Dr Mike McCann, a Chartered Engineer, is an expert in the application of quantitative math methods to give practical solutions to problems in business and engineering and the physical sciences. With a strong background in electrical engineering, electronics and process control engineering and in management sciences and operations research, he has managed teams of analysts and engineers in business planning, in electronics development and in simulation consulting
Areas of experience include chemical and biological processes and computer control, low frequency and microwave electronics, research policy and strategy, capital investment and financial planning, market and economic systems. He enjoys the challenge of grasping new technology and taking on problems that span science and business. At home on both sides of the Atlantic, he can work independently, as part of a team or as a team leader.

Education
Dr McCann served a 5 year apprenticeship in the British Aerospace industry and studied for a BSc in Engineering at Hatfield Technical College (now the University of Hertfordshire), getting a first class honours degree from London University.
He read for a PhD at Imperial College, London, in the Department of Electrical Engineering and it was awarded in 1963 for a thesis on the "Control of Distributed Parameter Systems".
In a industrial environment he has been subjected to more management training courses than he can remember, but in particular had the benefit of attending the intensive post-experience main management course at Henley Staff College, Henley on Thames, Oxon, England, (Like a MBA course).

Now, with a base in Bristol, England as well as in the USA, he is working with the Engineering Mathematics Department in the University of Bristol to help with teaching undergraduates and post graduates about modelling and simulation from a practical point of view.

A list of publications is given below as is a list of patents with abstracts.

Experience
   After completing the PhD, Dr McCann was invited to be an Assistant Professor of Engineering at Case Institute of Technology (Now part of CWRU) Cleveland Ohio, USA. As well as teaching control engineering and system dynamics, this provided a lot of experience in academic level research linked to consulting for the industrial sponsors of the programme.
    Then started a long association with Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI PLC), initially in England latterly in the USA. Assignments covered internal consulting in applied mathematics with applications in everything from biotechnology to economics, cash flow, capital and resource planning at the corporate level and for a major retail paint business, international R&D policy development, managing electronics development and applications engineering for customers in the electronics business.
Alongside the extensive explosives business, a special expertise has been developed in electronic initiation systems for pyrotechnics (explosives).

Since 1993 as an independent consultant, the range of processes has expanded to include vacuum web coating and the productivity of automated manufacturing as well as continuing with the electrical instrumentation, heat and mass transfer and side excursions into extrusion and electrostatics.
    Since before Fortran,  he has worked with analog computers and many different programming languages for numerical analysis, simulation and data processing e.g. Basic, CSMP, GPSS, Algol, Pascal, Fortran, Forth, Simscript, Modsim, ACSL, spreadsheets etc.

Professional Bodies.
Life Member: Sigma Xi,
Life Member: Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE),
Fellow: Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), formerly the Institution of Electrical Engineers.
Chartered Engineer.
Thoughts on the philosophy and ethics of consulting and the obligations it imposes.

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Introduction to variational methods for Optimal Control, McCann, M.J., Transactions of Society of Instrument Technology, Vol 13, No 4, 1961, pp. 232-237.

Variational approaches to the Optimal Trajectory Problem, McCann, M.J. in "An Exposition of Adaptive Control", J.H.Westcott (ed.), Pergammon Press, Oxford, 1962.

Control of Distributed Parameter Systems, M.J.McCann, PhD Thesis, Imperial College of London University, 1963.

Analog and Mathematical Models of Distributed Parameter Systems, Gaither, P.H., McCann, M.J. and Taft, C.K., Instrument Society of America, 20th Annual Conference, Los Angeles CA USA, Oct 1965.

Computer Control Survey and Trends, McCann, M.J. and Lefkowitz, I., Instrument Society of America, 20th Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA USA, Oct 1965,

Direct digital control of a preheater for a supercritical fluid, Hill, W.S., and McCann, M.J., IEEE Joint Automatic Control Conference, 1966.

The role of student projects in engineering education, Taft, C.K. and McCann, M.J., 16th Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference, Windsor, ON, 1966

Simulation Techniques for Distributed Parameter Systems, McCann, M.J., Annales de l'Association pour le Calcul Analogique, No 1, pp30-33, January 1967.

Modeling the dynamics of a monomer preheater for a supercritical fluid. Wade, H.L., and McCann, M.J., AIChE, 61st National Meeting, Feb 20 - 23, 1967, Houston TX USA.

A strategy for the automated pilot plant, Kylin, D.H., and McCann, M.J., IEEE Joint Automatic Control Conference, 1967.

A research program for Industrial Computer Control, ISA-IEEE 1967 Electronics and Instrumentation Conference, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, April 20th 1967.

Modeling distributed parameter flow systems for control, Baker, T.E. and McCann, M.J., ASME Winter Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh PA USA, Nov 13-17, 1967. Published as paper 67-WA/HT-24

A note on the numerical integration of conservative systems of first-order ordinary differential equations, Robertson, H.H., and McCann, M.J., The Computer Journal, Vol 12, No1, February 1969.

Design of Limited Instrumentation Control Systems for Distributed Processes, McCann, M.J., International Federation of Automatic Control, 4th Congress, Warsaw, 1969, Technical Session 4: p 71 et seq.

Mathematical models of fermentations and a simulation of the Griseofulvin Fermentation, Calam C.T., Ellis, S.H. and McCann M.J., Journal of Applied Chem. Biotechnology, Vol 21, July 1971, pp. 181-189.

Continuous dynamic systems simulation for industrial processes, McCann, M.J., in Computer Methods for Simulating Industrial Processes and Systems, Birniehill Institute, National Engineering Laboratory, East Kilbride, Glasgow UK, 5-7 July 1971.

The process of emulsification: a computer model, Becher, P. and McCann, M.J., Langmuir (American Chemical Society) Vol 7, No 7, 1991, pp1325-1331.

Process Modelling of a Novel Double Sided Vacuum Web Coating System, McCann,M.J. and Cox, E.R., , Society of Vacuum Coaters, 40th Technical Conference, New Orleans LA USA, April 1997.

Web coating dynamic thermal and wrinkling model, McCann, M.J. and Jones, D.P, Society of Vacuum Coaters, 41st Technical Conference, Boston MA USA, April 1998, paper W-17.

Chemometrics - A holistic approach to troubleshooting, McCann, M.J. and Bishop, C.A., Proceedings of Society of Vacuum Coaters, 42nd Technical Conference, Chicago, IL, USA, April 1999, pp 487-493.

"Thermal Evaporation of Li:  Experiment and a Novel Thermodynamic Model",
J.D. Affinito, M.J. McCann and C.J. Sheehan,
in Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Vacuum Web Coating, October 2000 ed R. Bakish, Bakish Press.

"Web substrate heating and a thermodynamic calculation method for Li film thickness in a thermal evaporation system",
J. Affinito, M.J.McCann, C. Sheehan, S. Bullock, SVC - Society of Vacuum Coaters, Proceedings of 44th Annual Technical Conference, Philadelphia, April 21-26, 2001, pp492-497

"An Investigation of Mechanisms Involved in the Web-to-Drum Heat Transfer Coefficient when using Gas Injection between Web and Drum "
Michael J McCann, AIMCAL - Association of International Metallizers, Coaters and Laminators 2004 Fall Technical Conference, Oct 24-27, Francis Marion Hotel, Charleston SC, USA,

" HEAT LOAD VARIATIONS ON WEB SUBSTRATES AS SEEN BY DEPOSITION MODELLING "
Michael J. McCann, MJMcCann Consulting, www.mccannscience.com, Prof. Steven J. Abbott, TCNF, www.stevenabbott.co.uk, Dilwyn P. Jones, Emral Ltd., www.emral.co.uk,
AIMCAL - Association of International Metallizers, Coaters and Laminators 2012 Web Coating and Handling Conference, Oct 21-24, Marriott Grande Dunes, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina,USA

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8,823,537 Railroad train monitoring system
Railcar monitoring utilizes instrumented, flexible pads supported within the truck pedestal jaws on the bearing adapters. The pads contain sensors for monitoring temperature pressure, shifting loads, truck hunting and the like and have circuitry for processing information received from the sensors and for processing and reporting departures of performance variables to a remote source. The system cyclically activates polling each pad on a car and communicates signals of critical departures and car identity to a remote source.

7,791,858 Data communication in electronic blasting systems
An electronic blasting system comprising a plurality of hardware components, wherein at least two of components of the plurality of hardware components are adapted to communicate with each other over short range radio link.

7,778,006 Wireless electronic booster, and methods of blasting
Disclosed herein are boosters that include components sufficient for wireless communications with an associated blasting machine. In selected aspects, there are disclosed wireless electronic boosters that are self-contained and robust. Such boosters are especially suited for underground mining operations, optionally employing automated placement of boosters at a blast site.

7,698,962 Flexible sensor interface for a railcar truck
A sensor interface is disclosed including a flexible substrate in which are embedded sensors for measuring physical parameters such as temperature, displacement, velocity, acceleration, stress, strain, pressure and force present between objects such as a railcar bearing and a truck side frame. The substrate is positioned between the objects of interest Electronic components such as a data processing unit, a data storage device, a communication device and a power source may also be embedded within the substrate. The electronic devices communicate with one another and the sensors to process signals generated by the sensors indicative of the parameters being measured.

7,688,218 Railroad train monitoring system
Railcar monitoring utilizes instrumented, flexible pads supported within the truck pedestal jaws on the bearing adapters. The pads contain sensors for monitoring temperature pressure, shifting loads, truck hunting and the like and have circuitry for processing information received from the sensors and for processing and reporting departures of performance variables to a remote source. The system cyclically activates polling each pad on a car and communicates signals of critical departures and car identity to a remote source.

7,568,429 Wireless detonator assembly, and methods of blasting
Wireless detonators, and corresponding wireless detonator systems present opportunities for blasting arrangements that avoid the need for physical wire connections between the blasting components. The present application discloses a wireless detonator assembly, a corresponding blasting apparatus, and a method of use thereof. The wireless detonator assembly comprises a charge storage device that is capable of storing charge for discharge into a firing circuit upon receipt of an appropriate wireless command signal to FIRE, from an associated blasting machine. In preferred embodiments, the charge storage device remains or becomes charged, at least for a specific time period, if the wireless detonator assembly receives a suitable "keep alive" command signal from an associated blasting machine--otherwise the charge storage device discharges with little or no effect upon the firing circuit, such that the wireless detonator assembly retain or adopts a safe mode.

5,059,949 Currency alarm pack
Caparoni, Banfield, Cohen, Fogle, McCann, In a currency alarm pack, greater flexibility is achieved by multiple circuit boards and an alarm device, connected together by a thin, flexible substrate having printed conductors. The components are movable relative to one another for realistic flexure of the stack. At least two of the components are slidable relative to the stack along its direction of elongation as the stack is flexed. Portions of the substrate have tabs which extend laterally between opposed peripheral portions of adjacent intermediate sheets of the currency pack so that the alarm components are supported and can slide longitudinally as the stack is flexed. Adjacent components are connected by narrow portions of the substrate, which permit torsion of the stack. These narrow portions extend transverse to the surfaces of the currency sheets to allow the alarm components a high degree of relative movement. Compressible foam pads conceal the presence of the alarm components. The intermediate sheets of the pack are stitched together loosely by threads to permit shear motion of the pack while maintaining its integrity. The threads have loops extending laterally across the outermost intermediate sheets to hold flexible covers removably. In another version, each opening of the central cavity is covered by two flexible flaps pivoted near the ends of the alarm packs.