Peter Foyer

He went to Nottingham University and studied Mechanical Engineering on a State Scholarship - the highest level of Government scholarship, based on his academic skills. He graduated in 1959.

His first job after leaving University was with the Rootes Group in Coventry as a graduate apprentice. Then he went to Rootes Group in Luton as an Engineer. Rootes was a major UK car and truck company in the UK then with popular brands like Hillman, Humber, Singer, Sunbeam, Talbot, Commer and Karrier, now all gone.

Peter worked on the Hillman cars and Commer trucks. He became the Production Control Manager there. Part of his work involved the Rootes plant in Scotland, where he began a long-time interest in Casting, Forging and Presswork.

While there he took a Production Technology course at Cranfield College, now Cranfield University. He had his first exposure to computers there as well an introduction to the business of Commercial vehicles.

Rootes was taken over by Chrysler but the brands didn’t survive.  Peter thought this was due to Chrysler’s failure to understand why Rootes had been successful.

Then in 1965 went to work for GKN as an Engineering Consultant and stayed there until 1970. His work  was on Production Engineering, Production Management, Temporary Management and Contract Planning. 

He was shocked by many of the very old processes used, though they did have an Industrial Robot. Wherever Peter went he gained new knowledge. How to do things well and how not to do things. At GKN it was most of the latter - lack of focus, investment shy, weak skills and a ‘Dead’ culture.

He then moved on to  the then PE Consulting Group as an Engineering Consultant in Egham with much enthusiasm. Their major clients included British Steel and London Transport.

Then went to work for a consulting company called ICFC in London. This didn’t last long, and he moved to Covrad Ltd, close to home in Coventry.

His reflections on the Engineering Consulting businesses he had worked at were not complimentary. In his opinion, among their failings were:

• High consultant turnover
• Little learning and communication
• Low academic standards
• Totally uncreative
• Provided low value at high prices.

In 1975 went to Ingersoll Engineers based in Daventry. Stayed there for 16 years until 1991. This consulting work took him around the world to most countries in Europe as well as the USA, Canada and Australia.

This was a consulting firm he really liked:

• Well-thought-through consultancy processes
• Good problem-definition methods
• Good communications
• Did real engineering work
• High technical standards
• Moved away from ‘feeds and speeds’.

Among his clients were

• Perkins Diesels
• WH Allen Diesels
• Smith and Lucas (Using Just in Time Assembly, they cut production time from 3 weeks to one day)
• Land Rover (moving the work back to his hometown of Solihull)
• BAE systems (based in the USA)

His other reflections on Ingersoll included.

• Their engineering excellence
• Their ability to learn.

He was concerned about the control by the accountants and the greater interest in Management Consulting.  He was pleased that later Ingersoll moved into good hands.­­­­

After leaving them, he became the visiting Professor of Engineering Design at Coventry University and Director of Peter Foyer Consulting Engineers Ltd. Professor title negotiated between Ingersol Engineers and the Royal Academy of Engineering.

One of Peter’s lifelong professional projects was `Truck Train` which ran from 1977 to 2018 with Philip Mortimer and The University of Coventry. Its intent was to have freight trains travel as passenger train speeds

He was a member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology since 1963 and was made a Fellow in 1986. He was a visiting Professor at the University of Coventry and, until quite recently, oversaw a number of PhD students. Teaching and mentoring students was a role that he was passionate about.

He was also an active volunteer with the Prince of Wales Achievement awards.