Dr. David J Smith - TECHNIS

TECHNIS consists of a single proprietor (Dr David J Smith BSc, PhD, CEng, FIET, FCQI, HonFSaRS, MIGasE) who, as well as undertaking major assignments, can call on a proven network of suitably qualified consultants and consultancies. The majority of assignments are carried out directly by David and any subcontracted tasks directly supervised by him. As past President of the Safety and Reliability Society, David has access to, and knowledge of, all the major consultants in the risk and reliability field.

DAVID (TECHNIS) has over forty years of experience in reliability and risk assessment and technical training courses. He has amassed one of the largest failure rate and failure mode data banks in the reliability profession and has developed six unique software packages which provide reliability data, reliability calculations and optimum maintenance strategies. The packages include the FARADIP software package (reliability data and failure mode analysis), COMPARE package (Quantified Reliability Maintenance calculations), BETAPLUS (an original common cause failure model), TTREE (a fault tree package), ZONECHECK (assessment of flammable atmosphere) and a LOPA - Plus (Levels of Protection Analysis) tool.

He provides the Technis Certificate (and Diploma) in Reliability and Functional Safety academically based (but nevertheless highly practical) course which is accredited by IGEM and IAQA and ESC. David has been developing courses for 35 years and is known for making things easily understood without trying to impress people with the maths. He advises against over-simplified methodologies and insists on teaching an adequate underpinning knowledge of the basics.

He has written and updated several textbooks on the above topics, one of which is in its 9th edition and is regarded as the standard work on reliability technology. He is an authority in his field having been directly concerned with reliability engineering, safety and quality since 1968.

Following senior engineering management positions in a number of large UK companies, he joined the gas industry in 1982 and managed reliability and risk work for several years. He was responsible for introducing software integrity studies into British Gas.

He chairs the IGEM (Chartered Institution of Gas Engineers and Managers) panel which develops guidelines on safety-related systems and was a founder member of the Safety Critical Systems Committee of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (now IET). He has made a major contribution to the international safety standard IEC 61508 and to related documents.

David also carries out safety studies for the UK general aviation sector and is a member of the General Aviation Safety Council.