Shane McCarthy

Personal Profile

Shane McCarthy has over 20 years of business experience across Automotive, Aerospace, Precision Machining, Survival and Defence sectors.  He founded Elmac Consulting in 2015.  Shane holds a BEng(Hons) in Mechanical Engineering & Industrial Management and a MSc(Eng) in Advanced Manufacturing Systems and Technology, both from the University of Liverpool.  He is also a Chartered Engineer and a member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and Institute of Engineering Technology.  Shane has held senior positions including Quality Manager, Management Consultant, Project Manager and Senior Engineer.  He has worked with Micro-Business SME’s to Global Multinationals across the UK, Europe and USA.

Industrial Experience

After completing his industrial Masters thesis in 1997, Shane was offered a role as Quality Engineer at Dieline, a SME specialising in the manufacture and assembly of chambers for ultra-high vacuum equipment for the Mass Spectrometry and Electron Microscope market.  Within 6 months he was promoted to Quality Manager.

Shane moved to Jaguar Cars in 1999 where he was exposed to Lean Manufacturing whilst gaining experience across quality, production and new vehicle launch.  Within quality he was responsible for all FMEA, SPC & MSA activities across the site, including training of personnel, in production he was responsible for over 150 employees ensuring daily production targets were met utilising QCD metrics and in new model launch he was Quality Launch Leader responsible for the roll-out of QLS (a fully digitised vehicle buy-off system) and coordinated the Batch and Hold process during the launch of L359 (Landrover Freelander 2).

In 2007 Shane moved to The Manufacturing Institute as a Process Improvement Practitioner.  Here he learned to apply the Lean techniques he had gained across manufacturing sectors including aerospace, pharmaceutical, heavy engineering, food, precision machining and component assembly by working with a range of blue-chip clients.  He also conducted a successful pilot scheme within the financial sector applying Value Stream Mapping and Capacity Planning methodologies to the Mortgage application process.  Whilst at TMI Shane was part of the training delivery team for the Team Leader Development and 6-Sigma Green Belt programmes.

Shane was headhunted to work for Survitec in 2010 as a Quality Manager to ‘fix’ a struggling department.  Using his process improvement and people management background he quickly established the key issues and set about working with the people to address the issues and build a culture of trust between the quality department and the rest of the business.  After this assignment, he went to work for himself focussing on a ‘niche’ market requirement for businesses who require interim solutions to address a variety of problems they encounter that require external support.

Recent Experience

Worked with a variety of blue chip clients within Aerospace, Automotive and Naval Nuclear.  Key customers include Assystem, Alcoa (now Arconic), Johnson Controls (now Adient) and Industry Forum.

Experience in delivering all lean tools, problem solving methods and quality systems.  Resolution of complex issues through management of large multi-functional teams.  Training and development of people.

Interim Quality Manager, Interim Engineering Manager and Project Manager in a global aerospace manufacturing business. Support hiring and training of permanent replacement personnel.