Thursday, February 23, 2023
Read our latest article in Steel Times International, where Dr. Fiona Turner takes us behind the scenes, discussing a day in her life, working within the steel industry and the challenges she has faced throughout her career.
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hat is your job title, and how many years have you held this role?
I am currently global head of product management, and have been since April 2022. Previously I was physics section manager since 2010.
What led you to your current role? Has it been a lifelong passion?
Developing new products is certainly my calling, and I have always been attracted to heavy engineering applications. The exact roles I have worked in have been more of a stepwise progression, though. After my BSc physics degree, my first job (developing vehicle-mounted railway surveying instruments) and subsequent PhD taught me skills in optics and instrumentation. I built on these skills over the years, producing systems and products for applications in chemical engineering, environmental and biological monitoring, and anti-counterfeiting before moving into infrared temperature measurement and control.
I always enjoyed designing and making a new system or instrument work in the lab, but for me the really rewarding part is seeing it really work for a customer in the – often harsh environment – of the field. This focus led me to further qualifications in usability
What does a usual working day look like in your job role?
There is no typical day. I might have a site visit such as a steel plant, talking to customers about their requirements and how our current products might work better for them with some expert configuration. The next day I might be back in the office or lab, feeding site experience back to the technical team so we can optimise the design of new products to make them as valuable and easy as possible to use on-site. I always have emails to respond to, to support the global sales team on more technically complex customer enquiries – which of our products could be used in an unusual hard-to-measure application? What wavelength would be suitable for measurement in this process? If we don’t currently have a product, then perhaps we should, in which case I might start putting together a business case internally.
Click here to read the full article on pages 40-43