Director Profile

Martin Boys
BEng (Hons) BA(Hons)

I am a highly competent engineer with a proven record in System Engineering, Product Development, Problem Solving, Process Improvement and strong Project Management.

As a Six-Sigma Black Belt, I am excellent at identifying, integrating and improving critical processes, specifications, or design features to ensure that targets are met; whether they be functional, aesthetic, or transactional.

Through application of a structured engineering methodology, I identify the Critical Xs to ensure potential problems are mitigated through specification and control, or to fix issues from poor designs or processes. The same problem solving approaches can be used to prevent issues, as well as to resolve them.

I work well within, or leading, a team. I am also used to self-starting, prioritising and managing my own workload. I am enthusiastic, hard working and enjoy a challenge. Any issues that I come across, I will endeavour to help understand and to fix.

I have a broad understanding of many engineering disciplines and business process through nearly 20 years of experience in industry, working for several world leading companies including Bowers & Wilkins Loudspeakers, Toyota Motor Manufacturing UK, and several functions within Jaguar Land Rover.

My experience through from the Production Line at Bowers and Wilkins to Quality Assurance, Manufacturing Engineering, Six-Sigma Problem Solving, Product Development, and Dimensional System Integration, has given me understanding of how all of these processes join up, and relate to adjacent business functions which is invaluable for ensuring robust process creation, or issue resolution.

About: About

Key Achievements

Selection of projects from my career so far

Download Full CV

Director of 'Deductive Reasoning Ltd'

September 2011 - Present

Having gone into Consultancy in January 2011 to experience a wider range of engineering roles, I then setup my own company in September that year, and have continued to enjoy the challenges and opportunities the industry has to offer.

Dimensional System Engineer - Jaguar Land Rover

June 2018 - April 2020

Implemented System Engineering on Critical New JLR Programmes:

Tasked with rolling out ‘System Engineering’ on the new Electric XJ Executive Saloon, I delivered a car with no fundamental design issues on any of my 12 critical systems. This is in strong contrast to a usual launch programme where many components will be re-engineered to address fundamental design, quality and/or assembly concerns.

While this benefit is not easily quantified, the lack of re-design hours, re-tooling costs, late parts into production on later phases, the associated vehicle rework involved, and product launch delays easily runs into excess of £500K every programme.

In addition to the cost savings, I improved the quality outputs of the vehicle against benchmark models and predecessors.

As part of this I was able to reduce input tolerances by up to 75% by using process data, and agreeing tuning of key features where required.

This itself has driven a change in JLR tolerancing, to use ‘Process Variation’ and ‘Mean Shift’ independently where tuning is possible.

Lead Launch Engineer for Jaguar I-Pace - Jaguar Land Rover

September 2015 - June 2018

Produced the First Non-Finesse Tailgate Process in Jaguar Land Rover:

Historically Jaguar Land Rover Tailgates require 100% finesse on the Final Production Line to ensure a good fit, and alignment with adjacent components, to achieve Functional and Aesthetic requirements.

On the Jaguar I-Pace we redesigned the system, using a data driven approach to predict how much variation we would see, and how many man hours would be spent if we followed traditional fitment strategies.

Using the data, and a bold new alignment strategy, we proved that we could remove 2 heads per shift and improve the quality by 95% compared to the previous systems.

Working closely with Component Owners, Suppliers and Manufacturing Engineering, not only did we deliver a non-finesse Tailgate which exceeded the initial quality and productivity claims, but we delivered the requirements from the first vehicles produced at Prototype Build.

As a result, on the I-Pace we employed 4 less Finesse operators than previous models (circa £120k per annum).

There was also a significant quality improvement as we were able to achieve the required targets for the first time.

Finally, there was a significant (but unquantified) benefit from lack of damage, resulting in rework suffered on previous models.

The same fitment strategy has been subsequently deployed on the new models in development as the standard.

Product Development Engineer on Jaguar F-Type - Jaguar Land Rover

October 2011 - June 2015

Redesign of Headlamp Datum strategy for F-Type and future models:

One of the critical areas I was responsible for validating at the Prototype Phase of the F-Type launch was the Headlamp fit and alignment.

My detailed measurement study showed that, as well as parts being away from specification, they also didn’t respond as expected when assembled to the vehicle. Previously these issues would go unresolved until in the Production Plant, having been blamed on out of specification components, hence the new role. This would normally cause major production issues, delays, reworks and re-tooling costs.

Having highlighted the issue, I worked closely with the appropriate Component Engineers, Manufacturing Engineers and Suppliers to develop a robust datum and fitment strategy for the F-Type Headlamps. We validated this on Prototypes and proved the concept for production.

In addition, I developed a lessons-learned pack that detailed the concern, and the moments that acted on the Headlamp to cause poor fitment. This directly influenced and improved subsequent Headlamp strategies at Jaguar Land Rover.

Warranty Quality Engineer - Webasto Roof Systems UK

January 2011 - October 2011

Resolved Major Squeak and Rattle Concern on Jaguar XJ vehicle:

Employed by Webasto at the request of Jaguar Land Rover, to manage the Six Sigma Project to address the issue that had 1100 customer complaints, costing £660k, and was causing additional vehicle returns and loss of sales on the £90k XJ Executive Saloon.

This issue required daily feedback of status to Directors of both Webasto and Jaguar Land Rover, and working closely with engineers from both companies to understand, quantify, contain, resolve and implement solutions. In addition, there was a 72 day time limit imposed by JLR to a) Contain Current Production, b) Resolve Future Production, and c) Release a Solution to the Dealer Network with instructions and components required.

Not only did I resolve the problem, but completed the project within 35 days instead of 72.

I presented the findings (including some procedural failings on both sides) to Directors of both companies to ensure lessons learned.

Quality Engineer for 'Chronic and Complex' - Toyota Motor Manufacturing

January 2010 - January 2011

Created new Quality Department to address long standing x-functional concerns:

A lot of large companies develop a culture of passing some major issues from department to department without properly resolving them, when they have more than one owner, due to the way the metrics drive no-one individual to take ownership.

My department ‘Chronic and Complex’ at Toyota was setup to take ownership of these major issues and remove the costly containment processes that existed across the production plant and at suppliers.

I worked with the relevant departments, implementing the Toyota Problem Solving (TPS) methodology and documentation to define, quantify, contain, and ultimately resolve these major issues.

As well as helping to setup the department, the processes followed, the visual management, the metrics, and the regular report forums, I also was the main problem solver, with one assistant and a manager.

In the 1st year of the department it had:

Resolved 7 of the top 10 major issues being contained across Toyota UK
Saved future costs, as total of 2,500 vehicles that had been significantly reworked in the prior 11 months to countermeasure
Cost saving at both Toyota and Suppliers due the containment heads, processes and components that were no longer required exceeded £200k per annum

Project / Manufacturing Engineer - Toyota Motor Manufacturing

September 2008 - January 2010

1) Resolved major production bottleneck preventing delivery of Toyota vehicles to market:

Following a shift in market demands, the ratio of Wagon to Saloon vehicles was not possible due to a production bottleneck in Weld Shop. My role was to assess the bottleneck, time the process (overlaying Man, Machine, Movement, and Wait times) and develop a solution.

I produced 3 options to remove the bottleneck, including 1 firm proposal, all with business cases for cost, timing and benefit.

I then project managed the implementation of the solution which involved movement of robot cells and setup of a new cell with all safety equipment and regulations. My solution resolved the bottleneck, and provided flexibility for future ratio changes.

2) Produced Optimized Crisis Management Strategy:

There was a plan agreed within Toyota General Management that required a new Paint Process to be installed in case the old Electrodeposition Lines failed. This plan required significant cost and space to set up, and my job was to develop this.

Having assessed the process time, space required, and ability to corrosion protect the components to Electrodeposition standards, I determined that the proposed Crisis Management strategy was unfeasible, and detailed this in my report.

In addition, I implemented an FMEA process with the appropriate team members to ensure we understood what could fail, and had mitigation plans for each failure mode (including the ability to run parts on both lines in case one failed, spares of long lead time components, regular checks for key components, and service contracts for all pump systems).

This crisis management strategy saved Toyota from spending 100s of £1000s, and taking up 1000s of cubic feet of production space, on kit that may never be needed. They have never suffered a failure that has stopped production, but have regularly used components of the Crisis Management Strategy that otherwise would have stopped the whole plant for days.

Product Development Engineer - Bowers and Wilkins Loudspeakers

January 2008 - August 2008

Value Engineered the £44,000 Flagship Loudspeaker for Bowers and Wilkins:

After 10 years in Production, the Flagship ‘Nautilus’ Loudspeaker was still produced on prototype tooling, resulting in a constant struggle to achieve the quality required.

As a result, 1 pair of speakers was produced every 3 weeks in a static build zone, and the waiting list was 18 months.

In addition, the cost per unit was significant due to over-spec’d components, and excessive quality requirements.

Following 3 months of tooling redesign, component specification reviews, re-sourcing pf components, and process evaluations I had:

Reduced production lead time from 3 weeks to 4 days, largely due to achieving quality first time, without several rework loops
Reduced cost per unit by 34%, through clarity of specifications, and resourcing / renegotiating to the new specifications
Lead time reduced from 18 months to 3 months immediately
Enabled B&W to increase the unit price from £44k to £55k due to reduced lead time which increased customer interest

Quality Engineer - Bowers and Wilkins Loudspeakers

January 2002 - January 2008

Developed Customer Complaints Database and Business Process:

While this was early in my career, it shows my logical approach to the problem, and technical implementation, which has only improved over the last 20 years:

Step 1 – Determine the problem statement: Complaints database was independent of all other areas of the business, and had no ability to extract information or trend data of the issues being raised

Step 2 – Create a system specification: Discuss the requirements with the relevant stakeholders and adjacent process owners to ensure the new system fitted in with the business and added value

Step 3 – Determine the best software solution: Work closely with IT to review process requirements and software solutions

Step 4 – Develop working database: Database setup on SAP as this was the system direction for the whole company

Step 5 – Implement the system: Following trials and beta testing with stakeholders and users, roll out system on SAP

Step 6 – Develop training material and train all users and managers: Ensure all users and stakeholders understand how to use the new system, and how it can integrate with adjacent processes and departments

Step 7 – Duplicate the Customer Complaints Process for Internal Quality Issues: Ultimately they’re all quality issues, it’s just where they are found that makes it Internal or Customer Complaint, so the system should be the same, and the data should be correlated together.

My ability to assess, modify, and re-create business processes has been significant throughout my career.

Using the same logical problem solving (and often 6 Sigma) approach as for a physical problem, transfers the same onto transactional or procedural issues.

The generation of the improved Customer Complaints Database allowed Bowers and Wilkins to categorise, quantify, and react to trends across the world as never before, allowing us to focus the Quality Department on specific warranty projects to quickly resolve concerns.

In addition, when the Internal Database came online, we saw the Customer Complaints drop significantly due to our ability to respond quickly to the internal concerns and correlate these directly to the external database.

About: CV