Membership voice, September - October 2010
The new TWI Chief Executive, Christoph Wiesner outlines his plan for the long-term future of TWI.
Industrial Membership has always provided the cornerstone for TWI and I believe that TWI's overall direction should therefore be guided by one top-level corporate aim to accelerate the generation of Member benefits.
This aim is based on four key elements:
- An increased rate of innovation and creative problem solving.
- A focus on world class technical reputation.
- Better exploitation of the synergy between technology development and the training and certification businesses.
- Further improvements to support customer service excellence.
TWI's mission - its reason for being - can be expressed as follows: to stimulate the development of economic value and quality of life through engineering, materials and joining technologies. The significance of this lies in the complex nature of materials joining. It is vital to understand how joints perform and why they can fail, so as to ensure fabrication and manufacturing processes are successful. This mission is embodied in our core values of technology reputation and innovativeness; Member and customer focus; and growth ambition and flexibility.
TWI's vision describes the desired future state of an ongoing journey which should proceed by evolution, not revolution - we already are a world class institution that has proven it can perform as a business. But for TWI to continue to grow and excel, we need two main characteristics: a deep-seated sense of mission with a commitment always to do better; and an acute sensitivity to the market.
The top-level description of TWI's vision is: to be the most influential independent network in engineering, materials and joining technologies to meet the needs of a multi-national membership. Business-wise, this translates into a 10 year ambition of growing the value we add to Members' businesses and careers such that TWI doubles its annual income and employs around 750 staff at multi-national locations. Achieving this level of growth will create financial strength and is real evidence of the value we add to our Members as well as a pre-requisite for further investment and a platform for staff opportunities.
TWI's strategy, in other words our plan to achieve our vision, is based on both deliberate plans, responding to the long-term industrial needs and drivers; and flexible responses to issues arising from policy changes, key events, industrial failures, recent ideas and breakthroughs, as well as customer feedback and new funding calls. The deliberate strategy is supported by externally audited business planning processes, but these must be complemented by our responses to the emerging opportunities.
When monitoring TWI's progress, the top-level question will always be: how do our activities support the maintenance and development of TWI's brand reputation? This brand reputation depends on the value we add to our Members' businesses and the question of how we can accelerate the generation of member benefits returns us to TWI's top-level aim.
Christoph joined TWI in 1991 after obtaining his materials engineering degree in Germany and his doctorate at the Swiss Institute of Technology. He worked for twelve years in TWI's Structural Integrity Group before being appointed TWI Research and Technology Director in 2003. He is an experienced technologist, as well as a people, innovation and business manager and was appointed TWI Chief Executive in July 2010. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, and The Welding Institute and has been a recipient of the Lidstone Gold medal for his contribution to welding technology.
