Tony Simmonds | CQP MCQI LCGI
Quality Assurance (QA) Manager
MBDA
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Tony Simmonds
What are your roles and responsibilities at work?
As the QA Manager for MBDA Manufacturing UK, my role and responsibilities are the primary focal point for Improvement and Quality related issues, and to provide independent visibility and Quality Assurance are applied across all projects to the Customers’ requirements and expectations, Regulatory requirements and conformity to EN9100, therefore ensuring On Time, On Cost, On Quality (OTOCOQ).
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What is your background and how did you get into quality?
My current 33 years+ in the Defence and Aerospace sector began in 1983 with the Royal Air Force (RAF) as an Aircraft Weapons Mechanic then subsequently to Technician status; this was made first real exposure to Quality. In the RAF the development programme is structured to become an effective leader and manager of Operations, Quality, CI, Human Factors, Airworthiness, and HSE along with the facilitation and interpersonal skills. My military service spanned 28 years whereby I held many roles ranging from of Aircraft Operations both in peace and wartime environments to Continuous Airworthiness all-encompassing the entire portfolio of Quality. Voluntarily I left the RAF as a Senior Manager in 2012, spending the next 4 years working with Airbus based at Broughton, Wales within the Quality Conformance Management Team operating transversally across projects and transnationally as both the Foreign Object Debris (FOD) Prevention Leader and the Product Safety Focal Point. Leaving Airbus I then spent the next 2 years as a QA Manager in a high rate production facility whereby I then successfully acquired current role with MBDA.
As a Chartered Quality Professional / Member of the CQI / DIG my aim is to encourage people to become a Quality Professional with a clear development framework, with a rewarding career this can bring along with the variety and scope this provides.
