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Member News
Delkia Goes from strength to strength
Specialist systems integrator Delkia, who provide industry proven design, build and qualification solutions - along with consultancy services - for mission critical industries in the aerospace, clean energy and maritime sectors, went from strength to strength in 2022, doubling turnover to circa £6M, with projected growth to £10M and over 100 staff & contractors in 2023.
These new appointees build on a powerful team, with over 125 years’ experience in aerospace:
Alan Watson – Business Development Director - worked with BAE Systems for 46 years across a wide variety of projects including Tornado, EAP, Typhoon and the Dreadnought submarine programme, with a focus on flight controls, active vehicle control, avionics and mechanical systems.
To meet demand, Delkia has grown its team with the appointment of Alan Barnes as Director of Aerospace, Geoff Cooper as Technical Manager for Aerospace and Peter Hudson as R&D Manager. These join Alan Watson - Business Development Director, Mark Dimeck – Aerospace Principal Consultant and Richard Sleeman – Principal Engineer, to create an experience aerospace team. Alan Barnes is a Chartered Engineer and a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society who brings to his new role as Director of Aerospace, over 35 years’ experience in Military Aviation working at BAE Systems - Combat Air, Eurofighter GmbH and most recently, at Thales ISR where he was Head of Regulatory Compliance; Design, Safety & Airworthiness Assurance; and the Head Independent System Monitoring. In addition, Alan and sits upon numerous Air focused Professional Bodies and Committees across both Military and Civil sectors. “I am looking forward to growing Delkia’s aerospace offer in terms of capability and capacity, to support our existing and new clients, as well as to develop our own range of products, parts and services.” says Alan.
Geoff Cooper, Delkia’s new Technical Manager for Aerospace, also joins the company from Thales ISR where he was the Technical Assurance Manager and IMaster CVE for the past 3 ½ years working on Watchkeeper and other ISR Products. He began his career as an Apprentice with BAE Systems, eventually managing Manufacturing and Maintenance for multiple Air Systems. He then moved into Engineering, working on Typhoon and UAS projects finally becoming an Engineering Data Manager and Configuration Management Expert. Geoff says: “I’m looking forward to being able to innovate and influence the way the aerospace industry is moving forward over the coming years.” Peter Hudson, Delkia’s new R&D Manager, has over 26 years’ experience with BAE Systems Warton, in roles as varied as Programme Engineering Manager and Technical Strategy Integration Manager in the Research Department, working on projects from NIMROD to FCAS. Peter says: “I’m here to provide a strong, coherent technology research portfolio that supports and unlocks our Aerospace ambitions as well as our work in Maritime and Clean Energy markets.”
How MSP saved BAE Systems £20 million
Mark Dimeck - Aerospace Defence Principal Consultant – has 43 years work experience with BAE Systems across the whole engineering life cycle, including Typhoon’s avionics and mission systems, and the Future Combat Aircraft System (FCAS) programme, looking at engineering and digital transformation.
When BAE Systems faced difficulty with its Eurofighter Typhoon project, it asked MSP to help automate its process for aligning the Eurofighter foreplane on the machine.
Richard Sleeman - Principal Engineer - spent 38 years in the Air Sector with BAE Systems, with the majority of his career in engineering integration, engineering management and early concept engineering/ systems architecting, ultimately becoming Assistant Chief Engineer on the Future Combat Air Systems programme. During that time, he worked in the development of a number of manned and unmanned aircraft. His technical experience covers aerodynamics, flight controls, flight systems and systems engineering. The team are looking forward to meeting customers old and new at DSEI, 12-15 September 2023, where Delkia will be exhibiting.
Originally, aligning the part was a multi-stage process. The part had to be located manually within the fixture and then, once machined, be turned over and relocated again to machine the other side. This process was repeated twice, using a different fixture each time. Due to the manual measurement and multiple stages involved, it took 7 days to produce one part; 20-30 hours of which was machining time, the rest – setup time. Furthermore, turning the part over caused a cusp or ‘ridge’ to form on the leading edge of the part. Subsequently, one in ten parts were sub-optimal, with the other nine requiring an element of rework; 22 hours in some cases.
Due to this, BAE Systems team were struggling to achieve their target of 770 parts within three years. MSP’s software from their MSP PerfectPart suite of products was introduced to automate the whole alignment process. The original fixtures could be replaced with a single vacuum fixture, removing the need for turning the part and using multiple fixtures. Using these vacuum fixtures and the software’s automation features, the process was reduced to four hours 38 minutes, made up of four hours machining time and 38 minutes setup time. No sub-optimal parts were produced
and no rework was necessary. In two years, 1,100 perfect parts were made, and due to the time saved, BAE Systems gained 50% extra machine capacity which could be used to make other parts – without any investment in extra machine tools required. Over £20million was saved in five years and the project was awarded a BAE Systems Bronze Chairman’s Award.
New appointees:
Find out more
Alan Barnes Director of Aerospace
Geoff Cooper Technical Manager for Aerospace
Peter Hudson R&D Manager
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plane talk summer 2023
www.aerospace.co.uk
@NWAerospace
plane talk summer 2023
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