Driven by a passion for composite design, brimming curiosity and a knack for innovation, Joshua Ma’s career journey has taken him from racetracks to runways.
Today, at our aerostructures manufacturing facility ST Engineering MRAS, Joshua is the Technical Development Lead for a programme in the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) industry. He spearheads innovation in the development of manufacturing processes and technologies related to composites for next-generation aerostructures.
Q: What inspired you to pursue a career in composite design?
I was working with composites from as early as my university days. Back then, I was in a racing club that would design and build a new race car to compete in Formula SAE, an international collegiate engineering design competition. Despite lacking prior experience, I found myself leading other students in building composite components for our design, including the body panels and aerodynamic elements like the spoiler on our race car.
This was an important phase in my life that helped to jumpstart my career in the composites industry. Moreover, as an airplane enthusiast, the thought that something I helped to build would one day take to the skies was an attractive proposition that drew me to MRAS.
Q: As someone with a very “hands-on” background, what are your thoughts on practicing innovation?
It takes several people from multiple disciplines and with different perspectives to come up with innovative ideas. Personally, the most important factor in innovation is the “fail fast, fail forward” mindset of trying out new ideas and learning lessons quickly, notwithstanding the risk of failure. Over time, these failures and experiences allow for growth which hopefully makes us better innovators.
Q: Tell us about a time when you were empowered to take initiative and lead in the workplace.
In my first year as an engineer at MRAS, I was given the opportunity to develop a tooling process for an emerging programme in the AAM industry. Over a few months, I led the iterative manufacturing and testing of the moulds and manufacturing strategy that were eventually used to deliver flight hardware to our customer.
During this time, I worked closely with several colleagues who were patient with my shortcomings, and together we created a new tooling strategy that was effective in meeting our customer’s demands for quick and good parts. I think it was great that MRAS empowered me, a new hire straight from college, to take on these responsibilities, as it gave me opportunities to learn and grow so early in my career.
Q: Now that you’ve been with MRAS for some time, what do you like about your job?
One of the main things I like about working here is the flexibility in my job and collaborating with many people from different walks of life every day. I also enjoy being able to “get my hands dirty” while figuring out problems. Furthermore, the mentorship, empowerment and independence that my colleagues and managers provide also makes me feel trusted, seen and heard in the work I do.
There are also many exciting upcoming projects at MRAS that will involve new types of parts, new materials and new machines that present ever-growing opportunities for development and innovation. In brief, there’s never a dull day at work with something new in progress every day.
Q:What’s the next big thing you’re looking forward to?
Right now, I am looking forward to developing new manufacturing strategies for parts on our AAM customer’s new aircraft, as we will be able to have input on their designs and more effectively collaborate with them to manufacture a certified aircraft. I like to think that this was all made possible because we proved ourselves in our first batch of deliveries to the customer.
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