John Gittins CEng MIAgrE CASE STUDY

Education and qualifications: BEng (Hons) Agricultural

Engineering, MSc Agricultural Engineering
Which Institution(s) are you a member of? IAgrE
Current job title: Engineering and Quality Manager
Company: Allett Mowers - a division of Turfmech Machinery Ltd
Length in current job: One year in my current role prior to this I
worked as the Engineering Manager for three and a half years
Approximately how many staff are employed by your
company? Around 40
Where are you based? Hixon, Staffordshire

Please describe your current role:

As the Engineering and Quality Manager I am responsible for
ensuring products comply with new and current safety legislation.
My main duties include compiling and managing technical
construction files and negotiating third party compliance testing. I
also plan and oversee the installation and setup of new plant and
equipment with a focus on improving the organisation’s efficiency
and effectiveness. In addition, I develop and implement technical
procedures and assist all departments with technical knowledge.

As the person responsible for the engineering department, my

day to day duties include planning and managing budgets,
assigning tasks to engineers, appraising their work and
mentoring their development. I also give presentations to the
company directors as part of the management team.
The quality aspect of my role sees me use my strengths in
problem solving to implement structure and process
improvements. Leading a team of five production and quality
engineers, we resolve internal quality and customer issues using
techniques that I introduced and championed throughout the
organisation.
More recently I have been working on the management and
development of a new stage-gate process model which I
conceptualised and have continuously improved over the last four
years. This has involved co-ordinating and directing several
simultaneous projects and delegating tasks to a cross functional
team, including the Sales Director and Marketing Executive.
Please provide a brief outline of your career so far:
My Bachelors degree included a one year industrial placement
and I was fortunate to get a position as student engineer at The
Belle Group, a manufacturing organisation for the building and
construction markets, in 2004/5. That summer I worked as a
student engineer for Lewis Equipment, another manufacturing
company, but this time of amenity and horticulture equipment.
In August 2007, I began my full time career at Allett Mowers, a
British-owned company that specialises in the manufacture of
precision, single cylinder, walk behind mowers and a division of
Turfmech Machinery, as a Design and Development Engineer
before being promoted to Chief Engineer two years later. In
January 2011, I took on the role of Engineering Manager; this
position was then expanded in September last year to include
quality management.
Have you worked on any unusual or high profile projects?
Over the last seven and half years at Allett Mowers, I’ve
managed a number of design projects which have resulted in the
mowers being used at a number of high profile sports grounds
including, Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea
Football Clubs as well as Edgbaston Cricket Ground.
In addition, I have been responsible for designing bespoke
mowers for use at several Royal residences including Windsor
Castle, Balmoral Castle and Highgrove. The latter had to be
adapted so that it could cut to specific heights. Other bespoke
designs are being used elsewhere in the UK, and include Queens
Tennis Club (bespoke adaptions to allow mower to mow closer to
posts used for the net), Guards Polo club (10m3 tractor powered
vacuum to collect grass and debris from the polo pitches) and
Darley stud (low noise and vibration battery powered mower to
suit the quiet environment).
What attracted you to become registered as a CEng?
I wanted to gain professional registration as a CEng as I felt it
would demonstrate continuity in learning and development after
gaining my academic qualifications. Furthermore it provided me
with an excellent framework to help build and establish
comprehensive professional competence. This was especially
important to me as I work in a small company where there is no
mentoring programme or a more senior engineer to seek
guidance from. Even after registration the competence and
commitment framework is attractive as it can sustain professional
development and ensures that my skills do not stagnate.

Created January 2015 Page 1 of 2


How did you become registered as a CEng?
I originally became a student member of the IAgrE when I began
my BEng degree at university; this was my first introduction to
professional registration. My student membership was paid for by
the Douglas Bomford Trust, which supports engineering and
science education and knowledge transfer in the agriculture
sector. When I completed my degree, I made the decision to
continue my studies to Masters level, partly because it meant I
would meet the academic requirements for registration as a
Chartered Engineer.
Having joined Allett Mowers in 2007, I began to develop my
career, holding a number of positions until I reached
management level. At this point I was in a position that would
allow me to meet all the competences required as stated in the
Engineering Council’s UK-SPEC. I started recording evidence
from current and past projects where applicable, and at regular
reviews I set objectives to undertake projects to address the
gaps in my competence.
When I was sure I had addressed all the competences, I sent my
application to IAgrE for consideration. I was invited to attend an
interview in September 2014 and was notified shortly afterwards
that I had been successful.
How has professional registration as a CEng benefitted your
career?
Becoming professionally registered has given me more
confidence in decision making and provided me with skills and
experience that I can use to handle larger projects. Professional
registration has proven my ability over a broad range of core
areas and demonstrated that I am ready to take on further
responsibility.
What advice would you give someone considering
professional registration as a CEng?
You need to be really clear what the registration process involves
at your chosen institution as there will be several key steps which
you must complete. Go and seek the necessary information from
official websites or mentors. Before you start, I recommend
planning out how you are going to record your evidence and how
much of this you actually need for the final assessment.
Regularly and formally review your progress as part of a
company appraisal scheme, then set objectives on what to do
next to help you achieve your goal.
What are your future goals?
Going forward I aim to continue to take on new responsibilities
and look for challenging projects to allow me to develop new
skills and enhance existing ones further. I hope to build on the
skills I have learned during my educational and professional
journey.
I wish to progress into different roles in order to broaden my
existing experience and knowledge in other areas of engineering.
Looking further into the future I intend to seek even more
challenging positions which will allow me to develop further.
Created January 2015
CASE STUDY
The company strategy is to focus on new product development in
order to grow the business. I’m hoping to help with this challenge
and deliver on the strategy by introducing successful and
innovative products and exploiting new technologies in my
industry field.
It is my ambition to raise the profile of professional registration
within my organisation by mentoring engineers in my team. I
would also like to continue to support the IAgrE by providing
articles on various topics for its journal, especially if these will
help other engineers in their careers or with professional
development.
What is your employer’s attitude towards professional
registration?
My employer appreciates the value and the status which is
connected with professional registration.
I am currently the only engineer to hold a professional title;
however this is something I’m planning to champion by
mentoring fellow engineers within the company.
Were they supportive while you were working towards
professional registration as a CEng?
My workplace supported me by giving me the freedom to work on
a variety of different projects and attend training courses. They
also helped me identify projects that would allow me to gain new
skills and gain competence.
How does your employer benefit from you being
professionally registered as a CEng?
My employer has promoted my success in gaining professional
registration as CEng by issuing a press release which has been
included on our website and published in industry magazines
such as Turf Business and Service Dealer.
In the words of Austin Jarrett, Managing Director of Allett
Mowers: “John has shown a very high level of dedication to his
career and we are extremely happy that he has reached
Chartered Engineer status, both for John personally and for
Allett! Achieving such a greatly valued qualification is a
significant feat and a mark of an engineer's competence and
professionalism.”
John Gittins CEng MIAgrE
Registered: 2014
In an article published in IAgrE’s winter edition of ‘Landwards’,
John sets out the steps he took to gain professional registration
as a Chartered Engineer. See the full article is below.
Page 2 of 2
 EngC Registration

Professional Registration: The steps to success

by JOHN GITTINS, BEng (Hons), MSc, CEng, MIAgrE
John Gittins grew up on a family run dairy farm near Oswestry in Shropshire. From an early age Lego cap-
tured his interest and combined with his love of inventing this made him pursue a career in engineering. He
attended Harper Adams University to study a BEng (Hons) in Agricultural Engineering which included an
industrial placement year. John was very pleased to win the Johnson New Holland trophy for his major proj-
ect to design a telescopic and rotational dipper arm for a Lewis Equipment backhoe loader.
After graduating John decided to take an MSc in Agricultural Engineering. On completion he took
employment at Turfmech Machinery as a Design and Development Engineer working on the newly acquired
Allett cylinder mower range.
As his career progressed he moved up to Chief Engineer then Engineering Manager and has recently
become Engineering and Quality Manager. He now manages the new product introduction team following a
stage gate process model that he conceptualised and has continuously improved over the past 4 years. This
process ensures they listen to their customers and only invest time and money in worthy projects. John provides
technical support for production and aftersales, which became increasingly important after Turfmech made a
large acquisition in 2011 of both the petrol and electric cylinder lawnmower ranges from Bosch Lawn and
Garden Equipment in Stowmarket. This made the Allett mower brand a significant name in British
manufacturing.

The intention of this article is to clearly set
out the steps needed to complete profes-
sional registration and encourage readers
to take suitable steps to record and plan
their own professional development.
There are 3 levels of professional regis-
tration; Chartered Engineer (CEng),
Incorporated Engineer (IEng) and
Engineering Technician (EngTech). Each in
their own right has a set of competence
and commitment criteria which need to be
met.
Figure 1 below summarises the 6 steps to
becoming professionally qualified, all 3 lev-
els of professional registration require you
to follow the same basic path.
ACADEMIC STUDY
Loosely, CEng requires academic study to
a Masters level (MEng, MSc or MBA),
IEng requires a Bachelors degree (BEng or
BSc) and to reach the EngTech grade a
National Diploma (ND) is needed.
Figure 2 summarises the academic routes
to achieve the desired professional grade.
Professional grade Academic qualification & Time
CEng MEng
BEng/BSc
IEng BEng/BSc
EngTech ND
Figure 2: Academic study requirements for professional registration grades
For a more complete list of qualifications
and their equivalents you can visit:
www.iagre.org/registration/profqualseng
All courses must be accredited by the
Engineering Council (EngC) who licence
the IAgrE to award professional engineer-
ing qualifications. To check if your course
is accredited visit: www.engc.org.uk/educa-
tion--skills/accreditation/accredited-
course-search
DECIDING WHICH GRADE TO APPLY FOR
The previous section outlined the academic
qualifications recommended for each pro-
fessional grade. However, it is ultimately
your competence and commitment to pro-
fessional standards which are assessed
rather than the qualifications you have
gained. With the correct experience some-
one with a BSc or HND (Higher National
Diploma) can become a Chartered
Engineer. Figure 2 should act as a guide to
help you choose the most appropriate level
to aim for and select the right competence
and commitment criteria to use.
If you are in any doubt which grade you
are applicable for you may fill in the regis-
MSc/MBA
tration form on the IAgrE website leaving
section 2 blank. The IAgrE can then best
advise you which grade you are most appli-
cable for.
The form can be found at:
www.iagre.org/sites/iagre.org/files/docs/app
form.pdf and some useful guidance on fill-
ing it in is available at: www.iagre.org/mem-
bership/guidance
RECORD EVIDENCE
It is highly recommended that you down-
load a copy of the Competence and
Commitment Standard for the grade of
professional membership you are seeking.
These guides are available from:
www.engc.org.uk/professional-registra-
tion/standards/uk-spec. The guides list the
competences that must be met for each
grade and give useful examples of the
activities which you may use as evidence.
Table 1 summarises the competences
required for all professional qualification
levels.
When recording your competences the
IAgrE online tool is very useful, its use has
been covered in a previous Landwards arti-
cle from the Summer 2014 edition on pg20-
21. It is important to choose a method of
recording your competences that suits you.
Some candidates choose a series of quar-
terly reports listing events in chronological
order. Others like myself choose a project
based approach. Table 2 gives a useful for-
mat for recording evidence using this
method.
In the project based approach at the
completion of a significant project the most
fitting competences are allocated, a sum-
mary is produced and some form of hard
evidence is kept as proof. The hard
evidence may be in the form of; design

Figure 1

Academic Decide on Record Review & Organise & Professional

study review
grade evidence plan submit interview
30 Landwards Winter 2014

Category Roles and Responsibilities
A Knowledge and Understanding
B Application to Practice
C Leadership / Management / Supervision C1/C2/C3/C4
D Interpersonal Skills
E Professional Conduct
Table 1: Summary of competences.
Category A-D D covers the competences and category E covers the
commitments that the EngC standard requires for each grade. There are
17 competences in total.
studies, data sets, calculations, drawings,
defect investigations, project plans, arti-
facts, photographs or computer
programmes.
Here are some abstracts from my own
evidence to act as an example of what you
may like to include in each projects sum-
mary:
• “Here, I learnt to lead by example. Driving
for efficiency and sharing my knowledge of
lean techniques helped other members in
my team develop and ultimately achieve
our common goal. I gained valuable proj-
ect management experience and now con-
tinue to look for further efficiency improve-
ments.”
• “The main benefit of a structured problem
solving approach is that it helps share
information and drives the solution of
problems, therefore improving quality. I
have used the problem solving model many
times when reporting on the solution of
warranty issues to the Aftersales Manager,
Sales Director and MD. A structured prob-
lem solving approach gives the Sales team
and MD confidence in the products quality
and that serious and deliberate actions are
being taken to make improvements.”
Competence Project title Competence description
B1 Identify potential projects
B1 and opportunities.
Quality
improvement B2 Conduct appropriate
B2
project research, and undertake
C2 design and development of
engineering solutions.
C1 Plan for effective project
implementation.
Table 2: Project based evidence recording
• “When the model was implemented, as
project manager I placed myself with dif-
ferent team members, both people orientat-
ed and action orientated roles. Here I
could give leadership and develop my
understanding of the potential problems. I
learnt to utilise my analytical and disci-
pline skills to help move the project
through the activity stages using a com-
bined collaborative approach. I was able to
offer technical support to the Sales team
and gain a better first hand understanding
of the customer’s needs.”
Table 3: Competence contents table
REVIEW AND Competence criteria
Competence
PLAN
A1/A2
By this point to
Project title or
B1/B2/B3 recap you have
Report date A1 A2 B1 B2 B3 C1
decided; which Quality
level of profes- improvement
D1/D2/D3 project
sional registra-
E1/E2/E3/E4/E5 tion to aim
towards, become Lean
familiar with the manufacturing
competence and training
commitment cri-
teria and have
company acquisition to design studies on
recorded and
hand-arm vibration to the conceptualisa-
summarised several projects or work activi-
tion of a product introduction process
ties with some hard evidence as proof.
model.
You will now need to review the evi-
Evidence should be organised in a folder
dence you have collected periodically. If
and in a sensible order. Organising the evi-
you have regular appraisals this is a good
dence by competence is useful, for example
time to hold the review. It will help you
the project you are using to demonstrate
plan what to focus your development on
competence A1 should come first, followed
for the next period.
by A2 and so on. Make good use of
It is advisable to collect equal amounts
dividers and the contents page as shown in
of evidence for each competence to make
Table 3 is useful to quickly reference a
sure development is uniform and well bal-
project and the competences it demon-
anced in all skill areas. It may be helpful to
strates. It is a good idea to include an exec-
summarise the evidence and competences
utive summary like the example in Table 2
gained in a contents table, like the one in
for each of the selected projects. Aim to
shown in Table 3.
make 4 copies of the evidence you will sub-
The projects in Table 3 reveal that the B3
mit. If you are submitting your evidence
competence is missing. As an objective in
electronically make sure you have made
your work appraisal or an action point in
full use of hyperlinks in pdf or Word docu-
your continuous professional development
ments to help the reader locate your evi-
(CPD) plan you could make a note to try
dence.
and cover this point by the next review.
Remember to include your CPD action
plan in your evidence. If you have held reg-
ORGANISE AND SUBMIT EVIDENCE ular reviews as recommended, your action
To gain a professional qualification you plan will be the notes from each review. An
must submit your evidence to the action plan should reflect upon past work,
Membership Committee for review. Over evaluate future needs and include action
the years you have been gathering and points that can be ticked off.
To submit your evidence fill in the regis-
tration form mentioned in the previous sec-
Summary tion ‘deciding which grade to apply for’ and
Give a brief description of the send it off with 1 copy of your evidence and
project background and your the fee.
role. Focus on lessons learnt
and the benefits you gained. PROFESSIONAL REVIEW INTERVIEW
Remember you are trying to Your submitted evidence and application
show how you grew form go to the Membership Committee for
professionally, so demonstrate review. It is important to note that this
how you tackled problems and
committee meet every 2 months. If your
what new skills you had to application is successful you will be invited
acquire to do so. to a professional review interview (PRI).
Bring with you to the interview a copy of
your CV, CPD action plan and 3 copies of
recording evidence it is likely that you will
your evidence so that it can be referred
have a large number of projects. It is
during the discussion.
advised to select a small, but significant
Usually there will be 2 assessors who will
number of projects or work activities which
ask you questions concerning your submit-
are good examples of how you have met
ted evidence to determine if you have
each competence. Each project must have
achieved the level of competence for the
some tangible evidence to prove your
professional qualification you are applying
involvement. I’d recommend that around
for. At the start of the interview you will be
15 projects should be sufficient. It is
briefly asked to talk about your current job
advised that the selected projects have a
role and give some background informa-
common theme acting as a spine linking
tion on your company, this is why your CV
them together.
will be useful. All being well you will satisfy
The theme I used was new product intro-
the criteria and successfully achieve a pro-
duction. Evidence ranged from a large
fessional qualification.
Winter 2014 Landwards 31