Eur. Ing. David Boettcher BSc(Hons) CEng MIET
Welcome to my web site.
What do my pre and post nominals mean?
- Eur. Ing.: The Eur. Ing. title awarded by FEANI (The European Federation of National Engineering Associations) is a guarantee of competence for professional engineers which is recognised throughout Europe. Eur. Ings. are listed in the FEANI Register, a database maintained by the Secretariat General in Brussels.
- BSc(Hons): I graduated in 1980 as a "Bachelor of Science with Honours" in Engineering Science from the University of Bath. Bath is located in the south west of England in the county of Somerset. With natural hot thermal springs, Roman Baths, the magnificent Pump Room, the splendid Abbey, sweeping Georgian crescents of houses in honey coloured sandstone, the Royal Theatre and many excellent pubs and restaurants, Bath is a beautiful and unforgettable place, and I totally enjoyed my three years there. If you get the chance to visit, I thoroughly recommend that you take it up.
- CEng: I am registered as a Chartered Engineer by the Engineering Council of the UK (ECUK). Under its Royal Charter, the Engineering Council regulates the engineering profession in the UK. Chartered Engineers must satisfy the competence standards set by ECUK, and be members of the appropriate Licensed Member Engineering Institution.
- MIET: I am a Member of The Institution of Engineering and Technology one of the world's leading professional societies for the engineering and technology community. The IET was formed in March 2006 by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) and the Institution of Incorporated Engineers (IIE). I was a member of the IEE (MIEE) until this amalgamation. The IET provides a global knowledge network to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and ideas, and promotes the positive role of Science, Engineering and Technology in the world.
I spent 20 years working in the nuclear power construction industry as a systems analyst and safety case specialist, working on, amongst others, the Hartlepool and Heysham 1 AGR, and the Sizwell B PWR, nuclear power station projects. I then became self employed in retail and IT.
During my experience in the nuclear industry I worked on all aspects of nuclear safety: mechanical, electrial, C&I (control and instumentation) and hazards. I am familiar with probabilistic safety assessment (PSA), failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA), hazards and operability (HAZOP) assessments, etc. etc. I have particular experience in the safety analysis of reactor protection systems, reactor control systems, station control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, and the design of control rooms and man-machine interfaces (MMI). I was also a member of the British Standards Institute (BSI) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and Chairman of an IEC working group.
One of the areas I became particularly interested and involved with was the incorporation of considerations of human performance and human factors (sometime called "ergonomics" or engineering psychology) into the design process, particularly of nuclear reactor control rooms. Too often in the past designers neglected this consideration, assuming that automatic systems would take care of situations and that the station operators were there as some sort of observers or overall conductors, without giving adequate consideration to what the operating staff needed in terms of information and controls to enable them to understand and react to developing situations. The accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power station in Pennsylvania was a prime example of this sort of problem, where the operators were given misleading information and as a result turned a minor event into a major disaster. The accident at Chernobyl in the Ukraine was another. The designers knew that the reactor would become unstable if it was operated in a particular way and could have provided information systems in the control room to warn the the operators of this, but didn't. I believe that consideration of human performance and human factors during the design process can improve the quality and performance of everything from a simple screw driver to a nuclear power station, and where safety is a concern, it is vital that it is done properly, right through the design process in a structured and audited way.
I first used a computer in 1975, long before the PC was conceived. In those days programming was done by paper tape or puched cards. I have used a computer virtually every working day since then, although they have moved on a bit. I can program in ancient languages like FORTRAN and COBOL and BASIC, but nowadays I use HTML, CSS, PHP and SQL. During my time in retailing I implemented several systems to provide stock control and point of sale support, giving real time tracking and reporting of stock levels and cash takings, allowing detailed data like stock turn ratios and return on capital to be used to manage retail operation effectively.
I am available for consultation on engineering, business, computing/IT and web issues.
You can email me at - I look forward to hearing from you!
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:If, like me, you are interested in vintage watches, especially First World War era officers or trench style wristwatches, you might like to visit my web site: www.VintageWatchStraps.com |
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