Dr Ip-Shing Fan is a Senior Lecturer in Enterprise Systems at Cranfield University, leading Digital MRO in DARTeC, supporting aviation transformation in operations and maintenance. He is leading the Digital MRO and Hangar laboratories in the Cranfield DARTeC Initiative. The complex is a realistic representation of airport ramp and hangar environment to study the interactions between aircraft, engineers, airport and hangar facilities, ground vehicles and drones. The digital infrastructure support aircraft digital twins work to maintain the accurate configuration in the information world of airworthiness, as the engineering health status of the aircraft structure and systems to predict and prevent failures.
He has a passion to understand the underlying reasons and develop better approaches to help organisations work more effectively. He looks at the world with a socio-technical lens to explore the complex interactions between people systems and technology systems. The knowledge span includes system engineering, business process analysis, quality and performance management system, organisation design and behaviour, technology induced change, human psychology and motivation. The application domains include aerospace, engineering, manufacturing, business services, IT, education, health, local government.
Fan has a Bachelor in Industrial Engineering from the University of Hong Kong. He completed his engineer training in one of the largest toys and plastic manufacturers in Hong Kong. He finished his PhD in the use of AI to optimise manufacturing scheduling, in the early days of AI. One of the major projects he led was a consortium across 10 European countries to investigate the reasons why enterprise systems projects fail.
He is the Course Director of the MSc in Aviation Digital Technology Management in Cranfield University. The MSc develops professionals with the ability to innovate and apply digital technology in the aerospace industry. The course gives graduates from aeronautical and engineering backgrounds the digital skills and capabilities required to develop a career that goes beyond design and manufacture, and will open up wider aviation industry opportunities.