In this week’s SME Focus one of Scotland’s most successful engineering entrepreneurs tells how a lesson learned from a giant car maker has allowed him to achieve success in industries ranging from sweeper manufacturing to green energy.

Name:

Professor Dan Wright MBE.

Age: 66.

What is your business called?

Heliex Power Limited.

Where is it based?

Our headquarters are in East Kilbride and we have a UK and European sales presence and global ambitions. The patented technology behind our systems was devised at City University, London.

What does it produce?

We design, manufacture and supply patented Steam Expander Systems that generate electricity using waste heat and steam from industrial processes. Our systems work where traditional technologies, such as steam turbines, can’t.

Who does it sell to? Mainly industry, biomass and agricultural clients. It’s estimated that up to 50 per cent of industrial energy usage is eventually released as waste heat, while more than 40,000 gigawatt hours of energy is lost globally through wasted steam. This is enough energy to power 28 billion homes. We have the only commercially available system in the world capable of recapturing this lost energy in an economically viable way. The payback period for customers is often less than three years.

Our initial clients include a glass plant near Milan that produces over half a million glass bottles each day, Italy’s largest steel mill, a distillery in Northern Scotland, various agricultural biomass installations across the UK, a chemicals manufacturer in Manchester and a waste incineration plant in Leeds.

What is its turnover?

We’ve just started selling and have recently passed the £1 million level.

How many employees do you have?

23.

When was it formed?

2010, we spent lots of time developing the technology and building our talented team and then began selling our systems in 2014.

Why did you take the plunge?

The technology is economically and morally excellent and so I had no hesitation when I was asked to help bring it to market. I’d had my fill of sorting out other peoples’ companies and then handing them back.

One day I was driving away from a very rainy Middlesbrough, having looked at a possible business opportunity, when I received a call from my friend Professor Ian Smith at City University. A potential client in Australia wanted to use the University’s Steam Screw Expander System for a geothermal power station and to do so they would need to create a spin out company, so they wanted me to come on board. I called my wife back in Scotland and said I would be home in a day or two and then drove straight to London.

What were you doing before you took the plunge?

I left Glasgow University with a degree in Aerospace Engineering and since then I’ve been involved with some of the UK’s biggest engineering companies at various levels, from senior engineer to Chief Executive. I’ve got a good track record of turning companies around, one example of this was Johnson Sweepers, the biggest maker of road sweepers in the world. I went in as a consultant before becoming Managing Director and within 3 years I secured the company’s market leadership and improved financial performance through complete reorganisation and a £4m investment programme. Another example was the truck maker Leyland DAF where, following its bankruptcy, I created the Glasgow-based component maker Albion Automotive Industries and grew it to a turnover of £85m.

During the early to mid-1990’s I was a member of the Prime Minister’s Deregulation Task Force at the Cabinet office, I’ve been Governor of the Glasgow School of Art and sat on various committees. I was appointed MBE for services to engineering.

How did you raise the start-up funding?

When we started out we received a little publicity from the Carbon Trust and were then approached by BP Ventures, who wanted to invest. One of the employees at BP was leaving that week and asked if he could take our portfolio with him. He went to ESB Novusmodus and on our second funding round they too invested. It was relatively easy, which is unusual but a real testament to the technology that we’re offering and its relevance in today’s world. Our top quality management team also worked very hard to get to that position.

What was your biggest break?

Working as a graduate at The Ford Motor Company was the defining point in my career. As I stepped through the door, Ford of Europe Finance Controller, Murray Reichenstein, told me, “Kid, we don’t make cars, we make money.” A light bulb came on in my head and it’s coloured everything since. I spent 2 years completing courses in marketing, finance and Ford’s secret weapon, product planning. It gave me a fantastic grounding in both business and engineering.

If an engineering graduate comes to me looking for advice now, I always tell them to go to one of the big car companies. If you’re trained in the automotive industry then you can have a successful career anywhere.

What was your worst moment?

Relatively early on in Heliex we discovered a problem with a crucial part that was being supplied from overseas. We had completed 1,000 hours of testing without a hitch. I then suggested we run a bit longer and the system failed. Fixing it cost us 10 months but we had to develop our way through it. The problem was solved with very innovative and smart design.

What do you enjoy most about running the business?

I’m not a good steady state person and so I enjoy every day being different. In a developing business this is always the case. In addition, our technology is involved in so many different applications that it’s always interesting.

What do you least enjoy?

I’m not one for early mornings. I tend to work until 2am and so I don’t like early starts. I also seriously dislike it when people naturally assume that a problem can’t be solved; with that attitude it makes certain that it won’t.

What are your ambitions for the business?

Grow it, diversify our product offering and become the established world leader in our type of energy efficiency technology.

What are your top priorities?

An injury has prevented me from riding my horse for a while and I’d like to get back to that. Riding helps me switch off and think about non-business things. Outside of work, I put lots of energy into my role as chairman of the Jim Clark Rally, which I’m helping to develop to be an international sporting event.

What could the Westminster and /or Scottish Governments do that would help most?

Recognise the strategic importance of innovation led manufacturing industry as the prime source of wealth creation in this country - home grown industry making excellent products that the world wants to buy that command premium prices. I have demonstrated time and time again that this is possible to do, even in the face of competition from China and elsewhere.

What is the most important lesson you have learned?

Never assume that people know or understand, even if something seems self-evident to you.

How do you relax?

With difficulty but I think that comes with being an engineer. I enjoy riding and shooting and can switch off when working around my house, a 400 year old former water mill with 20 acres of land that’s full of wildlife such as otters and kingfishers. Driving my E-Type Jaguar is also a great way to unwind.