A few favourite quotes that help Ian with meeting organisation objectives:
“Mangement is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
“The best way to predict the duture is to create it.”
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all”
– Peter F Drucker (1954) –
What led you to this career?
In the early days, (35 years ago…) an interest in metallurgy and mechanical testing gave me an introduction to inspection in general. I had great mentors, highly supportive and knowledgeable, who helped me learn about inspection and provided me with opportunities for the development of Advanced NDT technologies, which I took on. This led to further work in the integration of high quality validated NDT data, into the asset integrity management process. In recent years, the experiences gained over the decades have supported further development of our team to deliver Advanced NDT technologies into different environments, such as in-service storage tank floor inspections.
What does your job role involve?
My job involves the management of a team to develop and apply safely, in industry, robotic technologies predominantly for in-service storage tank floor inspections in a range of products such as crude oil, diesel, kerosene, condensates and water. In addition, I oversee the inspection projects to ensure high levels of safety are achieved and that client expectations and objectives are fully and successfully met within budget and ahead of schedule.
Can you give an insight into your working day at Sonomatic?
With the team and clients being located globally, timezones do not align to a ‘normal’ 9 to 5 UK working day or working week, so I start early for the Far East and Middle East projects and finish late in the day to cover the North and South America clients. These days we attend a lot of online meetings, following up on actions, determining requirements for robotic technologies to be deployed and supporting the team to achieve delivery of top class, world-leading, in-service storage tank floor inspections.
What is the best thing about being part of the Sonomatic Team?
In other organisations I have worked with in the past, we would have one ‘guru’ being someone that would generally be too busy to help in providing solutions to the client(s). In Sonomatic, we have several, all excellent and exceptional at disseminating leading-edge and qualified information and being available to support as and when required. The initial recruitment and as importantly, the retention of these personnel is a credit to the Senior Management team at Sonomatic and delivers the end client a service that is unequalled by other inspection providers.
What accomplishment have you made at Sonomatic that you are proud of?
This is a difficult question to answer, we are a team and have collectively accomplished many class-leading deployments of NDT technologies into hazardous and inhospitable environments. I think that my proudest accomplishment is remaining an integrated part of the Tank Robot team with whom customers enjoy working with, whilst they are also saving time and money compared to using traditional, out of date, out of service approaches to NDT and inspection.
What do you enjoy doing when you are not working?
In the main, I enjoy visiting heritage sites and viewing ‘good art’. I also, when time allows, sail my boat around the South Wales coastline with family, especially with the grandchildren ‘learning the ropes’, which is a true joy. I also have a motorcycle which I use for touring and camping with my dear wife, Sharon.
