How did you get into this line of work?
I sort of fell into it! My background is in industrial and automotive design, and I was really interested in new technologies to help the design process. One of those was portable 3D scanning, and to be honest with you, I soon realized I was more interested in it than actually designing, so you could say that design’s loss is metrology’s gain!
What does your day to day look like at Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence? Describe a day in the life.
Well, we have two facilities for the ROMER Absolute Arm production: one in France and the other in California, so with the time differences you could say my mornings are spent talking with our R&D and Support teams in France, and the afternoons are spent doing the same with the teams in California!
The key to my role is ensuring that we continue to develop the great products that our customers need, so I try to stay in regular contact with our sales organizations around the world to find out what’s happening out there, so I can discuss it with our two teams. It’s very easy to have a great idea in a meeting room, only to find it has no practical use in, say, a customer’s workshop, so it’s vital that we keep our customers close.
What are your future goals?
I’m quite new to this role, so at the moment I would say that my goals are to ensure that we continue to build products that make people say ‘wow.’ Believe me, that’s not as easy as it sounds!
How did Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence first get involved with the UCI?
The UCI initially contacted the EPFL, which is an engineering university based in Lausanne in Switzerland. The EPFL had gained a reputation for finding solutions to thorny problems in sport, thanks to their work in testing advanced swim-suits for FINA (the World Swimming Federation) after the Beijing Olympics in 2008, so they were a good fit for the problem of racing bikelegality. The EPFL then contacted us in Switzerland, once they had an idea of how to approach the problem.
What makes the ROMER Bike Measurement System different from other ROMER Absolute Arm products?
The principal difference is really in the software: we took Innovmetric’s Polyworks software, and modified what is already an extremely powerful tool into one that is also incredibly simple to use. Only 9 mouse-clicks are necessary to perform all of the vital measurement operations to checking a bike.
What do you do for fun outside of working at Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence? Hobbies?
Ironically, I ride a bike! I’m not telling you which one, because it hasn’t been checked by the UCI yet!
What is something that most people don’t know about you?
Probably that I’m only half British! My other half is Portuguese. My family says I’m the worst of both!
