Engineering Safety Consultants Ltd (ESC) has strengthened its senior board members by appointing Simon Burwood as managing director, tasked with driving the company forward in its target markets.
Launched just a decade ago, it could be said that the London-based business, which works in upstream/downstream Oil & Gas, as well as power, process chemical and bio-containment facilities, is one of the country’s best-kept industrial secrets, despite its crucial role in supplying safety solutions and consultancy to help protect operations in the manufacturing and processing sectors.
Simon, ESC’s former Technical Director, takes over the reins from Ken Simpson, who will continue to use his 40+ years’ experience in Functional Safety in his new role as company Chairman. Commenting, Ken said that his fellow founding member was “undoubtedly the right person” at the right time to deliver the firm’s future growth strategy for the key areas of its engineering expertise.
Thrilled with the challenge of taking the business forward, Simon said: “It was always the plan for me to take over as Managing Director at some point. We are recruiting more staff as we look to break into new markets as well as adding to our portfolio of services.”
Simon added: “Major incidents, such as Texas City, Buncefield and Deepwater Horizon highlight the need for active and managed safety measures. Making sure these measures work when they are required to is key to what we offer.”
ESC also has offices in Warrington, Humberside and Abu Dhabi, providing Functional Safety solutions, consultancy, workshops and training to help companies in the oil and gas, petrochemical, power generation, manufacturing and other sectors improve the management of their safety and maintenance systems to comply with international standards.
Ensuring that international safety standards are being met can be challenging for any business operating in a hazardous environment, which is why many companies use ESC’s expertise in supplying comprehensive and independent risk assessments.
In addition to his day job managing ESC, Simon also sits on the International IEC 61511 Maintenance Committee (MT61511) and, along with some of his company colleagues, was heavily involved in drafting the latest global standards for Functional Safety.
His impressive CV includes time as a process engineer for Kodak before moving into consultancy, working for several large engineering companies as a Functional Safety specialist before becoming a Director of ESC.
The company has become an upwardly mobile force and its expertise in functional safety is often called upon to present at commercial events and conferences around the world, in addition to running its own seminars and training courses.
In many respects the changing of the guard at ESC reflects the progress that the company has achieved during the past 10 years and the excellent relationships that have been developed supporting clients with their safety-critical solutions.
