The British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing has appointed Mark Dowell as founding chair of a new NDT Leadership Forum.
The aim of the forum is to provide a body to brief the government and influence other engineering professions about the benefits of non-destructive testing, condition monitoring and structural health monitoring. It will advise on the future supply of personnel in these fields to meet the requirements of Industry 4.0 and beyond, and will discover the NDT requirements of each industry sector, to inform R&D strategy. It will also initiate protocols, best practice guides and standards.
The forum will bring together stakeholders from professional engineering institutions and key industry sectors, together with the research and development community.
The chair will be supported by an advisory group on strategic NDT leadership during the initial work to establish the forum.
Dowell was interim business development manager at Derby-based Intertek NDT Services. From 2013 to 2017 he was managing director of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and prior to that business manager at SGS UK. He has served as a board director at the Safety Assessment Federation and is active on several BINDT committees.