Biography for Professor David J. Edwards, UK
Professor of Plant and Machinery Management

David has accrued considerable leadership and management experience in the roles of teaching, award management and development, quality enhancement, student liaison and the national student survey (NSS), academic administration and research at a number of higher education institutes in this country and abroad. He is currently a Professor of Plant and Equipment Management at Birmingham City University, Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment. David has also led on the development of extensive multidisciplinary collaborations between and within faculties, having worked across a wide variety of scientific fields, namely: business studies; finance; construction management; human resource management; computing; civil engineering; quarry management; mechanical engineering; and humanities – this modus operandi has augmented his personal philosophy and belief that the whole is greater than the sum of individual parts. He is well respected by his peers and acts as a referee for under-/post-graduate awards and PhDs at various national and international higher education institutes. In an industrial/ governmental context, he has formed comprehensive networks, teaching awards and partnered many prestigious organisations such as the UK Ministry of Defence, US Department of Defense, the UK Home Office and British Nuclear Fuels. In 2000, he created the Off-highway Plant and Equipment Research Centre (OPERC) - a professional body that conducts practice-based research for plant and equipment managers and operators.

Prior to a career in academia, David managed his own business for 10 years and worked as a sub-contractor for some of the UK’s largest construction and civil engineering companies. This pragmatic experience and industry focus, has enabled David to develop a professional industrial vocabulary and subsequently accrue extensive ‘international’ industrial collaborative linkages with both industry and government bodies. Similarly, his inherently entrepreneurial spirit (first acquired whilst in industry) has also secured a proven track record of invention, for applying innovative processes, embracing entrepreneurship and producing high impact teaching and research outputs. These attributes have helped to secure industrial financial support and provide opportunities for students to become employed at some of the world’s leading organisations – employability is high on David’s agenda. His personal vision is that within any University, taught awards, professional practice and research must harmonise and complement one another to help raise academic quality standards and provide tangible societal, political and economic impact together with value for money. He believes that forging strong links between industry, government bodies and academia in a ‘multidisciplinary fashion’ yields a broad portfolio of mutually beneficial opportunities (including the transference of best practice knowledge, the fostering of a collegiate working environment and the augmentation of Faculty/ University performance). Ultimately, high quality teaching must encapsulate the findings of robust, contemporary, professional practice work and research – all within the context that research is a means to an end and not the destination itself!

Current activity
David has recently launched a new centre of excellence entitled the Centre for Plant and Machinery Management (CPMM), Birmingham City University which delivers both innovative teaching programmes and research, in areas such as automation, ergonomic design, health and safety and production studies. David also regularly collaborates with colleagues at Curtin University, Australia and KNUST, Ghana on other construction management research topics and holds a Visiting Chair at KNUST. He is a regular consultant to the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and has accrued an extensive international range of industrial practitioner collaborations.

David currently teaches extensively on the Honours Research Project (UK and Hong Kong cohorts of students) and has developed a number of non-credit bearing work-based distance learning courses on various ‘industry facing’ plant and machinery management topics.

Areas of expertise

David’s own personal research interests focus upon the multi-disciplinary area of plant and equipment management within business and he regularly collaborates with an expanding international network of similarly minded academics. Topics studied include engineering design, equipment finance, information technology [including GPS and on-board condition monitoring], ergonomics, health and safety and productivity measurement. However, in recent years, he has broadened his areas of expertise into other fields of engineering and business management, for example, off-shore operations management (floating platforms), econometric forecasting, innovative finance, marketing and plant operator competence and training. In total, David has published over 200 scientific research papers in some of the world’s leading 4* rated journals (including: IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Journal of Operations Research Society, and International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics) and has self-generated in excess of £12 million of teaching and research funding.

Qualifications

BSc Construction Management (First Class Hons) PhD Plant Management Fellow of the Institute of Quarrying Member of the British Academy of Management

Research

David is currently leading research into the areas of:

Maintenance management within the Utilities sector – exploring issues such as: operator training and competence development; compliance with daily maintenance regimes; supervisory arrangements; and management qualifications and competence.

Machinery stability – focusing on the lateral and longitudinal stability of mini tracked hydraulic excavators, forward tipping site dump trucks and rough terrain telescopic folk lift trucks predominantly.

Plant trailer wheel detachment – examining the root causes of trailer wheel detachment within the plant hire, construction and utilities industries. Thus far issues such as operator misuse and abuse, trailer overloading and management supervision have proven to be key factors leading to the detachment of a trailer wheel on public highways.

David also is currently working with colleagues in Australia and Ghana on a range of contemporary research topics including: accident prevention, information technology, marketing, construction project rework, innovation, enterprise and education within Higher Education Institutes.