STG Bright Light Series: Alistair Duffus

In our Bright Lights series, we showcase some of our brilliant team and their experience of working here at STG Aerospace. This time, we spoke to our Quality Engineer, Alistair Duffus, about his extensive experience in quality engineering teams and why he decided to make the leap to STG.
Many of STG’s people are experts in what they do, and Alistair is no exception. He has had a diverse career with an impressive level of experience in all things related to quality assurance.
He started out in London as an apprentice mechanical engineer working for Royal Ordnance, now BAE Systems. He was relocated to a factory in South Wales but later joined the Lucas Girling car brake factory where he spent 12 years working his way up in the quality department. It was at this point that Alistair side-stepped into the aerospace industry by moving to an aerospace seating manufacturer, at their base in South Wales, where he spent 16 years in the firm’s quality team.
At the beginning of 2023, an opportunity arose in STG’s Quality team and Alistair leapt at the chance, joining in April of that year. Eighteen months later, he has not looked back. Explaining why the role appealed to him, he said:
“My background is in very large factory environments working in big quality teams, so what stood out to me about STG was that I would be part of a smaller team, so there would be much greater variety in the day-to-day. This turned out to be exactly the case and I am exposed to a range of experience on a daily basis. It’s great to come into work not knowing what I will be doing that day. What I do know is that the experience will be hands-on and that I’ll be working closely with my team and others across the business.”
In his day-to-day, Alistair works in a team of three. Among his responsibilities is carrying out flammability testing. This involves burning STG’s products, including electrical and photoluminescent products, in a controlled environment to assess whether they meet the standards required to go on an aircraft.
“We need to know that our products won’t catch fire, including electrical components, so we break them down and test them in a flame cabinet, with what is essentially a Bunsen burner.
“Another area of work is if a client has experienced any difficulties in assembling our products, we carry out dimensional checks, all of which keeps us pretty busy.”
Whilst he spends most of his time at STG’s headquarters in Cwmbran, Alistair’s role does involve some travel, with trips to suppliers to carry out audits onsite primarily in the UK.
Another aspect of Alistair’s role is rewriting procedure documents around quality testing to ensure they remain fit-for-purpose. This is part of our Safety Management System (SMS), an aerospace specific continuous improvement process for Aviation Safety.
Most importantly, what is it like working at STG?
Alistair says: “The best thing about working at STG is definitely the people! They’re a great bunch to work with. There’s a good vibe and sense of teamwork to get the job done well, which you don’t find everywhere. And I love the variety of work. I can get involved in anything and no two days are the same.”