Cherry Trees Telephone: +44 (0)1803844851

38 Higher Warborough Road e-mail: keith.simpson@dsl.pipex.com

Galmpton
Brixham
Devon
TQ5 0PF

KEITH H. SIMPSON - CURRICULUM VITAE

Profile
An experienced and highly motivated Technical Manager with a sound engineering
background, including extensive management and team leader experience; broad based
knowledge of product development, in particular RF and radio design, development and
test, regulatory compliance, reliability analysis and improvement and manufacturing
support. Application of strong technical background has allowed expansion into other
areas of product development and built up a comprehensive knowledge of product delivery
from specification and design to volume manufacture. Proven ability to manage change,
meet commitments and deliver programmes within deadlines. A supportive manager
widely recognised for the personal development of team members.

Key Skills
• Strong technical leadership of product development teams.
• Comprehensive understanding and knowledge of RF and radio circuits and systems.
• Proven team building and leadership capabilities.
• Management of development programmes within cost and required timescales.
• Thorough knowledge of availability, reliability and maintainability of PCB designs
and large systems.
• Design for Product Safety and EMC compliance.
• High degree of product life cycle awareness.

Career Summary
Director of Product Qualification & Support Dec 2007 to Jan 2010 Quintel Technology
Head of Product Qualification & Support Jan 2005 to Dec 2007 Quintel Technology
Joined Quintel Technology Ltd (as a Qinetiq employee seconded to Quintel) in January
2005, taking responsibility for all post design services, including Design Verification
Testing, System Test, Regulatory Approval, Product Qualification and Reliability Test
and Analysis. Position changed to Director of Product Qualification & Support during a
company reorganisation.
The role required the design of an end-to-end test strategy, to determine products were
designed and manufactured to meet their requirements, which was efficient, cost
effective and manageable by the small team available. The role required support to
product design teams and manufacturing partners.

Keith Simpson Page 1 of 4 Curriculum Vitae

Required to plan and co-ordinate equipment trials with prospective customers, these
trials often used operational sites requiring careful planning to minimise any impact on
the customers’ business.
Also required to perform in-depth analysis of product design, manufacturing and
reliability issues as and when they arise.

Reliability Consultant June 2004 to Jan 2005 Self Employed

Providing reliability consultancy services, including reliability requirement definitions,

predictions, FMECA and sparing calculations for a telecommunications equipment
development company.

While providing reliability consultancy to Quintel Technology role was extended to cover
trial support including system test, installation and commissioning.

Hardware Support Manager 2000 to 2003 Nortel Networks

(FWA Nortel Networks is now part of Airspan)

Responsible for all aspects of hardware design, development and manufacturing support
for Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) telecommunications system through the management
of hardware development sub-contractor with an annual budget in the region of £700k.

• Prioritised sub-contractor’s tasks to meet business needs.

• Acquire and maintain regulatory compliance for existing and new equipment
• Managed sub-contractor resource levels to meet work commitments and budget.
• Programmed phased redesign for obsolete devices to maintain manufacturing levels.
• Improved long term equipment reliability by eliminating common failure modes.
• Reduced customer spares holding, consequently reducing customer costs.
• Improved return and repair times for failed base station modules, reducing costs
and improving customer satisfaction.
Consultant Engineer/Technical Manager 1998 to 2000 Lucent Technologies

Manager of Regulatory Compliance (EMC, Safety, Radio and Telecoms approvals),

Environmental Test, Reliability and Laboratory Support teams for FWA equipment and
UMTS development, with responsibility for eight test engineers and five laboratory
support technicians.

• Allocation of resource to hardware design projects to enable completion dates to be

met.
• Planning test programmes to obtain regulatory compliance and environmental
requirements according to market requirements.
• Maintained regulatory approval of equipment to ensure continued product
acceptance.
• Introduced reliability test programme to product design cycle to produce more
robust products.

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• Contributed to GSM base station customer acceptance performing reliability
prediction showing design mean time between failure (MTBF) targets had been met.
Required negotiation of definition of base station failure.
• Led multi-national team of regulatory compliance experts (EMC, product safety and
radio and telecom approval) to develop and implement unified ‘design for compliance’
strategy for a multi-application base station platform. A series of design guidelines
were produced resulting in compliant products.

Product Integrity Manager 1996 to 1997 Nortel

Responsible for three reliability/regulatory approval engineers and six design verification
test (DVT) engineers for FWA products.

• Managed reliability growth programme resulting in the reduction in ‘terminal

equipment’ return rate from approximately 5% to less than 1%.
• Introduced prototype EMC test chamber reducing time spent at expensive test
houses.
• Introduced Statistical Process Control (Cpk) targets to OEM equipment requirements
specification providing consistent and measurable reliability and quality levels across
all hardware suppliers.
• Nominated as FWA business unit’s representative for graduate recruitment.

Regulatory Approvals Prime 1995 to 1996 Nortel

Role as Divisional Safety Specialist expanded to include all product regulatory

requirements.

Safety Specialist 1994 to 1995 Nortel

Joined newly formed FWA Product Integrity Team.

• Obtained ‘Global’ product safety approval for FWA equipment with single application.
Costs saved associated with country-by-country applications.

Design & Development Engineer 1979 to 1994 ITT/STC/Nortel

Designed, tested and integrated various RF circuits and systems including amplifiers,
frequency converters, synthesisers and beam forming networks for adaptive antennas,
specifically:

• Amplifiers - Various types and applications

– LNA
– Cascode (high isolation)
– Single and multiple stage
– Frequency ranges from MHz to ~3GHz
– Sub contract development
• Filters - Design of various filter types
– Mechanical/cavity/waveguide filter
– Microstrip & strip line distributed element
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 – Lumped element
– Sub contract development
• Antenna
– Optimisation of corporate feed for 4 way spatial diversity PCS antenna)
– Matching to radiating elements
– Passive IMD measurement
• Design of IMD test set (these were not available in mid to late
90’s)
• Synthesisers
– Low phase noise
– Fast switching

• Beam Forming Networks for Adaptive Antennas

– Discrete vector modulator design
– Control both amplitude and phase

Education and Qualifications :

B.Sc. (Hons.) Applied Physics with Electronics University of Lancaster

Other Skills :
Computer skills, including daily use of Microsoft Office, Microsoft Word, Excel,
PowerPoint and Outlook with some use of Microsoft Project and Microsoft Access.

Personal Information and Interests :

I am married with two children now both living away from home. I have spent much time
and energy in extending, refurbishing and decorating our present family home. I enjoy
reading, gardening, playing the guitar and cooking. I also follow basketball and football as
spectator sports. In my holidays I enjoy travelling with my wife, both abroad and in the
UK. I enjoy walking, particularly in the more exposed areas like Dartmoor or the Lake
District. I hold a full UK driving licence, with no convictions.

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