A Working Day for Robert Anstruther

SERP Engineer

Rob has had a life long passion for cars, in work and in his personal life. His journey began working on the weekends at a local petrol and valet station. He progressed into sales, working in the Japanese car importing market. With a desire to learn more about cars he decided to begin a technician apprenticeship.

Upon completing his apprenticeship he wished to further his knowledge and understanding of cars and went on to complete a Motorsport Engineering & Design course gaining a 2:1 degree with honours. Rob began work with USE* as a SERP Engineer working at a prestigious automotive OEM. After one year he moved to a new project with another luxury car manufacturer, based in the West Midlands, as Lead SERP Engineer.

As I wait to cross the road on my way to the front doors of our client’s Engineering Design Centre, one of the prototypes for a much-vaunted new product rolls past. The unmistakable, elegant and aggressive shape of the car is preceded by the low bass rumble of its high performance engine, it puts a grin on my face from ear to ear. Well, off to work I go!

I don’t have a typical day. I have some general duties which need to be completed each day, but once they are done, it’s time to get on with my priorities. My job, by definition, is working as a Service Evaluation and Repair Process Engineer - I ensure that when a car is being designed we can access and remove all major components and assemblies within an agreed target time. This offers many benefits to the OEM through warranty cost avoidance, reduced service bills for the customer, and increased satisfaction. Although this is my core work, it's only the tip of the iceberg!

Meetings are a large part of my day. Typically, there are fifteen or so engineers, programme coordinators, managers and analysts in the meeting room, a 5m x 3.5m projection of the 3D design data on the wall and a hot topic up for discussion. The ideas are flowing, everyone is involved and the atmosphere is quite electric! This is one of my favourite parts of my job - being at the very core of design gives me great satisfaction, knowing that one day, the vehicle on the screen will become reality and, more than that, I had input into it!

Now, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of it. I have being working on a critical study for the past few hours. After digitally creating the component extraction path, assessing hand access, testing special tool fitment and standard hand tool sweep area I've found an issue: there is not enough space for the ratchet to operate. By using our process work flow I go on to fill out a set of documents which I can log and trace the progress of the issue. This issue will be flagged and raised at the next design meeting, where, as a team, our ideas and input will generate a solution that works for all of the stakeholders.

Next minute the phone rings, the prototype part has just been finished and the engineer has called me to let me know the physical trial we had planned is being undertaken in an hour, the car is being prepped as we speak! This trial is critical to prove out all the work which I've been doing in the 3-D CAD world for the past six months. If the design change I've driven is proved out, it will save 5 hours over the current service repair job time, a massive win!

We enter the busy workshop and head straight over to the vehicle. The technician has a big smile on his face and is holding the component in his hand having completed the procedure already! Job done! So what’s next?

The end of the day comes round and my lift share is a couple of minutes later than usual, he has to take some work home, so I wait patiently outside. What I didn’t realise, was his homework comprised of doing 150 miles in one of our client’s luxury sports cars! It’s going to be a long journey home!

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