to the FIA, reporting to the Safety Director

Senior Research Engineer is a new position at Ford Asia Pacific:• This position requires the lead of a number of University Research Projects as Ford PI (Principal Investigator), including those that are part of ATLAS (ARC Training hub for Lightweight Automotive Structures, an ARC funded training hub through RMIT University in which Ford is the major industry partner). Each project runs for three years, however new projects are required to keep a good portfolio of research. New projects come on-line each year, and it's the Research Engineer’s job to help broker these new research projects. • Foster a close relationship with the Deakin University Carbon Nexus facility to result in ongoing collaborative research activities.• Enable Australian university expertise to be recognized by the Global Engineering community, including in FoA & R&A.• Successfully support the development, submission and funding of all Australian projects.• Demonstrate support of Australian participation in the global strategy.• Successful launch and development of the AAF by supporting current URP objectives and by assisting with socialising a single overarching common set of Legal Terms and agreements, and having built a strong collaborative framework with the key university partners.• The successful dovetailing of student placements and graduates into the AAF URP.

Ford Motor Company Asia Pacific includes Ford’s centre for vehicle development in the Asia Pacific region. This work encompasses the whole gamut of vehicle engineering, from ground-up design and development, to ensuring the quality of currently released product. Vehicle Functional Group Team Leaders are across all aspects of vehicle quality. The PCCN (Powertrain, Calibration, Controls, NVH) VFG Team Leader is part of Powertrain, and looks after the quality of all areas of vehicle drivability. Key responsibilities are as follows:• Support key design and attribute characteristics for current and new vehicle programs.• Ensure that the optimum configuration is implemented by understanding the design inputs to the car that affect these characteristics.• Manage the VFG business.• Lead weekly VFG meetings with Assembly VFG and Variability Reduction Team Leaders. These meetings cover the whole FAP region, including India, China, South Africa, South America, and SE Asia.• Analyse warranty and customer vehicle data to anticipate vehicle PCCN issues.• Lead engineering teams to establish root causes of PCCN issues.• Lead engineering teams and the manufacturing plants to ensure that issues are resolved and resolutions are put into action.• Present warranty data to senior management.• Present action plans to resolve vehicle issues to senior management.• Manage Powertrain Quick Service Fix problem resolution and action plans.Apart from my VFG Team Leader role, I am involved in Ford’s University Research Program as a Principal Investigator for Australian National University’s carbon fibre recycling project, and for four other proposed projects.

Management of advanced materials and manufacturing projects with research engineers at universities and the CSIRO, mainly involving the development of carbon fibre for the automotive industry.Key Achievements: • Seconded to the $26m AutoCRC (Cooperative Research Centre, at their request) to help set up and manage new automotive industry based projects. • Seconded to the Advanced Manufacturing CRC (AMCRC) to manage SME R&D projects – project agreement formulation and management (total value approx. $20M over 5 years).• Bid Manager Victorian Science Agenda Project – Economic study, Business Plan development and funding application for Australian Carbon Fibre Research Facility (ACFRF) – obtained $10M Grant. This project resulted in Carbon Nexus at Deakin University.• Australian Carbon Fibre Research Facility (ACFRF) Research Program Manager including purchase of research furnace (Carbon Nexus at Deakin University) and contract administration (total value $25M). Work included regular contact and negotiation with Government Departments (Department of Business and Innovation). Project Manager of the following Major Projects:• FR1 concept car designed and built to highlight Australian technology ($2M project, with Deakin University). • Futuris composite lightweight automotive seat project (AutoCRC and Deakin University). • Victorian Science Agenda Project. Delivery of advanced bushfire protection – development of new fire protection materials and a new twin shell above ground concrete fire shelter with sales starting in 2014 ($1M project). Consortium with Swinburne University (Prof Ajay Kapoor).• Development of new polyethylene material for use in large scale pipes. Consortium consisting of a large international petrochemical company and Deakin University ($1M project). Other:• Co-author of two “Rank A” journal papers (with Dr Hamid Khayyam and Dr Saeid Nahavandi of Deakin University) concerning intelligent adaptive vehicle engine management systems.

Started as a Calibration Engineer, progressing through to Engineering Program Manager for HSV's main stream vehicles