1. Skills and Experience
I bring to the post of
Configuration Manager
Paul Gambon
January 2016
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2. Career Summary
• Forty years of successfully providing a wide variety of support to high tech electronic
systems design and development environments, predominantly in the Defence industry.
Comprising:
• 25 years in senior Configuration Management, including data management.
• 4 years in QualityAssurance roles.
• 5 years as aTechnicalAuthor/Writer.
• 6 years as a radio/radar/navigation/laser technician and line manager with the UK MOD.
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3. Configuration Management Experience
• Internal company configuration management.
• Consortium and partner company configuration management on major defence
programmes.
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4. Summary of Skill Sets
• Highly successful at meeting Customer requirements and expectations.
• Ability to negotiate amendments with the Customer, often offering more efficient and cost
effective solutions that equally meet or exceed their original expectations.
• Record of simplifying, where appropriate, and improving effectiveness of CM processes.
• Highly successful at communicating and co-working with staff at all levels.
• An effective listener, always taking due cognizance other people’s views.
• Ability to "sell" changes to programme staff and bring them on board.
• Highly effective at working on my own initiative and simplifying solutions to complex
problems.
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5. Summary of Skill Sets
(continued)
• Ability to develop CM and DM processes from scratch.
• Ability to integrate agreed improvements into an existing system while ensuring minimal
disruption and maintaining or improving existing workflow.
• Acknowledged as a successful people manager.
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6. Consortium and Partner Company
Configuration Management
• CM Specialist on EH101/Merlin helicopter programmes (£1.5 billion) for 6 years.
• Configuration Manager of theTHALES work share on the Eurofighter Eurofirst consortium.
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7. EH101/ Merlin Consortium
Configuration Management
Details
• Held the post of Configuration Management Specialist with the consortium management
company (EH Industries) for over 6 years.
• Provided continualCM support and advisory services to EH Industries, and the consortium
partners GKNWestland ( UK) and Agusta (Italy).
• Generated and published the customer CITrees for all helicopter variants.
• Secretary to, and occasionally co-chairman of, the Customer CMWorking Group.
• Provided CM support to CM and Quality audits, and the Customer FCA/PCA process.
• Responsible for the interconnection of the CM databases between GKNWestland and
Agusta.
• Monitored practices and ensured CM compliance with the contractual requirements of both
the Consortium and the customers for each helicopter variant.
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8. Eurofighter Eurofirst Consortium
Configuration Management
• Held the post of Configuration Manager of theTHALES work share for 15 years.
• Provided daily CM advice and support to Programme and Engineering Management.
• Wrote and maintained programme configuration management plans.
• Managed all consortium changes and consortium document updates forTHALES.
• Generated Equipment Baseline Build Standards/Customer CITrees.
• Chairman and secretary of theTHALES Change Control Committee.
• Provided CM support to internal CM and Quality audits, and the Customer FCA/PCA process.
• Company internalQuality auditor.
• Monitored practices and ensured compliance with bothTHALES internal CM processes and
the contractual requirements of the Consortium.
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9. Internal Company Configuration
Management
Summary
• Highly successful at developing and implementing standardised CM practice from scratch
on 55 projects, and across all design, development and manufacturing functions on
multiple sites.
• Established a culture of company-wide best practice configuration management, with
emphasis on continuous improvement.
• Minimised design and manufacturing errors and reduced costs.
• Ensured the company met the requirements of internationalCM standards
(MIL-STD 973, ISO 10007, EIA 649, Def Stan 05-57, STANAG 4159) and standardised CM
practice across 55 projects.
• Enhanced credibility of the company with the customer.
• Kept the company at the forefront of the customer’s preferred suppliers.
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10. Internal Company Configuration
Management
Details
• I was appointedConfiguration Manager of a company designing, developing and
manufacturing electronic systems for the navy, army and air force.
• During my 3-year tenure, the company grew rapidly from 250 staff working on 12 projects,
to 650 staff working on 55 projects across 3 sites .
• Also during this period, the company went from having no configuration management to
gaining the reputation with the customer having one of the best CM systems in the
country.
• I mandated that every project had a dedicated CM Plan and named ConfigurationOfficer.
• I had 22 staff reporting to me, including all the Print Room staff. 10
11. Internal Company Configuration
Management
Details (continued)
• All CM staff were trained by myself.
• Since no external training was available, I generated fast-track internal training
programmes for all CM staff.
• I studied the requirements of internationalCM standards, analysed the requirements of
our customers, and developed, wrote and implemented from scratch all company CM
processes and procedures.
• I introduced and conducted CM training and awareness seminars for all Programme
Managers, Design Engineers and Manufacturing staff.
• I had absolute control of all company engineering data, and developed and implemented
secure backing-up and archiving processes. 11
