25 years in the making

Joel Williams

Quality Assurance Manager

Quality products are manufactured that way and Quality Assurance Manager Joel Williams makes sure every Helix product meets the highest standards.

“It’s about ensuring the product is safe, functions correctly, fits together accurately and looks as good as it should. Product validation from an engineering point of view is usually completed on a small number of specific units, while quality assurance is about making certain all our products meet the same, consistent standard.”

Joel’s work reaches down to component level, whether supplied or manufactured inhouse, and extends up into design and development, where he and his team are invested in ensuring the requirement for the product, its operating environment, for example, is properly understood.

“The product engineering teams are the subject matter experts in the exact detail of product testing, but quality assurance looks to ensure the results validate the product against the requirement and demonstrate that we can manufacture each unit to the samestandard.”

Helix operates to the ISO 9001 quality management standard, while work towards IATF 16949 quality management system certification is ongoing. An International AutomotiveTask Force accreditation, IATF 16949 harmonizes global standards in the automotive supply chain. Its award means that Helix and its suppliers are held to the industry’s most exacting quality standards.

“As we continue the transition and consolidation of Helix from design consultancy and low-volume manufacturer to product based manufacturing company, quality control, traceability and standards compliance are more important than ever,” Joel says.

Helix has a strong automotive heritage and continues as a world leader in electric motor and inverter manufacturing on and off track, pioneering technology that is now finding new applications in a world where electric propulsion is critical to sustainability in other sectors. Aerospace, commercial vehicle and marine manufacturers are joining the automotive OEMs looking to power next-generation solutions with lightweight, high power density motors, exactly the qualities that characterise the Helix portfolio.

Reiterating that IATF 16949 is an automotive standard, Joel continues:

“The work the team has done for ISO 9001 and IATF 16949 helps us along the way to other industry standards. There will be more to do, but the quality of what has been done so far is an excellent foundation.”

Graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Brighton, Joel says Dr Derek Covill and Dr Steve Plummer were influential among his lecturers. After university he worked at Rolls-Royce, McLaren and electric vehicle innovator Arrival, gaining experience and perspective invaluable to Helix as it moves towards quantity manufacturing.

A relative newcomer to the company, Joel is nonetheless invested in the 25th anniversary of its founding as Integral Powertrain.

“It shows we have some serious heritage, and we’re ready to continue making a significant contribution to automotive and motorsport. I joined at an exciting time as the company looks at the work needed to take the technology that has performed so well in motorsport forward into volume applications in other sectors.”

Joined the company

2022

Favourite design or piece of engineering

Rolls-Royce Phantom. “I was bespoke project manager for the run-out of the old generation of Phantoms…”

McLaren 720S. “I’ve never experienced anything like being a passenger in a 720S…”

Arrival Bus . “We took an electric bus design from the virtual world and certified it for road use in a remarkably short time. That’s probably the design that means most to me”.

Outside interests

Building and riding bicycles. Joel’s degree dissertation measured and analysed the characteristic of his bike’s suspension. “I’m a bit of a bike nerd…”

Person he would most like to meet

Isambard Kingdom Brunel. “He built railways, ships and bridges. How cool is that?”

Andrew Cross

Chief Technical Officer

Technology is the foundation upon which Helix bases its portfolio of electric motors and inverters. It is also the cornerstone of its manufacturing capability. “We’re highly vertically integrated,” says Chief Technical Officer (CTO) Andrew Cross. “We make many of the machines, tools and equipment we use in our manufacturing in-house, often in areas where there are benefits to be had from developing the technology further – whether in efficiency and performance for the customer, or from how we design better for consistent volume manufacturing.”

Helix builds on a legacy of high-end automotive and motorsport excellence, and Andy says with its focus on core technology the company is taking that excellence and applying it to full-scale manufacturing. “We’ve redesigned those limited-production technologies for efficient manufacturing, reducing costs and making our motors and inverters more accessible to the market.”

In his CTO role, Andy has been deeply involved in the process of transforming Integral Powertrain (IP) from a world-class electric propulsion consultancy and limited manufacturer, into Helix, a world-class electric propulsion manufacturer and consultancy. “Alongside design for manufacture, we’ve worked to create highly scalable technology,” he continues. That effort includes the design of manufacturing technologies, including an automated winding machine.

Several patents protect unique Helix technology including, Andy says, its rotor cooling and more general motor cooling systems. “A lot of our technological advantage is held within the company, in the manufacturing process, as part of that vertical integration.”

Helix grew out of Integral Powertrain, an internationally respected engineering consultancy. The pioneering spirit and original, envelope expanding design that brought the world’s leading hypercar OEMs and racing teams to IP’s door, lives on in X-Division, an important subset of the Helix offer.

X-Division has a product and application focus beyond the existing motor and inverter range, beyond even scalable core technology. It provides customers with an opportunity to embed in a dedicated Helix team on bespoke projects. It also has a role to play in research and development, and creating technologies that may mature into commercial opportunities.

Andy explains how the extraordinary power density that characterises Helix’s products is already proving disruptive. “When a package is a half, a quarter, even a sixth of the weight the client expected, it means they can engineer their design differently. It’s something we’re seeing in marine, where traditional outboard internal combustion engines are being replaced with compact Helix machinery below the waterline.”

“We’re seeing disruption in aerospace too, where eVTOL only becomes possible with very powerful electric machines. For me as an engineer, disruption is extremely exciting. It means going back to first principles, assessing the art of the possible.”

Andy’s enthusiasm for engineering is as strong as ever. In the first instance he credits it to his father, whose engineering business valued first principles. “His company was also vertically integrated, designing and building solutions. I wanted to design things, I liked that creative element, and went on to an automotive engineering degree at Loughborough.”

The promise of influencing final applications attracted Andy to automotive rather than mechanical engineering. He did his ‘gap year’ training at Cosworth in 1998/99, meeting IP’s founding directors just before they moved on to create their new company. “When I graduated, I had the option of going back to Cosworth or joining IP, which at that time had only six or seven employees. I took a brave pill and joined the start-up,” Andy jokes.

More than two decades later, there is no doubting the soundness of his decision. Alongside his father, Andy names Helix director Luke Barker among the individuals who have had the greatest influence on his career. “He’s very much like my father, with his first principles approach. He wants to get into the detail and really understand things, perhaps more than any other engineer I’ve known.”

Interestingly, Andy also served a stint at Mercedes F1, although he claims to have had little interest in F1 powertrain when the opportunity came along. “It was 2007, the rules were tight and it was a normally aspirated V8 engine – I couldn’t see the challenge. Except there was going to be a rule change in 2011 for boosted or even hybridised engines and that sounded exciting. I joined for that and then it didn’t happen until 2014, but Mercedes F1 still gave me the chance to do some really challenging, interesting work.”

He came back to IP with a renewed appreciation of the importance of first principles, and inspired by the F1 work ethic, where everyone in the team pushes for a common goal. “I’ve tried to engender that here,” he says, “where the competition is in the marketplace rather than on the track.”

Outside work, Andy is father to three young girls and his thoughts turn naturally to a challenge facing every engineering company: how to encourage young people, especially girls, who’ve grown up in a digital world where sustainability is the new paradigm, to become the next generation of engineers.

“Role models are very powerful and since the world of engineering has been dominated by men, female role models are difficult for girls to find and identify with. We have to nurture those role models to help redress the balance,” Andy says. “I try to get my girls engaged in doing things around the home. One of them is keen on taking things apart, but I’m not sure they want to be me. What’s important is showing them the opportunity, then it’s up to them to decide.”

Andy’s long experience with IP and now Helix, colours his thoughts on the 25th anniversary. “For me it’s all about the shift from consultancy to product-focussed company. It’s the clarification of a journey we’ve been on for more than a decade and I’m super excited to see us strengthening the brand and targeting new sectors.”

Joined the company

2000

Favourite design or piece of engineering

“I had a poster of the McLaren F1 on my wall as a teenager… I’m a big fan of lean design and clever engineering approaches”

Nick Phillips

Head of Manufacturing, Facilities, and Health, Safety and Environment

There is usually a period of adjustment at the start of a new job, but not when the country is about to plunge into pandemic lockdown. Nick Phillips came to Integral Powertrain (IP) at just the right – or wrong, depending on one’s perspective – moment to help guide it through the Covid crisis. “We set as many people as possible to home working, then put lots of effort into keeping staff safe while production continued,” Nick recalls.

The bigger part of his role addresses the evolution from engineering consultancy and small-scale manufacturer to large-scale manufacturer and consultancy. “I was tasked to link the company’s sites under the Head of Manufacturing umbrella, ensuring they were integrated and working towards the same goals. Manufacturing Engineering has also been an important focus, increasing the influence it has in the early stages of design, towards manufacture, so that products are optimised for production from the outset.”

Facilities came under Nick’s remit in autumn 2022 and he says it was a logical addition. “Facilities has a lot to do supporting manufacturing and I really welcomed the opportunity to bring them closer together. The HSE function also falls under facilities and we’re working hard to improve some aspects further, including sustainability.”

Nick enthuses over Helix’s manufacturing capability, although he reckons the most enjoyable, rewarding aspect of the job relates to the company’s people. “Succeeding is the real joy and the part of that I enjoy most is inspiring people to adopt something new or different, watching them come along on the journey, pull together and then take pride in what they’ve achieved.”

Nick says his own journey into engineering began with ‘slight strengths’ in maths and physics and working in his engineer father’s home workshop. “I was allowed to use tools, make things and try to fix them. Pretty much as soon as I learned to use a screwdriver, I started taking things apart. There was a radio controlled car that never went back together…”

Already dissuaded out of a golfing career, Nick graduated from the University of Bristol with a mechanical engineering degree and joined Ilmor as a design engineer, working on components for racing engines. Motorsport was the attraction: “I wanted to do something fun with my degree. I liked watching motor racing on TV and anything with wheels, two or four, was exciting. I felt even if I was working in an office, I wanted the things I was working on to have a link to something doing exciting stuff.”

“And then I started enjoying the bigger picture more, especially when I looked after the dyno testing facility. It was like running a small business; even more so when I became Manufacturing Manager. Ilmor gave me so many opportunities.”

He says the prominence of sustainability is among the major changes he’s seen during his career. “At Helix we build electric motors, which are helping the transport and other industries become more efficient, but we still have to think about the raw materials we use, our supply chain and manufacturing processes. As we begin manufacturing in larger volumes it’s crucial that we deliver on the environmental standards our customers expect.”

Joined the company

2020

Favourite design or piece of engineering

US muscle cars from the 1960s and 70s - “I love their crazy design. They seemed not to care at all about aerodynamics, it was all about huge engines and loads of power in those days.”

Person he would most like to meet

Sir Ranulph Fiennes - “He was keynote speaker at a function I was at. He’s had so many incredible experiences, and he was fascinating and hilarious.”

Darren Cairns

Director and CEO

The process through which Helix emerged as a global motor and inverter manufacturer was gradual and carefully managed. With a capable, experienced executive team in place, the four founding directors gradually stepped back but not before deciding that Darren Cairns take on the new role of CEO. “We had worked closely with the team on a one-to-one basis as they took on our day-to-day responsibilities. Ultimately, they needed one person to report to, for consistency in messaging and tone, while the other directors focused on more strategic matters,” Darren explains.

“Now the senior executive group manages the business from an operational perspective, and I work closely with them. It’s quite difficult handing over control, stepping back from a business you’ve controlled for 25 years, but we’re confident in their ability. I think we’ve changed more as a company in the past three or four years than in the previous 20 and it’s great when they come up with ideas we haven’t thought of.”

Speak to a senior executive in any industry and the likelihood is that their career progression has taken them away from doing the things that brought them into the industry in the first place. Darren is no exception. “It’s true that I don’t do any hands-on engineering at all now. But I’m fortunate that I’ve always found it rewarding to help people develop and see their careers grow. So, the change isn’t so difficult as it might have been and, of course, as a business owner you have to do what’s right for the business, which isn’t always what excites you.”

Looking back, Darren says there have been highlights and, inevitably, challenges over the past 25 years, but with the benefit of hindsight he sees them as part of the bigger picture. “The transition from consultancy to product company and owning our intellectual property is perhaps the most satisfying thing. Developing the world’s most power-dense motors and having our product appear in the highest classifications of motorsport, hypercars and production cars is immensely satisfying.”

“We also established a sister company, Intrinsys, about four years after we started Integral Powertrain. It became the UK’s leading product lifecycle management business and by the time we sold it, it had more than 80% of the UK market share for the software products it sold and supported. The business continues to flourish with its new owner, and that’s very satisfying too.”

Darren came into the industry with a degree in mechanical engineering yet has found greatest professional satisfaction in electrical products and software. What’s his story? “It goes back to when the four of us were working at Cosworth, a company based on innovation, on doing things better. It was instilled into everyone who worked there.”

“As a young engineer with that mindset, when the world went from 2D drawings on paper and screens to 3D geometry, I realised this enabled us to engineer much better products. We challenged the software provider to improve the functionality it was giving us, telling them what we wanted, asking lots of questions. Looking back, we must have had considerable impact because they were working with some major players on their new release but came to us for help in the development process.”

“By the time the new software came to market we were world experts and the provider asked us to help sell and deploy it. We did – it was still early days and anything that brought money into the company was good. Customers saw us using it to run our own business and wanted to benefit from that experience. On the face of it, selling software seems a long way from engineering, but it was software that enabled our customers to engineer better products, just as it did in our own business.”

Darren reckons he began his engineering apprenticeship aged about ten, working alongside his father. “I built furniture, worked on the central heating and rewiring the house. Then it was fixing broken cars. I had my first car when I was 14. I couldn’t drive it on the road, but I really wanted a car. It was probably the best serviced car in the world because it didn’t go anywhere! I was never going to be anything other than an engineer…”

Although Darren credits his father as the major influence on his engineering career, he says that later he worked alongside other inspirational figures, including Paul Morgan, co-founder of Ilmor Engineering. “And then there are my fellow directors. I’ve worked closely with them since 1988, after we met at Cosworth. I was so fortunate to graduate and go to work at Cosworth. I was like a kid in a toy factory. There was probably nowhere better to learn to be an engineer in the late 1980s.”

In its original form, Integral Powertrain echoed the ethos and innovation of Cosworth during its F1 heyday. But overseas companies were catching up. Modern techniques made it much easier to copy the latest developments in internal combustion and incrementally improve upon them; it was time to break ground and move into new technology. “We got our first electrification project in 2009 and that was the turning point,” Darren recalls.

“At the end of that project the customer said, ‘Look, you’ve built the prototypes, why don’t you build the production units too?’ It was our first production contract and electrification kept growing. Initially it was about downsizing engines and providing an electric ‘boost’, then it was hybrids. It doesn’t seem so long ago that the industry wondered if it could go from 12V to 48V in a passenger car, and here we are today at 800V.”

Sustainability has become the electrification driver, but electric propulsion is also enabling designers to employ motive power in new ways. Darren believes it will ultimately change the way cars look. “Most electric cars look like a conventional combustion-powered car. There’s no exhaust pipe and there might not be a cooling grill, but that’s it. The very first cars looked like carriages without horses though. Perhaps humans are sometimes slow to adopt change?”

Sustainable products

“Electrification is so exciting and so fast developing. I don’t think anyone anticipated it would grow at the rate it has, but Helix is perfectly placed in the market. We have never had such a strong order book or so strong a pipeline for new business. We are ready and we intend to own this space.”

Co-founded the company

1998

Favourite design or piece of engineering

Volkswagen VR6 engine – “It was a really innovative design, a 15° bank angle V6 in a transverse application where a standard V6 wouldn’t fit. It had a single cylinder head across both banks of cylinders.”

Outside interest

Restoring classic Porsches – “I spend my working day with extremely advanced technology and go home to old Porsches! I love them, but I’m not a purist, I like making them more suitable for modern driving. I’m just putting air conditioning and power steering into a 1958 car…”

Person he would most like to meet

Keith Duckworth – “I’m fortunate to have met my hero. He interviewed me for my first job. It was a painful experience, but I got the job and worked for his company. Now I work alongside his son. It doesn’t get much better than that.”

Luke Barker

Director

One of Integral Powertrain’s founding directors, Luke Barker’s role within that simple word ‘director’ has evolved considerably since IP entered the market as an internal combustion engine consultancy. “I tended to do analysis and simulation when we started out, as well as developing tools and techniques,” Luke recalls. “In order to compete with established consultancies, we had to bring fresh eyes to some of the problems of the day.”

“As electrification moved into the powertrain, there was a great opportunity to be in at the beginning of something, and I was involved in developing the motor and control strategy for power density. Those types of machine hadn’t existed before, so it was an interesting challenge. The past few years have been more about learning how we can apply what we’ve developed to more sectors as the demand for electrification has grown.”

Exploring the possibilities for new products and techniques is still something Luke enjoys, always driven by the desire to achieve a competitive advantage. He is equally passionate about how the business runs, ensuring that it is ‘joined up’ as he puts it, across all its capabilities.

“The biggest buzz is when a problem is demonstrably fixed. Or we’ve developed a new capability and its embedded somehow, not on a one-off basis, but because the organisation has learned something and captured it,” Luke says. “When we started out as a consultant, we spent a lot of time developing design tools that captured our knowledge and allowed IC engines to be scaled. It turns out electric motors are even more suitable for that, but as a supplier we now have to capture and evolve best practice across the whole business.”

Looking back, Luke recalls the hypercar that effectively laid the foundations for what became Helix as a favourite and highly significant project. “It was great to start when the client turned up with the problem, then work through the different solutions and build the product. It was a lovely feeling, although we had to work very hard to deliver it!”

Going back further into his engineering past, Luke says his time at Cosworth was seminal. “That’s where I learned the engineering trade and met the other three directors. I couldn’t have asked for a better upbringing. I’ve worked with some brilliant people, and I’d say the most influential of them was an engineer called Cliff Williams, at Cosworth. He had a great ability to work things out from first principles. He wasn’t afraid of anything, and he always had the time and patience to share his skills. I’m sure I don’t live up to that, but it’s the sort of thing that inspires a young engineer.”

Luke reckons among the biggest changes he’s seen during his career is the availability of knowledge, through the Internet. “I remember going to the library, photocopying pages and taking them back when I was doing calculations on a crankshaft! You don’t notice the pace of change when you’re in it, it’s only when you look back.”

And what does he see in his crystal ball? “That’s tough. I think we’ll see lots of diversity and clever stuff where people use electric motors in applications we’ve not seen before; satisfying those requirements is a challenge Helix is ready for.

“And I have a hunch that in automotive we need to work out how to re-engage a little bit. As software does more and cars become self-driving, how do we re-create the user experience? I don’t have any answers, but there may be more fun to be had than sitting in the back while the car drives itself, especially in the premium sector.”

Co-founded the company

1998

Favourite design or piece of engineering

“I like loads of things! Japanese motorbikes of the 1960s – I’ve got a few – because they were so obviously different to everything else at the time. And I admire the Mini and the 2CV, but sometimes I’ll just see a building and like it, especially when someone’s approached a problem and come up with a different answer.”

Outside interest

Skiing, Japanese motorcycles, the outdoors and lively discussion. “I play a bit of piano too…”

Person he would most like to meet

“If I absolutely had to choose one person, and just for today, I’d say Sir Frank Whittle. Ask me again tomorrow and I’ll probably say someone different!”

Alan Cherrington

Chief Operating Officer

“Imagine starting with a customer specification and an idea. You run it through design analysis, engineering, the process of scaling our core technology, materials management, quality control, manufacturing, and test and validation. Eventually, a product comes out the other end. I take an overall view of that process. I also look after the general facilities around the business and health and safety,” says Chief Operating Officer Alan Cherrington.

Describing the transformation of Integral Powertrain’s Integral e-Drive division into the new Helix brand, Alan explains: “We’re very much a product company and Helix marks our transition from a consultancy and small batch-manufacturing business into a company selling products in volume.

“We have our stock, off-the-shelf product, with no non-recurring engineering costs. Then there’s configured, which includes a degree of modification, and custom, which takes the same scalable core technology but fully matched to customer requirements. Those three levels fall into our standard manufacturing offer and then we have X-Division.

“Created for premium customers, X-Division is for products way beyond the scalable core technology architecture. They are exclusive developments for tomorrow’s opportunities, perhaps in space, or very high-level motorsport. They push the boundaries of design, materials and technology to create unique solutions that may generate a whole new platform.”

Cosworth is a common thread in the careers of several Helix executives and Alan is no exception. He came to the company from British Aerospace and the Eurofighter Typhoon programme, among other projects, joining Cosworth Racing in 1995. A decade later, he went to Mercedes High Performance Powertrains, working on KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) and ERS (energy recovery system) technology, before becoming Chief Engineer on the V8 programme and Head of Reliability for the V8 and V6.

Alan recalls: “I liked the aerospace industry, but it’s very slow. I was also absolutely crazy about cars and internal combustion engines, and I loved F1. I started following it when I was a child and the idea of working on a Formula 1 combustion engine was my idea of heaven.

“Aerospace industry standards read across very well into F1, while it’s speed made it an exciting, cutting edge industry. As a petrolhead young man, working in F1 was the greatest thing and Cosworth was one of the great names. I’d tried to get into Formula 1 for several years, but they look only for amazing engineers. I wouldn’t put myself in that category, so I just had to work really hard.

“Cosworth is one of the greatest places I’ve worked. The engineers I worked alongside were mind-blowing; sometimes it was unreal to be working with such talented people. It was among the most exciting and most challenging times of my life. When the company started taking a different direction, scaling back its F1 involvement, I wanted to continue my F1 journey and that’s when I moved to Mercedes.”

There, Alan found more challenges and success. “It was great to help build a company towards the success it eventually achieved in F1 – we won multiple world championships. It was another brilliant journey, but it does take a toll on you. It grew me as an engineer and as a person, surrounded by people who were utterly immense in their ability. I feel very proud to have played a small part in all of that.”

Then, in 2016, Alan joined Integral e-Drive as Chief Engineer for Design and Analysis, moving from a global automotive powerhouse to a niche consultancy and small-scale manufacturer of exotic electric motors and inverters. What was the attraction? “I wanted to help develop a company, help it grow in the commercial world. In F1 you have a budget to spend, but in a commercial company you have to generate wealth to invest in the company and new products, and that was a journey I wanted to go on.

“We’ve come a long way and now Helix is known for its power-dense electric motors and inverters. We’ve brought technology from high-end motorsport into automotive, at the same time contributing to the green revolution and doing our bit for the environment. It’s a fantastic achievement of which, again, I’m very proud.”

Alan’s engineering career spans aerospace, automotive and motorsport, all of it, he reckons, based on an early desire to find out how things work. “As a child I took so many things apart but never managed to get them back together again. I was an absolute menace,” he laughs.

“Later I became really interested in car and engineering design and did lots of that at school. And, from maybe 11 or 12 years old, I became fascinated by the internal combustion engine; I could dismantle an engine and put it back together. When I started to drive, I was always taking the cylinder head apart, polishing the ports, fitting new camshafts and all those things. From that I became a craft apprentice at British Aerospace and they sponsored me through my engineering degree.”

Thinking about the 25th anniversary of IP’s foundation, Alan says: “I think it cements the incredible achievements of the four directors. They are amazing engineers and amazing people, but in slightly different ways. They had the vision to grow a company from working in a garage to what will undoubtedly become a globally recognised organisation with world-class products, all founded on first-principles engineering. If they hadn’t got together, this company would never have been successful.”

Joined the company

2016

Favourite design or piece of engineering

Koenigsegg – “The intricate detail, the beautiful engineering in those vehicles, is unbelievable”.

1950s’ Maseratis and Ferraris – “When you also consider the bravery of the drivers and the excitement of the racing, those cars were amazing”.

Outside interest

F1

Favourite team

Mercedes (but McLaren growing up)

Favourite circuit

Spa

Favourite driver

Michael Schumacher. “I regularly worked with Michael at the circuit and on one occasion even shared my birthday cake with him. I saw him in his formative years and again when he came back, driving a V8-engined Mercedes when I was chief engineer. I feel very privileged to have met him. He was the ultimate, dedicated, driven professional.”

Person he would most like to meet

Isambard Kingdom Brunel – “He achieved so much. To have designed ships, bridges and railways, and had a family, is incredible. I would love to have had a conversation with him about engineering.”

Andrew Joyner

Head of Programme Management

Choosing a day at random to visit the Shenley Technical Centre, a guest would quickly realise that multiple projects are constantly in progress, each under a Project Manager for detailed, day-to-day control. The programme management team includes Project Coordinators, Project Managers and Programme Managers. Helix Project Managers deliver multiple projects at any given time against a well-defined scope of work, whereas the Programme Manager’s view is more strategic. Andrew Joyner, Head of Programme Management, provides oversight of the entire project and programme management (PM) process.

“Our Programme Managers often run highly complex programmes which in some cases are also very strategic internally. In the context of where Helix is today, they are an important part of the transformation process. In some cases, a programme has several projects, but an especially significant or complex project might be a programme in its own right,” Andrew explains.

He says he likes to remain hands-on, a philosophy he applies to the wider aspects of the role, including taking line manager responsibility for the PM team; PM processes, improvement and roll out; and overall accountability for the successful delivery of all Helix projects and programmes.

Within all that, Andrew proudly states: “We have a strong sense of empowerment throughout the team, and I think one of the keys to that is ensuring communication is robust and everyone understands how their project or programme links into the strategic plan for the business.”

Andrew’s university education included engineering, business and management; part of a journey that he says began in childhood. “From a very early age I had a curiosity about how things worked and how to ‘improve’ them. I took toy cars apart and rebuilt them with alternative parts, then it was skateboards and bikes and, eventually, similar things on my car.

“As I got older, I realised this was engineering and I enjoyed it. Just after my GCSEs, I recognised engineering as a career I wanted to pursue, got the grades I needed and chose a degree focusing on manufacturing engineering and business. It was the variety of options it presented that felt attractive.”

On graduation, Andrew joined Racal (later Thales). After a six-week stint in project management, a manager offered him a project management role. “So, I moved into that aspect of engineering very early, and I haven’t looked back.”

Along with that Racal manager, Andrew says a few other individuals helped shape his career, but he also credits his parents. “They’ve been incredibly supportive, and my dad worked for 40 years at Caterpillar. I grew up seeing how rewarding a career in engineering can be.”

After working in defence with companies including Racal and BAE Systems, Andrew moved into automotive with Integral Powertrain. “I’d been involved in drag racing for many years and now I was working in automotive and motor sport too. I had to learn the technology of electric motors and invertors, but there are lots of enthusiastic, talented people in the company and it was easy to learn from them.”

Still a relative newcomer, Andrew says the 25th anniversary celebrations have given him an opportunity to consider how far Helix has come. “It’s made me stop and think. I look at photos of small teams working in Portakabins from the early days, and I believe for the business to achieve what it has in such a short period of time is incredible. Combining that with the foundation blocks it has built for the next 25 years, and considering that I’m now part of that journey, it is really exciting.”

Vehicle formerly owned by Andrew Joyner

Andrew’s passion for racing air-cooled VWs means he is no stranger to staggering power density.

Joined the company

2019

Favourite design or piece of engineering

VW Beetle – “I love the lines and its simplicity.”

Outside interest

• VW Beetle – “My love for the Beetle started with the Herbie films. That was a bit embarrassing as a teenager, so it became more about the culture. I bought my first Beetle when I was 20 and I’ve owned more than ten since, ranging from an early 1955 car to a 1974.”

• Drag racing – “I got into drag racing in 2006 and raced a turbocharged Beetle. I sold it a couple of years ago. Now I have a Subaru-powered 1972 Beetle that we can go out in as a family and that I can run down the track.”

• Medieval history, especially around the time of the War of the Roses – “I was one of very few members of the public fortunate to be invited to the reinterment of Richard III at Leicester Cathedral.”

Person he would most like to meet

Richard III – “There are lots of stories about him and I’d like to know the truth. Was he really a tyrant? Did he have a hand in the disappearance of his nephews? And what happened at the Battle of Bosworth?”

John McLean

Director

One of Integral Powertrain’s four founders, John McLean’s directorship soon became more commercially focused, including requirements related to contracts, legal, finance, facilities and manufacturing. John therefore recently led the building project that resulted in the deeply impressive Shenley Technical Centre (STC).

“We got planning permission in September 2018 and practical completion was in May 2020. It was a two-year build programme, more or less, after which we populated the offices while completing the test facilities and all the while navigating our way around Covid restrictions,” John recalls.

“Taking the lead role, I worked with the architect, explaining how we work as a company, what was important to us, what sort of image we wanted to project and how the building should be laid out so that it flows as efficiently as possible and provides the flexibility we needed. We also prepared it for expansion, with spare capacity, oversized electrical supply, and the option to add a large workshop mezzanine floor (the windows are already fitted), plus we have an additional office space shell ready to fit out. We have permission to expand our car parking when we add this capacity.”

When John and his co-directors struck out as Integral Powertrain 25 years ago, it was as high-performance internal combustion engine consultants. Now, Helix is at the forefront of electric motor and inverter design and expanding its manufacturing capability. The STC and new manufacturing facilities will take the company through its next quarter century and beyond, so how will the STC evolve as Helix evolves?

“We designed it for maximum flexibility. The test cells could be used for a range of activities, and they are sized for much larger machines than we currently manufacture. The main workshop area is as open plan as possible and the electrical services use busbars in the roof, so we can easily move things around by dropping the supplies. There are also high level compressed air and vacuum supply rings, which can be tapped into in a similar way.”

Optimised space aside, the STC could otherwise have been a generic industrial building, but John was determined that it should provide a great working environment for the team and also reflect the nature of the business. He explains some of the finer points: “The shutter-like brise soleil above the entrance provides a shaded area and hints at the laminated steel in the stator and laminated magnets within a motor. Then there are copper themes, including an artwork. Funding for an artwork the public could see was a planning requirement. We commissioned the copper sculpture alongside the main entrance which, as luck would have it, looks a lot like a helix, suiting our new branding. Copper themes also appear inside the building, in the tiles, the front-of-house door colour and handles, and carpet.”

Since the end of 2022, John has been enjoying semi-retirement, working just one or two days every week. He says managing his diary is still a challenge, but otherwise the arrangement is a good one. With time available for reflection, he considered how his engineering career began.

“I enjoyed maths and physics and was fascinated by applying them to real-world products. Engineering was therefore a natural choice of profession.” John’s physics teacher provided a steady stream of practical inspiration, including explosions, setting off a fire extinguisher and more. That inspiration set John on a path from school through university, where he graduated with honours degrees in manufacturing sciences and engineering.

“I realised I wanted to work on products I could relate to,” he continues. “Rolls-Royce Aerospace sponsored me through university, but after graduation I decided I wanted to work in the car industry, with products I had a keen interest in. I got an interview at Ford and knew they were interested in emissions, so I read up beforehand and managed to have the answers they wanted.

“I worked mainly on engine and emission controls, starting in the mid-1980s adapting systems developed in the US. I did some engine performance modelling too, then moved to Cosworth, where I eventually went back to emissions and controls. I met the other guys [Luke Barker, Darren Cairns and Roger Duckworth] there in the early 1990s. After it changed ownership, we took the opportunity to set up as a consultancy.

“Four engineering managers, we had lots of technical ability but not so much commercial experience. I started picking those activities up while the others focussed on technical work and projects. We also set up Intrinsys, a software services company. Darren ran that, so while I took on more of the commercial and support aspects, Luke and Roger took care of most of the engineering. Responsibility for much of what I used to do now rests with our chief commercial officer.”

Looking back over his career, John says when he first worked with engine and transmission control software, he was accustomed to writing specifications manually using If-Then-Else statements, then speaking to a software engineer. “We’d make sure they understood it before they went off into a darkened room to manually code the control unit microprocessor instructions in assembly language. There was very little space on the processor and manual coding was more efficient than automated coding. These days, this is much less of a constraint – the power of electronics on board vehicles has increased beyond all recognition compared to 25 or 30 years ago, and the overall trend for electrification continues to drastically change vehicle architecture.”

Outside work, John owns a Cirrus SR22T light aircraft and has a passion for flying. “I’d had a trial flying lesson years ago, but did nothing with it,” he says. “Later, I went to pick someone up at Cranfield for work, noticed people flying there, and became interested. I’ve had a private license for 20 years and instrument rating (for flying in less than ideal weather and all airspace classes) for 6 years.

“My aircraft is a four-seater with a single 6-cylinder turbocharged piston engine and has a deicing system, advanced avionics and autopilot. The farthest I’ve been in it is Brindisi, south Italy, on a recent trip with my wife. It normally cruises at around 200mph. It’ll do over 240mph if you fly really high, but that’s higher than I usually want to go!”

Co-founded the company

1998

Favourite design or piece of engineering

The Wright brothers’ first powered flight – “They were bicycle engineers and understood weight, power, balance and control, the things you
need to make an aircraft fly. I think going from building bicycles to aircraft was one of the greatest engineering achievements, they changed the world.”

Outside interest

• Golf
• Flying: John has a Cirrus SR22T light aircraft – “I enjoy it very much and using it as proper transport is very satisfying.”

Person he would most like to meet

Bill Gates – “On holiday in Seattle, we went to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I’d like to talk with him about his plans to use his massive wealth for good and about his predictions for the future.”

Roger Duckworth

Director

Looking back over 25 years since he co-founded Integral Powertrain (IP), Roger Duckworth considers his directorship as two parts: what it was and what it has become. “Most of my time as director has been focused on running key client projects from commercial and engineering points of view, but now we have an executive management layer in place my role is quite different.

“Today, I do less customer-facing work and I don’t need to get involved in detailed production tasks. I still see legacy customers, some of them from programmes we did 12 or 14 years ago; we were asked to build spares of the first motor we ever produced, for example. I had the history to be able to run it. It’s a minor project in the scheme of the business, but it’s important to keep customers happy.”

Considering the past quarter century, Roger says: “Luke has always been the genius who works out the hard stuff and I’ve helped make it happen. I’ll often get involved when something doesn’t work or goes wrong too, and that problem solving aspect of the job is perhaps what gives me most satisfaction. I got into 3D finite element analysis and that sort of detailed engineering stuff still keeps me busy.”

Keith Duckworth, Roger’s father, co-founded Cosworth in 1958. Integral’s four directors met at the company and some of Helix’s executive management team also had experience there. Given the company’s iconic status in motorsport and road cars, was it inevitable that Roger would follow an engineering career?

“Dad began talking to me about the engineering he was doing when I first started to understand, around 12 or 13 years old. He did a lot of work at home. He was known for thinking through engineering problems, often with me. We used to work on model aeroplanes and engines together too. Later he bought a lathe with a milling attachment, and we built a steam engine. It gave me a good grounding in the practical aspects of engineering alongside our theoretical discussions.

“Dad didn’t believe that education was the be all and end all. He’d met plenty of great engineers who’d started out as technicians and not been to university. I wanted to do a year’s experience before deciding on university and dad sorted me out with a job at Hewland. After maybe six months I understood how things went together and realised I wanted the skills to improve and design them, which made my mind up. I did a fouryear sandwich course at Brunel, spending six months every year on the Cosworth apprenticeship scheme.”

Keith Duckworth was clearly Roger’s major inspiration, but he credits his fellow directors as the people who’ve had the major effect on his career. After Cosworth’s direction changed under new ownership, Roger says: “The others [Luke Barker, Darren Cairns and John McLean] decided to set up on their own and, luckily, invited me along the way. We were fortunate to get some paid work quite quickly and we grew IP from there.”

The journey from that first paid job to Helix has been one of challenge and success. “We had a couple of scary moments,” Roger recalls, “but we landed new programmes, and the problems went away. Later, the financial crisis around 2008/09 hit us hard, but we won some research grants and applied our engineers to an electric vehicle project.” It included work on hybrid petrol/electric propulsion and saw IP applying its unique approach to electric powertrains. “Without it, we might not have gone into electric machines.”

That early electric foray led to the pioneering hypercar project that placed IP and now Helix at the forefront of electric powertrain design and production. “From that project we moved into high-end motorsport and had to learn some important lessons quickly because few people had run motors at such high power densities and high electrical frequencies, and the wider world didn’t understand the fundamental challenges,” Roger explains.

Outside work, but closely related to it, Roger is a keen rally driver and long-term motorsport fan. The story of his involvement begins at age 16…

“Cosworth had an engine in an inshore racing powerboat and dad met Nigel Beale at the London Boat Show. His company, Cyclone Hovercraft, built leisure/racing hovercraft and since dad loved playing about on the water, he bought one. He decided I should race it, so I did. As soon as I was 17, I took his Granada estate and towed the hovercraft to events around the country, winning the national Formula 3 championship in 1984.

“Later, when I was working at Cosworth, a friend of a friend had a Mk 2 Escort that he was rallying. I got an old development Sierra Cosworth engine from work, and we put it in the car. Driving a hovercraft is a bit like drifting a rally car, so I liked the idea of rallying. Also, in rallying you are competing against the clock so if you crash the car, it’s entirely your fault, it’s never the result of someone else’s error.”

Roger’s rallying career began in 1989. After his friend withdrew from competition and rule changes meant a new car was needed, Roger built a Group N Daihatsu Charade, a threecylinder turbo, and won his class in the 1991 National Championship. Next, he built a fourwheel drive Sierra, before moving into Subarus. “I’ve had a Subaru ever since. I’ve been able to do it this long because I haven’t crashed too often. Once you start crashing it gets very expensive!”

His most notable result was in 1998, when he won the Mintex National Championship outright, although he also came 11th in the 1997 RAC Rally. “My dad always claimed he couldn’t drive – he tried racing and had one big mishap that put him off. He was always amazed that I could drive a car reasonably well.”

Co-founded the company

1998

Favourite design or piece of engineering

“The Duckworth compound gear arrangement my father designed for the DFV Formula 1 engine. It was a nicely engineered solution, and I can remember a cutaway model on the mantlepiece.”

Outside interest

Rallying – “I still do it occasionally. I’ve owned Subarus since the 1990s

Person he would most like to meet

Isambard Kingdom Brunel – “When I was at Brunel University, we had a series of lectures about his work. His was pure engineering. His Great Eastern steamship, for example, survived a boiler explosion that would have sunk the Titanic, but it survived because he’d properly designed it with watertight compartments. I’ve read various books on Brunel since and I don’t read much, so that says a lot!”

Neil Tyagi

Chief Commercial Officer

Neil Tyagi is by no means unusual in having moved from a large, multinational company to Integral Powertrain Limited (IP, now using the Helix brand name). “My previous employer was a large, German multi-national which had a strong oil and gas focus. When I was approached and heard about IP’s products and markets as well as the directors’ aspiration to invest and expand as a clean-tech product company, I was immediately excited about their journey, the need to transition from an engineering company into a product company and saw huge growth potential well into the future where their learning and product performance gave them an immediate but hard-earned strong market position.”

Neil says his Chief Commercial Officer role takes him into all corners of the business while working closely with his co-executive officers and the board of directors. “The senior engineering team is very clear about our product development, while the commercial angle is as much about looking outside at new markets, applications and territories as it is internally on performance. It’s about setting a long-term plan built upon the product vision to drive the company forward through sales planning, marketing, resources, investment and R&D, all within clear boundaries surrounding the management of risk and the protection of our intellectual property.”

Asked where that plan is leading Helix, Neil responds: “IP and now Helix are deeply entrenched in the hypercar industry and high-performance motorsport. Now we’re taking that learning and performance advantage and making it more accessible to wider markets. It’s about taking niche, very focussed know-how and exploring new applications, sectors and geographies for it.”

He says his four years with the company have gone very quickly, but at the same time, a great deal has happened. “It has been very exciting, and the role has been diverse. I like that the company is growing and relishes the challenges of heading into new sectors and territories. I’ve had to learn lots about the industry and seen how much Helix is respected by its customers – many of those customers and applications are hugely impressive. In most cases I can’t name them for commercial reasons, but ‘wow’! And now we’re on the cusp of opening our first US office, later in 2023, which is my biggest project at the moment and enormously exciting as Helix’s first step into an overseas presence where there is huge potential and opportunity.”

Neil may not share the motorsport involvement or enthusiasm of many of his colleagues, but he is a keen, experienced motorcyclist. “I started when I was 16,” he recalls. “I had a go on a friend’s bike and was hooked. Within three months I had my own Honda MT5 trials bike and although I love cars too, I’ve always been more of a biker.

“I got my Triumph Tiger in 2006 and sold it in 2022. It was fantastic. I liked the idea of an iconic British brand, and the Tiger might well have been built for me. I’ll almost certainly get another Triumph, but maybe with a smaller engine.”

Neil’s time at Helix in its brand new, purpose-built technical centre at Shenley Wood has included a major period of transformation that resulted in the Helix brand. What’s it all about for him? “It’s about the DNA that made the company and brought it to where it is today. And it’s about the clear vision we have of our product offerings and the markets and territories we want to be in, and where our products offer unrivalled performance. It’s a great opportunity to reach out to them with our unique technology under a bold new brand.”

Joined the company

2019

Favourite design or piece of engineering:

Triumph Tiger motorcycle

Outside interest

• Motorcycling
• Martial arts
• Rugby
• The 1600s – “It’s a recent obsession after my wife, who’s very much into history, persuaded me to choose a history book at random. I choose one on Charles I and now I’m fascinated with that tumultuous period in English history.”

Person he would most like to meet

My dad – “Or, let’s say, I’d like to meet a younger version of him than the one I remember. He left India in the 1960s as a junior doctor, spent two years working in New York and then came to the UK to complete his studies in orthopaedic surgery. He was a quiet, introspective man and I don’t know much about his life before I was born. He was one of the many surgeons who operated on motorcycle racer Barry Sheene in 1975, which is where I think the spark of interest in motorcycling began for me”.

Arnaud Martin

Chief Officer – Inverter Systems and Motorsport

As a member of Helix’s executive team, Arnaud Martin takes overall responsibility for the company’s inverters, facilities, quality and motorsport. Helix is primarily a developer and builder of electric powertrains, its inverter and motor technologies working hand-in-hand to deliver world-leading performance.

The inverter sits between the power source and the motor, delivering high power current through switches operating as fast as 70kHz. Without it an electric motor won’t work at all, and the inverter is also the key to controlling it. “I often say the inverter is the more difficult part of the powertrain,” Arnaud says. “I compare controlling an electric motor to the challenge of controlling a four-cylinder internal combustion engine at 120,000 rpm.”

The internal combustion engine is firmly entrenched in Arnaud’s background, and primarily in motorsport applications. That’s a long way from inverters, so what does his role at Helix look like? “I see myself as a facilitator. I joined Integral Powertrain as a chief engineer looking after motorsport projects and they included inverters. Although I’m a mechanical engineer I realised I quite like electronics.

Electronics

“I’m not an electronics specialist but I have enough knowledge to decide what might work and then facilitate others. I don’t have the detailed knowledge, just the bigger picture. I see my value in making sure the team has the right resources, financing and processes.”

The motorsport part of Arnaud’s work is more hands-on, although he increasingly relies on others for that aspect of the job. “Here, and especially in Formula E, we are ensuring our technical choices are correct. As I take more responsibility for the company’s management I’m increasingly involved in reviews, ensuring we’re going in the right technical direction. It’s about challenging our people and ensuring they have what they need. We want to be a company that brings out the best in people.”

Arnaud originally completed the equivalent of an HND in internal combustion engines in his native France. While most of his Helix colleagues credit parents or teachers for sowing the seeds of their engineering careers, Arnaud notes that his parents were pharmacists. “My brother is also a pharmacist and there are lots of vets in the family, but no one mechanical.”

Brought up in the countryside, around the age of 14 Arnaud saw a round of a domestic offroad racing championship. “I became absolutely fascinated with it,” he recalls. “That led to following the Paris-Dakar Rally and a wish to work in racing. I started with karting at 16 and began taking the engines apart. Soon people were borrowing my modified engines and doing better than me at racing them!”

Arnaud came to the UK on an exchange programme that included a work placement. His list of desired companies began with Cosworth, where Darren Cairns spotted his name. Darren had early interest in a project with a French automotive manufacturer and Arnaud was an obvious fit. After six months in the road engine department at Cosworth, Darren suggested the company sponsor Arnaud through university.

After graduation, Roger Duckworth offered Arnaud his first job, at Cosworth, where he soon switched to the racing side for a career in touring car and Formula 1 engineering design. In 2005 Arnaud moved to RML, where he led the team that designed the allconquering Chevrolet Global Racing Engine. After that, he entered electrification with the powertrain for a hybrid Nissan Garage 56 Le Mans project.

Arnaud concludes: “After a management change at RML, I decided it was time to move on and that’s when I joined Darren and Roger again, at Integral Powertrain. Today, the thing that excited me most about internal combustion engines excites me even more about electric powertrains – the process of improving efficiency to gain performance.”

Joined the company

2017

Outside interest

• Motorsport
• Skiing

Person he would most like to meet

“I’ve met plenty of my heroes and the experience has almost always been disappointing!”

Richard Smith

Chief Manufacturing Officer

The latest member of Helix’s executive team, Richard Smith comes from a broad tier 1 automotive background. “I’ve been involved in scaling up, volume production, moving volume production between different regions, opening new territories and developing new facilities, plus managing many manufacturing sites around the world,” he explains.

All of that has given Richard, as he puts it, experience in “…taking disparate groups of engineering and manufacturing companies and consolidating them”. His expertise is obvious, but he summarises it with: “…knowing manufacturing systems and what ‘good’ looks like in a manufacturing environment.”

Helix is growing and expanding its manufacturing capability, and Richard says that makes it very attractive to him. “This is a company with excellent, talented people and my primary role is to support the business plan as it continues to transition from low to high-volume manufacturing. I’ve already seen what the end of that journey looks like, what good looks like, and so I can see what Helix needs to do to get there.”

Ultimately, he envisages Helix supplying not only motors and inverters, but complete solutions comprising motor, inverter and transmission, all developed and manufactured in-house.

Looking back at his own evolution, Richard says he spent 15 years in the steel industry. “That provided a very different set of experiences, after which I moved to the automotive world, where I’ve spent around 20 years. I had nine years working for an Italian company headquartered in Paris, managing 19 manufacturing plants around the world; I spent a lot of those nine years in planes!

“Later I moved to be UK MD of Norma Group, taking responsibility for its metal manufacturing plants in Europe, before moving to Ricor as Group MD, again with facilities in the UK and on the continent. In every case my role was similar and now I’m bringing that experience to Helix.” Richard manages to summarise a lifetime of engineering in two paragraphs, but what originally brought him into the industry?

“I don’t come from an engineering background, but I’ve always been inquisitive. I didn’t know what I wanted to do at university until I looked at the prospectus and found that mechanical engineering ticked all my boxes. Interestingly, I have two grown-up daughters and while one has followed my wife’s example and gone into the humanities, the other is an engineer.”

Richard says both girls received the same nurturing and opportunities, their divergent career paths therefore remaining something of a mystery, but he nonetheless has real enthusiasm for encouraging young people, especially women, onto an engineering path.

“I’ve been really lucky in the people I’ve met along my journey. As I get older, I’m conscious of giving back the help they gave me. I really enjoy mentoring and coaching, bringing young people through and helping broaden their skills horizon and how they see business.”

Joined the company

2023

Favourite design or piece of engineering

The electric vehicle – “They were all the rage at the turn of the 20th century. I remember visiting a classic car show in Santa Monica and being confronted by a range of early 1912 electric vehicles, which had reached the peak of their popularity at that time. It fascinates me that 100 years later we began to see the re-emergence of electric vehicles and I’ve been tracking their market evolution ever since.”

Outside interest

• Improving his Grade II listed cottage
• Welsh Regions Rugby

Person he would most like to meet

Genghis Khan – “There must be tremendous learning in finding out how he took over so much of the world. But was he a hero, or a villain?”

25 years in the making

Helix is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2023

Back in time to celebrate

Nostalgia is not what it used to be

Interviews with the Helix team

Joel Williams

Quality Assurance Manager

Andrew Cross

Chief Technical Officer

Nick Phillips

Head of Manufacturing, Facilities, and Health, Safety and Environment

Darren Cairns

Director and CEO

Luke Barker

Director

Alan Cherrington

Chief Operating Officer

Andrew Joyner

Head of Programme Management

John McLean

Director

Roger Duckworth

Director

Neil Tyagi

Chief Commercial Officer

Arnaud Martin

Chief Officer – Inverter Systems and Motorsport

Richard Smith

Chief Manufacturing Officer

Get in touch