David (Dave) Nicoll

Experience

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  BAE Systems

  Apr 1978 - May 1991

  Systems Development & Flight Trails Engineer

  Project Manager responsible for the development of an engine management system, successfully used in prototype aircraft in advance of the production engine and control system becoming available.Member of a small multi-disciplinary team responsible for the development of a full authority safety-critical digital Flight Control systems for an unstable aircraft. Computer modelling of aircraft and systems. Support to flight trials and system analysis.

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  TRW

  Jun 1991 - Dec 1998

  Project Manager & Engineering Manager (Braking & Chassis Systems)

  Engineering Manager responsible for the development of a range of new products, and the provision of resources and engineering skills. Products included:- Electronic Power Assisted Steering (EPAS)- Autonomous Cruise Control (ACC)- Vehicle Stability Control (VSC)- Anti-Lock Brake Systems (ABS)- Heating Ventilating and Air-Conditioning (HVAC)Coordination with vehicle manufacturers and sister companies across Europe and USA.Project Manager responsible for the development of an anti-theft device for automotive diesel engine control systems. Managed the simultaneous development to manufacture of seven variants of the product. Full development lifecycle including software, hardware (electronics), manufacturing support and after-market. Show less

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  Vivista

  Jan 1999 - May 2005

  Implementation & Development Project Manager

  Senior Deployment Project Manager responsible for the simultaneous deployment and go-live of two new products at three different police forces. Responsible for managing the coordination across different stakeholders including senior Police Officers, Police Authority, Courts, and HMG representatives, and the integration of the systems with existing local and national IT systems. Change management including training, legacy data, and transition to Business as Usual.Senior Development Project Manager responsible for managing a large UK development team as part of an HMG sponsored national programme for the Police service (NSPIS). The multidisciplinary team were developing two new large scale business critical n-tier (client-server) products to support all UK forces.Senior Development Project Manager responsible for remedial activities on a large scale legacy C&C system for the police and other emergency services. Show less

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  Silver Software

  Jun 2005 - Jun 2008

  Senior Project and Programme Manager

  Project Manager responsible for the development and integration of the embedded software for a safety-critical rail control and signalling system. Responsible for all aspects of the project, including development process (Agile), safety analysis, recruitment, contract terms and variation orders. Monthly progress presentations direct to customers CEO and board. Development team of 75 direct engineering reports across three countries (UK, India, Spain). Subject to external independent safety assessment and project audit and compliance with CENELEC 50128 Safety-Critical (SIL-4).Project Manager responsible for the formalisation of a customers safety-critical embedded RTOS for rail applications.Short-term secondment to Madrid (Spain) in support of a flight refueling control system project.Project Manager responsible for several aerospace development and verification projects (DO-178B). Show less

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  Silver Atena

  Jul 2008 - Nov 2008

  Project & Programme Manager

  Project Manager responsible for the first joint business with Silvers new partner Atena. This was a Validation & Verification (V&V) project for an aerospace engine management system, with control logic defined in MatLab.Resolution of issues with a telecomms related project.

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  Project Realization

  Oct 2008 - now

  Founder and Director

  Project Realization provides project management consultancy, training and software development services.The company was founded in 2009 to help organisations improve their project delivery and software development processes and capabilities, to deliver their technology projects more effectively, and to gain a meaningful ROI as quickly as possible. PRL offers consultancy and guidance or can act as an interim to enable projects to get started quickly when clients resources may be otherwise occupied. Our software development capability can be used to expand a customers own capability or for outsourcing packages of work to PRL.Please contact me if you would like to know more.Tel: +44 (0) 1793 250149 Show less

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  Government Department

  May 2009 - Oct 2010

  Senior Project Manager

  Responsible for the deployment into service of a number of telecommunications projects and the end to end delivery through the coordination of a multi-disciplinary project team in a complex user environment.

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  Babcock International Group

  Jan 2010 - May 2011

  Deputy Programme Manager

  The Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) is a consortium that provides a flight refuelling capability to the Royal Air Force that will be run as an independent small airline.The programme involves the provision of everything required by an airline, from support to the aircraft, crew, ground staff, maintenance engineers, provision of spares, fuel handling, and associated mission planning systems. Building of new hangars, briefing rooms, IT infrastructure, telecomms, training and simulators, multimedia, furniture etc. Show less

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  Government Department

  May 2011 - Apr 2012

  Senior Project Manager

  Responsible for the development of a new complex embedded system with innovative features, and a critical immovable end-date. Management of a multi-disciplinary team over the whole product development life-cycle from prototype to pre-production, including software, electronics, mechanical and manufacturing.

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  Oil Advisory and Technical Services (OATS)

  Mar 2014 - Jun 2014

  Consultant (Agile Development)

  Introduction of Agile development processes and organisation of development teams.

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  Siemens Rail Automation

  Jul 2014 - Mar 2015

  Senior Project Manager & Agile Consultant

  Project Manager responsible for the development of a Train and Signalling Control Centre across the full end-to-end development lifecycle from system requirements through to system integration and test. Agile development processes in compliance with CENELEC 50128 SIL-2, with emergent system requirements.

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  Oil Advisory and Technical Services (OATS)

  Mar 2015 - Jul 2015

  Consultant
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  Hitachi Information Control Systems Europe (formerly RWE)

  Apr 2016 - Oct 2016

  Senior Implementation Project Manager (Contract)

  To October 2016Responsible for managing a team defining the data that describes the local track geography and control requirements for a Rail Operating Centre (ROC), and the subsequent system test and go-live. Internal reporting to the Operations Manager for project schedule, resourcing, costs, risk identification and mitigation activities. External reporting to Hitachi's immediate customer and others in the contract chain to the end-user organisation.

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  UK Atomic Energy Authority / Culham Centre for Fusion Energy

  Dec 2016 - Feb 2018

  Project #3: MAST Upgrade - Installation of IT network for Control System for fusion vessel First-Bake (Nov 2017 to Jan 2018)The first major milestone for MAST-U is the initial ‘bake’ of the fusion reactor, which requires a number of essential monitoring and diagnostic systems to be available and integrated into the control room via the operational network. In absence of any clear priorities directed and led the installation of the network, connectivity to equipment and switches and associated configurations. All activities completed by end December 2017 ready for first bake in Jan 2018 Show less Project #2: MAST Upgrade - Design and Installation of New IT Server Room, Power, Cubicles and Networks.Responsible for the uplift of the IT infrastructure of the £30M upgrade to the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) experimental fusion plasma facility. This involves the development and implementation of several new capabilities including improved control and monitoring of nuclear fusion experiments, the recording, display, replay, storage and distribution of very high-speed video, the development of a new Virtual Server Farm, design and implementation of a new IT Server Room including the design of new high availability cubicles, installation of new power supplies including 100KvA UPS, and networks. Reporting directly the head of MAST-U Control and Instrumentation for project schedule, costs, risk identification management and resolution, engagement with 3rd party suppliers and subcontractors, close liaison with the overall programme team (including construction, diagnostics, analysis, control) and across multiple departments at senior engineer to department head level, directors and external suppliers. Made several improvements to internal business processes, including schedule and estimating, incremental delivery, estimating, progress tracking, risk identification and mitigation activities. Show less Project #1: Implementation of a new Modular Data Centre (MDC) and High-Performance/High-Performance/High-Throughput supercomputer for modelling the behaviour of nuclear particles. Reporting to the Head of CODAS (JET Control and Data Systems) for the delivery of the whole end-to-end project requiring close coordination and cooperation across many departments ranging from site Estates, Civil engineering, ground workers, IT infrastructure, networks, Procurement, Finance, H&S, internal and external suppliers, and theoretical physicists. The supplier contract was awarded at the end of December 2016 with a challenging target go-live of end March 2017, Responsible for the development and maintenance of a credible and realistic project schedule, risk identification and mitigation, resource planning, skills profiling, cost accounting, and management of third party suppliers in UK and Italy. The project stressed many site procedures but through the application of some Lean and Agile techniques delivered a fully operational system in mid-March 2017, two weeks ahead of schedule. Show less

  • Senior Project Manager (Contract)

    Dec 2017 - Feb 2018

  • Senior Project Manager (Contract)

    Nov 2017 - Jan 2018

  • Senior Project Manager (Contract)

    Apr 2017 - Oct 2017

  • Senior Project Manager

    Dec 2016 - Apr 2017
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  FORMULA ONE MANAGEMENT LIMITED

  Feb 2018 - Oct 2018

  Project #2: Curve Braking DistanceManaging the development of a Proof of Concept (PoC) product to demonstrate driver braking and acceleration behaviors in the approach and exit from a curve. Determining the precise location of a racing car with respect to the track is extremely difficult due to the speeds involved and the volume of data that needs to be processed across multiple vehicles in semi real-time. By using an innovative combination of data processing technologies from the financial industry and a high-performance database a working PoC has been demonstrated at live races, with new televised graphics being broadcast worldwide. The PoC is now being extended to show those drivers who braked closest to the apex of a curve, considered to be a major factor contributing to a drivers final race position and potentially an early predictor of final race position. Show less Project #1: New Timing SystemThe race timing system is fundamental to the operation of a race (for Formula-1 series and others), it records details of the race times for competitors, intermediate times at points around the track, details of the preceding practice sessions, qualifying sessions, penalties and pit-stops. Data is broadcast live worldwide, and accumulated over the season to determine the overall World Championship and Constructors Championship positions, and produces formal race reports to the FIA for worldwide distribution. The current timing system is based on old unsupported technology and has been substantially modified so maintenance is now a concern.Responsible for project managing a small team developing a replacement timing system using current .NET technologies with C#, CSS, HTML, and XML, with Visual Studio incorporating ReSharper, SonarQube and TeamCity in an Agile approach with Scrum and JIRA. Prior to my involvement the project team had no understanding of their development timescales or resource requirements with no delivery road-map. Responsible for developing a sequence of top-level milestones that steer the development to the completion of the final product, with meaningful interim product releases that can be run at a race as a shadow to the current live system enabling the code to be subject to real-world operational experience with direct comparison to the live system and opportunities for user feedback.Used team performance to provide an estimate of future achievements, identifying resource short-falls and escalating as necessary, leading to other departmental resources being reprioritized and reassigned. Identifying and resolving functional risk areas and priorities with race operations teams. Show less

  • Senior Project Manager

    May 2018 - Oct 2018

  • Senior Project Manager (Contract)

    Feb 2018 - Oct 2018
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  Altran

  Dec 2018 - Oct 2019

  Senior Project Manager

  Rail industry project developing control software for a European client with Scandinavian end-user. Safety-critical (loss of life) developed in accordance with CENELEC 50128 (SIL4).Agile approach to software development using JIRA, integrating with the clients Waterfall (stage-gate) approach to monitoring project progress.

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  Rotork

  Jan 2020 - Apr 2020

  Senior Project Manager

  Managing a project to uplift an existing actuator control system to extend its manufacturing life and extend its functionality in order to secure its future market position. Uplifts to software/firmware and electronics, some future mechanical uplifts being considered. Managed as a Scrum development project using JIRA with 2-week sprints, sprint-end retrospectives including developer demos.Project was also pioneering/pipe-cleaning the organisations new product development process.Following concerns over potential impact of Corona virus on manufacturing the in-house development team has been successfully working from home, but to protect costs contractors were released. Show less