Edison has a master's degree with distinction in International Project Management with Advanced Practices from Northumbria University London campus, he also has a bachelor's degree in Automotive Engineering from UTE University (Quito - Ecuador).
He has worked as a Project Manager in the telecommunications industry. Before this, he gained experience as Project Management Consultant for international organisations seeking to implement sustainable practices within their processes. Regarding the automotive sector, Edison has been involved in fields such as maintenance and diagnosis, motorsport, and product development. Currently, he is the founder and president of the Professional Body of Automotive Engineers in Ecuador, this organisation leads local sustainable mobility projects.
His current research interest is focused on the transdisciplinary work needed to face nowadays challenges within the automotive sector and sustainable mobility. This endeavour will mean the development of agile methods to enable different disciplines to work towards the same goal efficiently and effectively.
Over the past few decades transdisciplinary (TD) has been the subject of increased discourse in the context of large, complex, ill-defined, ‘wicked’ problems. However, there has been less consideration of the potential it offers within the practice of engineering. This research looks to create tools which enable effective TD working within the automotive sector. The Mobility Engineering 2030 FISTA White Paper identifies that changes within the sector mean that interdisciplinary working, involving groups formed from people working in similar disciplines, will not be sufficient. It recognises that in the future there will be a need for transdisciplinary working, which goes beyond the academic disciplines to understand the societal context. For example, legislation, standards, culture. However, achieving effective TD working within organisations is not simple. It requires the creation of tools (e.g. processes and methods) which enable clear communication and knowledge transfer within and beyond an organisation. This PhD will leverage input from the TREND (TRansdisciplinary ENgineering Designers) £1.8m platform grant (Dec 2017 – Dec 2022). The over-arching aim of TREND is to provide tools to assist engineers to work in a transdisciplinary manner and to identify the types of engineers that are transdisciplinary. Identifying what makes engineering teams in the automotive sector transdisciplinary and how to assess their current readiness level to be transdisciplinary is the focus of Edison's PhD activity. Edison's PhD will have a particular focus on ‘common’ characteristics and automotive design team behaviour within and across industry case studies. Mapping findings at various life cycle stages such as designer requirements, use of digital tools etc. for each case study/domain against the manufacturing life-cycle phases. This would be followed by cross case-study analysis. The analysis may use techniques such as input/output system modelling to map the designer requirements at each stage of the manufacturing life cycle, and/or socio-technical analysis could be used to classify and model the designer behaviour. In summary Edison will be required to create a structured framework to estimate the automotive sectors transdisciplinary readiness level. Specific objectives may include 1. Undertake a literature review to understand the state of TD working within the automotive sector. 2. Engage with stakeholders to gather information which informs the design of the TD readiness tool. 3. Create a TD readiness tool. 4. Validate the proof of concept tool within industry.
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