Les Young

MIET., SIIRSM., TechIOSH., AIIAI., FSEng.
(TÜV Rheinland #8456/14)

Managing Director and Principal Consultant.

Based in Scotland

Les is our Managing Director and our Principal Consultant, he is highly experienced, extremely well qualified and very knowledgeable about machinery safety and compliance.

Les is a TÜV Rheinland Certified Functional Safety Engineer (Machinery), a Specialist Member (Machinery) of the International Institute for Risk and Safety Management, a Technical Member of the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, a member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, and a member of the Institute of Industrial Accident Investigators.

He is a qualified Electrical Engineer, and is professionally qualified, registered and accredited with professional bodies in the following subjects: Pneumatics and Hydraulics via CETOP (the European Governing Body for Fluid Power) and the BFPA (the British Fluid Power Association), the Assessment, Control and Management of Noise at Work through IOSH (the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health). He also holds the NEBOSH National General Certificate in Health and Safety in which he gained a distinction. He is also qualified in the Management and Risk Assessment of Confined Spaces and is an accredited Industrial Accident Investigator via NEBOSH and the HSE - and has more than a passing interest in Behavioural Safety.

He specialises in all aspects of machinery safety including Machinery Risk Assessment and Risk Management, Safety Solution Concepts, Safety System Validation, PUWER Assessments and the CE and UKCA Marking of Machinery - including assembly of the TCF, and Safety Project Management.

Les has worked with an extremely wide range of clients in a wide range of industry sectors, these include UK based OEMs and End-Users as well as many European and multinational blue-chip client's - and he has written and delivered bespoke and specialised machinery safety training courses for these clients' technical, maintenance, project management and purchasing staff across the UK and Europe.

He has been described by both clients and colleagues as being very approachable, highly professional, having a wealth of experience and an eye for detail, being ethically sound and always working to the highest levels of integrity. His customer relations are publicly quoted as "to be envied and are unsurpassed by anyone else working in the machinery safety sector", and he achieves this level by responding to his clients 'real needs', issues, and concerns – an ethos he has embedded within the AMC way of doing things.

In his last role before establishing AMC, he led the Omron Safety Service Europe Northern European Consultancy Team, whilst still carrying out front line consultancy work as one of two Senior Machinery Safety Consultants employed by Omron Europe. Prior to that he worked for TÜV as a Machinery Safety Consultant and Trainer, before this he was with Pilz as a Machinery Safety Consultant, and a Safety Applications / Safety Hardware Sales Engineer.

As are all of our front-line consultants, he is also a qualified first aider and fully CPR / Defibrillator trained and certificated.

Jim Davis

MIET., SIRSM. TechIOSH., AIIAI.

Machinery Safety, Compliance and Certification Consultant, and Industrial Automation and Controls Engineer.

Based near Bristol

Jim is a Consultant and Automation and Controls Engineer with AMC and has worked with Les on many projects where he has developed into a highly competent and well qualified Machinery Safety and Compliance Consultant.

Jim is highly approachable, self-motivated, enthusiastic and as well as being a specialist machinery safety and compliance consultant, is also a fully qualified Industrial Automation Control and Instrumentation Engineer with over 25 years of experience within the industrial paper and packaging manufacturing industry on high-speed industrial machines. Therefore, he fully understands machinery safety from the client’s perspective as he is from a production / manufacturing industrial maintenance and engineering background.

He has a very methodical and safe way of thinking which helped him to be highly successful during his time as a Health and Safety Manager in the paper and packaging industry while with Europe's leading paper and packaging manufacturer. During the time he spent in this Health and Safety role he competently carried out machinery and task-based risk assessments, created and managed safe systems of work, permit to work systems, and comprehensive equipment lock out tag out matrix solutions.

Additionally, he is able to create and review all types and levels of safety documentation from incident reporting through to route cause investigations and has been working with Les to further develop his consultancy skills where to quote Les: "his eye for detail is exceptional and he consistently delivers competent, accurate and high-quality professional assessments and is a key member of our team".

Jim is also able to professionally support, and project manage the efficient and safe implementation of automation solutions, machinery safety related control system solutions and LOTO solutions.

Jim is a Specialist Member (Machinery) of the International Institute for Risk and Safety Management, a Technical Member of the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, and a member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology. He also holds the NEBOSH National General Certificate in Health and Safety and has recently requalified in the Management and Risk Assessment of Confined Spaces. He is, via CETOP (the European Governing Body for Fluid Power) and the BFPA (the British Fluid Power Association) qualified in hydraulics and is currently working toward gaining his formal TÜV Rheinland Functional Safety Engineer qualification. He is also an accredited Industrial Accident Investigator via NEBOSH and the HSE and is an associate member of the Institute of Industrial Accident Investigators (AIIAI).

As are all of our front-line consultants, he is also a fully qualified first aider and fully CPR / Defibrillator trained and certificated.

Paul Kingston

BEng., CMSE., CECE.

Machinery Safety, Compliance and Certification Consultant

Based in Northampton

Paul has vast experience of machinery safety and compliance, and the provision of machinery safety and compliance training.

Paul is a self-motivated and passionate about keeping people safe at work and machinery safety specifically. Like Les and Jim, he also has a very client focused methodical and safe way of thinking which helped him to be highly successful when working for Pilz for fifteen years as a Consultant and Trainer.

Whilst there he worked with and supported an extremely wide range of clients in a wide range of industry sectors. These included UK based OEMs and End-Users as well as many European and multinational blue-chip clients. He has also written and delivered many bespoke and specialised machinery safety training courses for clients.

He has carried out countless machinery and task-based risk assessments, PUWER assessments, CE and UKCA audits on machinery, and CE / UKCA marked many machines for clients, as well as creating safety system concepts, and verified and has validated many safety related control systems - so his experience and knowledge is to be envied.

Paul is also highly able to professionally deliver training solutions to clients on all aspects of machinery safety and compliance (at City and Guilds and TÜV Nord qualification levels) as he did in his previous employment.

Having formerly worked with Les at for a global corporate provider of machinery consultancy services and hardware solutions, Les knows "he is highly competent, very professional, delivers quality work every time and is extremely happy to have him as a key member of the AMC team".

Paul has a degree in Manufacturing Engineering, holds the TÜV Nord Certified Machinery Safety Expert (CMSE), the TÜV Nord Certified Expert in CE Marking (CECE) certificates. He also holds the NEBOSH National General Certificate in Health and Safety and has recently qualified in the Management and Risk Assessment of Confined Spaces.

As are all of our front-line consultants, he is also a qualified first aider and fully CPR / Defibrillator trained and certificated.

Steve Coleman

CECE., CMSE.

Machinery Safety, Compliance and Certification Consultant.

Based near Manchester

Steve is best described as the ‘team encyclopaedia' given the amount of detail he retains in his head about the content of many of EN, ISO and IEC standards that apply to machinery – his substantial experience and levels of knowledge of machinery safety, compliance and certification are enviable.

Steve is a highly successful and highly competent consultant and previously worked for Pilz for the best part of sixteen years - for much of this time in a senior consultant role. Like everyone on the AMC team he fully understands machinery safety from the client’s perspective, and like Jim he is also from a production / manufacturing industrial maintenance and engineering background.

He has carried out countless machinery and task-based risk assessments, PUWER assessments, UKCA and CE audits on machinery, CE and UKCA marked countless machines for UK based OEMs and End-Users as well as many European and multinational blue-chip clients. He has also created many Safety Solution Concepts and completed many Safety System Validations for complex machines over many years - so his knowledge of machinery safety, compliance and certification can be considered as more than substantial – which when coupled with his encyclopaedic knowledge makes him a very knowledgeable and highly respected machinery safety and compliance consultant.

Like Les, he has been described by both clients and colleagues as being very approachable, highly professional, having a wealth of experience, an eye for detail, being ethically sound and always working to the highest levels of integrity. Taking a logical approach to a safety scenario or situation is just one of his personal attributes.

Having formerly worked with Les for five years at Pilz, Les knows that "Steve is a competent, honest individual with a keen eye for detail in every sense, and with the skills and abilities he has - I’m very happy to have him as part of the AMC team at long last’’...

Steve holds the NEBOSH National General Certificate in Health and Safety, and the TÜV Nord Certified Machinery Safety Expert (CMSE), the TÜV Nord Certified Expert in CE Marking (CECE) certificates. He is also a fully qualified electrical engineer, and recently qualified in the Management and Risk Assessment of Confined Spaces.

Not least of all - as are all of our front-line consultants, he is also a qualified first aider and fully CPR / Defibrillator trained and certificated.

Bill Raine

Non-Executive Technical Director

Based in County Durham

Now semi-retired, Bill was and is still one of the most respected people in the machinery safety sector, and although semi-retired, he still works alongside Les in a non-executive technical director role at AMC for the 'bespoke' and sometimes 'weird and wonderful' machines that regularly appear on our radar and are in need some form of assessment and certification, and similar to Les, Jim and Steve - is a fully qualified electrical Engineer.

Bill has worked in various manufacturing industries including white goods, marine, food and beverages, medium and heavy engineering industry on electro - mechanical maintenance before entering management in a specialist R&D facility then further progressing in management to a Site Engineer Production Manager for a major plastics recycling Company.

Bill started his machinery safety and compliance career with SGS Certification initially as a Test Technician with SGS EMC Test Services, a UKAS approved test Laboratory, based at Sunderland University, and in 1994 was promoted to their Senior Engineer specialising in working to the Low Voltage Directive and the EMC Directive. During this time, he became involved in the safety of semiconductor manufacturing machinery (for INTEL) and when SGS gained Notified Body status, Bill assumed responsibility for it. During this period Bill also served on the European Semiconductor Organisation Health and Safety committee and was a member of the Semi S10 (risk assessment) rewrite committee and became an expert on the machinery directive.

Bill subsequently joined Laidler Associates as their Senior Engineer and Principal Consultant for Notified Body / Annex IV machinery and EMC certification. Then having spent some time at Pilz as a machinery safety consultant, he joined TÜV SÜD and became their Principal Machinery Safety Consultant, where he also assumed responsibility for their 'Notified Body Status' for the assessment of Annex IV machinery, before going in to semi-retirement and then joining Les at AMC as a Non-Executive Technical Director.

Over the years Bill has been responsible for training and mentoring many of the current and next generation of machinery safety consultants and assessors (including Les), and he continues to help and support those who he has educated and trained whenever it is appropriate to do so.... He does this in semi-retirement simply because he still has the passion to make sure people go home to their families every night in the same way they left in the morning, and he works to the same high moral and ethical standards as Les does in being passionate about preventing anyone being injured at work due to dangerous machinery.