Transforming product design methodology, Harvey Kangley exceeds project’s financial target by a factor of 4!

KTP Associate: Harvey Kangley

Company: AUS

University: University of Huddersfield

The Project: AUS is an established and growing business supplying a range of products and services to the electricity distribution and transmission, rail, utility arboricultural, and telecommunications industries. AUS not only supplies specialist tools and materials, but also manufactures components to meet stringent engineering and safety standards. The company also offers specialised inspection, repairs and training services as many contracts are safety critical.

The aim of this project was to develop and establish methodologies for innovative product design, analysis and multi-criteria optimisation, in a highly constrained design environment, and to apply these to the design of novel products for rail electrification. 

This was a very challenging project as the company had virtually no formal product development process. Harvey has completely transformed this.

About the KTP Associate, Harvey Kangley. 

• Harvey has introduced a new process which incorporates many state-of-the-art tools to ensure that innovative products, which meet customer requirements, are generated and optimised. 
• He has also set up a design department, introducing the company to solid modelling and the benefits of using finite element analysis early in the design process. 
• The design department led by Harvey includes two full-time designers who collaborate with technical sales and manufacturing colleagues throughout product development and innovation projects.   
• The sales staff within the company regard Harvey as the ‘go to’ person when customers are demanding anything out of the ordinary.
• Harvey’s productivity during the project has been exceptional. He played a significant role in developing products responsible for exceeding the predicted financial benefit of the project, during the period of the project, by a factor of 4. 
• During the project he developed 31 entirely new products and has improved the design of a further 25 products. 
• Harvey has also submitted an MSc by Research thesis focusing on introducing a formal new product development process into an SME.
• Harvey has been proactive in establishing links with key suppliers; and on the customer side, he is the company’s technical point of contact with senior staff at Network Rail, HS2 and customers and technical authorities within the electrical supply industry. 
• Harvey has also taken an active role in the Railway Industry Association, the Permanent Way Institution and the Calderdale and Kirklees Manufacturing Alliance, in the latter case helping to run events to encourage high school students to consider a career in engineering. 
• Harvey presented a Design Challenge at the University and was part of the assessment team for the 10 groups who accepted this challenge. He has also undertaken other work with undergraduate and postgraduates.

Winners of this category were announced at the KTP Virtual Awards Ceremony on Wednesday 9 September.

See below for a profile of each of the 18 finalists in the Future Innovator category of this year’s KTP Best of the Best Awards:

Muddasar Anwar  Delivering innovation for Sustainable Drainage System to prevent flooding.

Blessing Mbipom Creating online learning for GPs.

Laurence Foster: Innovations to “print” structures, transforming house building.

Declan Bryans: Creating greener energy with innovations in flow batteries.

Elle Perschke: Applying B2C methodologies to launch a new product within a B2B company.

Mark Gilmore: Development of new class of greener ionic liquid, with multiple potential applications.

Khai Nguyen: Inventing a new silicone composite for consumer fixing brand, Sugru.

Swapnil Khadke: Creating new liposome formulations for application in drug delivery

Leona McGirr: Creating an Antibody Library for fully human antibodies.

Dan Hicks: Developing a new design and testing process for electric trails bikes.

Dmitry Bogachov: Advancing Materials Science for Anilox technology.

Andrew Grounds: Transforming business models for Social Enterprise.

Lyndsey McKirdy: Enhancing data science capability at Aggreko.

Jack Tallant: Transforming reporting and delivery of Charity’s activities.

Xi Liu: Using AI to develop fraud detection and prevention services for law firm.

Alex Komninos: Transforming spreadsheets in to cognitive models at IBM

Harvey Kangley: Delivering exceptional NPD for rail electrification

George Harris: Developing advanced engineering for intruder detection systems.

The Future Innovator category of the KTP Awards is supported by Ashorne Hill – a specialist training company which runs training programmes for all KTP Associates.

Want to find out more about working as a KTP Associate? More information here, and see the latest vacancies here.