CV for Vianney Shiel ARMIT, FRMIT, Dip Ed, MIE(Aust), SMIREE, CPEng.

Vianney Shiel holds Associate and Fellowship Diplomas in Electronic Engineering from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) as well as a Diploma of Education. After some years in industry as a Design Engineer and Production Engineer,he joined the academic staff of RMIT where he taught in the areas of electronic measurements, printed circuit board design and manufacture, CAD/CAM, electronic construction practices and audiovisual technology for 21 years. During the last five years at RMIT he was Head of Department of Audiovisual Technology.

In 1979 he was seconded from RMIT for twelve months by the National Retail Automotive Training Committee to prepare a Government White Discussion Paper on "The Introduction of Electronics into Automobiles and it's Effect on Training. This investigation was conducted under the auspices of the Australian Automobile Chamber of Commerce and involved preparing a twenty page questionnaire which was circulated to a selected cross section of the industry. The data from over one hundred returns was collated and formed the basis of the report. The other main section of the report was a summary of a very detailed world-wide literature search.

In 1989, Vianney was seconded from RMIT to the Australian Electronics Development Centre (AEDC) as one of the founding staff members.  Subsequently, he joined the staff full time and, for over nine years was responsible for the development and teaching of special short courses for industry in the areas of manufacture and design using SMT, Statistical Process Control applied to electronic manufacture and printed circuit board manufacture, electromagnetic interference and compatibility, electrostatic discharge prevention, electromagnetic radiation measurement to AS2772 and assisted with many of the quality courses that were run by the AEDC.

Between 1991 and 1998, through the sponsorship arrangements between the industry and the AEDC, he visited some 50 manufacturing sites around the world.  In Japan he visited NEC headquarters and one of their manufacturing sites, Mitsubishi Electric, Japan Airlines Maintenance Base and Isusu Motors.  In Sweden he visited six of Ericssons manufacturing plants; in Germany, Siemens headquarters, one of their most advanced technology manufacturing plants and one of their training centres.  In the United States he visited the IBM sites at Austin, Fishkill, Burlington and Charlotte; the Hewlett-Packard sites at Loveland, Fort Collins, Greeley, Sunnyvale and Palo Alto headquarters; Motorola headquarters in Schumburg and Motorola Codex in Boston; Solectron in Milpitas and the Naval Weapons Research Centre in Indianapolis. He has also visited a number of organisations in New Zealand and Malaysia.

He regularly attended the Surface Mount International Conference in San Jose, California where he has co-chaired several sessions and, in 1995, presented a one day workshop as part of the Conference. This workshop on SMT Manufacturing Process Control was attended by 65 people. He has been on the Executive of the Surface Mount and Circuit Board Association from its inception and has held the positions of Vice-President and President.

Vianney taught courses for the AEDC in all capital cities in Australia, in New Zealand, Malaysia and the USA.

In particular, in 1998, Vianney taught two courses at Nepcon West in Anaheim, USA, on ESD Damage Prevention and the A-Z of PCB Manufacture.  He also presented a paper at the conference on “Where does quality really start in manufacturing?”.  Later that year, he presented a one day workshop at Surface Mount International on “Practical SPC for SMT Manufacturing”.   During the SMI Conference period he co-chaired some of the conference sessions and attended the meetings of the Surface Mount Council, of which he is a liason member.  However, a large amount of his time in 1998 was spent undertaking the training needs analysis for the maintenance staff of the Jindalee Over the Horizon Radar Network.

For thirty years he has run his own small electronic design and manufacturing organisation which specialises in small run production in the areas of industrial control, smoke detector alarm systems and medical electronics, commencing originally with the manufacture of thousands of bare printed circuit boards. He is a member of the Institution of Engineers (Australia) and a senior member of the Institute of Radio and Electronic Engineers.

Since the closure of the AEDC in late 1998, he has expanded his own business and provides services to the industry which include inhouse training and expert consulting on manufacture and design using SMT, PCB manufacture and use, Statistical Process Control applied to electronic manufacture and printed circuit board manufacture, electromagnetic interference and compatibility (EMC), electrostatic discharge prevention, electromagnetic radiation measurement to AS2772; manufacturing and design problem solving in the above areas; ESD and Process Audits; Process evaluations; Design for Manufacturability evaluations; project management and CDROM and Internet production.

In his travels around Australia and overseas he has visited many printed board manufacturing plants including Hadco, Screencraft, Morris Productions, Precision Circuits and a number of IBM and HP plants which have subsequently been sold off to other parties.

He has also consulted to a number of large electronic design companies on Design for Manufacturability issues, especially where the manufacture was to be done offshore.

Over the past several years he has become quite involved in Radiation Hazard Awareness, especially to do with mobile phones and their associated equipment, has taught this course to over a thousand people involved in the industry and was involved in the update of the Australian Radiation Exposure Limit Standard, AS2772. In 2001 he presented a paper at the Occupational Health and Safety Conference on "The Prudent use of Mobile Phones".

In 2002 the RadHaz Awareness course was updated due to the issue of the new Australian Standard - Radiation Protection Standard for Maximum Exposure Levels to Radiofrequency Fields - 3 kHz to 300 GHz (2002).

In more recent times, at the request of the Perth International Telecommunication Centre, he upgraded the RadHaz Measurement course and also taught it to the RAAF. Two of the more memorable places that he has taught the Awareness Course has been to the Jindalee Over-the-horizon Radar maintenance staff at Longreach (Qld) and Laverton (WA).

During 1998 he was called on by the Australian Customs to be an expert witness in an Administrative Tribunal case with a printed circuit manufacturer over the Computer Bounty and printed circuit boards. Since then, he has been involved as an expert witness in a number of other cases involving acceptable PCB quality, adherence to a design brief and customer / supplier problems in the design of PCBs. More recently he has been an expert witness in cases involving poor soldering of fine pitch SMT components causing failures and also with alleged use of other peoples intellectual property in designs.

He continues to teach a special subject which he developed, Design to Mass Production, at LaTrobe University (3rd year Electronics Engineering Degree) and gives guest lectures at RMIT on PCB Manufacture, Silicon Chip Packaging and Design for Manufacturability.