Five Minutes With…James Scott

You are a few months into your new role now James, how has it been going for you?

It has been really interesting working with our team in Manufacturing and Construction and seeing the different projects we are all on.

Every conversation I have with the team I am learning from their wealth of experience and knowledge. I am looking forward to be able to meet the healthcare team in person soon to understand how they apply the same skills and approaches in a different setting.

Since July I have been working on a large aviation project with our Construction and Manufacturing director Steve Clark and it has been good to see how we can integrate so quickly with a new team of people and help get them improvements in a short amount of time. The work is not easy but it is rewarding. The diversity and creating an environment for success are the parts I am enjoying the most.

Tell us a little about your background in engineering and how you moved over to becoming a consultant?

I started out as a practical apprentice at Rolls-Royce civil aviation in 2007. This was a great foundation to learn both fitting skills and my first introduction to lean thinking. After a couple of years as a large engine fitter, I progressed into a manufacturing engineering role with the team.

As well as supporting the team with the method, sequencing and tooling I was also heavily involved in introducing new flow lines. I got the opportunity to lead the introduction of intelligent torque tooling technologies across multiple sites where I learnt first-hand the importance of good project and stakeholder management. I was lucky enough to have my manufacturing degree sponsored by Rolls-Royce during this time too.

I wanted to go work in a different sector, so I sought out an opportunity to work at Jaguar Land Rover as a complex quality engineer. This role saw me working across lots of different challenging engineering projects, working with both the plant teams and suppliers. Leading a cross functional team that was part of the launch of a new Jaguar was a huge highlight for me.

Following this I moved back closer to the manufacturing production team where I supported them in significantly reducing build quality issues. This once again brought me in contact with a diverse team of people from all parts of JLR and with many different suppliers. Whilst I was at JLR I sponsored myself through my MSc in professional engineering and with JLR I achieved an additional post graduate certificate in automotive technologies. This blend of practical and theoretical experience allowed me to achieve a goal of mine which was to become a Chartered Engineer with the IMechE a few years ago.

After JLR I took the chance to move to a different industry again where I worked as mechanical engineer and workshop supervisor for Lubrizol which is a chemical company. Working with this team really crystalized my desire to support teams, processes and operations in achieving tangible improvements.  When I then saw the opportunity to join Develop Consulting as a consultant, I thought this would be a great fit for me.

Working with the aerospace sector must have been challenging as they have themselves faced a lot of upheaval over the past year or so. Can you tell us how that has been and how you have looked to manage that?

Working with the team at the international airport has been really apparent, along with their desire to improve the passenger experience. We have been working with them on the things that they can directly improve and not focusing on factors that are out of their control such as recruitment. This has allowed us to make gains on increasing passenger throughput through security. We are also now helping the wider team to resource and train their new starters more effectively and with greater visibility. Which will mean that the full team can see the plan for longer term stability.

And you do quite a bit of work with schools outside your work time. Can you tell us more about that?

I am working with my old secondary school to help them with their strategy in improving links with industry.

I am passionate about students being able to see what great opportunities are out their post-secondary school.

Although my bias is towards engineering and apprenticeships it is important to showcase a broad options base for them to experience. As well as helping with the strategy I support some of the activities that we put on too. Such as C.V writing and interview skills. Through my contacts with my local IMechE group we are finding more and more ways to promote STEM subject to young adults of all ages.

I find this work really inspiring and being a consultant with Develop Consulting allows me to show all the cool and interesting ways we work with such a diverse range of companies.

It’s great to have such good support from the company on this work and I am hoping that we can grow these links further over the next few months.