STEM Faculty

Professional biography

Dr Helen Lockett is Professor of Digital Engineering and undertakes teaching and research in engineering design and design for manufacture. She was the Director of the The OpenSTEM Labs ,the Open University's remote and online laboratories, from 2019 - 23, winning a Queen's Anniversary Prize in 2023. Helen joined the Open University in April 2017 having perviously spent 20 years working in the Centre for Aeronautics at Cranfield University. Helen has a PhD in knowledge based design for manufacture from Cranfield University and a BSc in Electronic Engineering from the University of Sussex.

Helen is a Chartered Engineer and Member of the Royal Aeronautical Society. She is also a STEM Ambassador and has worked with local schools and businesses to encourage young people to consider careers in Engineering.

Research interests

Helen has more than 20 years research experience in engineering design and design for manufacture .  She has a particular interest in designing for additive manufacture, and has worked closely with the Aerospace industry on design for additive manufacture of high value aircraft parts.   Helen has participated in many Innovate UK, EPSRC and EU Framework projects over the last 20 years and also undertaken industry funded research projects for BAE SYSTEMS, Bombardier Aerospace and Aircraft Research Association.

Recent Research Activities include:

• Knowledge Transfer Vouchers project with WAAM3D to develop a design assessment tool for Wire and Arc Additive Manufacturing
• Understanding Digital Twin and thread from three dimensions, collaboration with Open Univesrity Business School
• Co-author of ASTM and ISO design guides for Directed Energy Deposition Additive Manfuacturing
• Design project leader for WAAMMat programme to increase the maturity of Wire+Arc Additive Manufacture (www.waammat.com). 
• Co-investigator for Airbus/ ATI funded project “Future of Aircraft Factory” (FOAF), leading a design work package to ease the aircraft systems installation process
• Co-investigator for EPSRC funded project “Ready to Use Additive Manufacture” (RUAM) investigating the design capabilities of Wire + Arc Additive Manufacture. 
• Co-investigator for EPSRC funded project “Assessing the value created by Product Service Systems” which developed a methodology to help industry to assess the value of products and services to their customers
• Co-investigator for EPSRC funded project “Capability based PSS conceptual design” which developed a framework to inform Product Service Systems conceptual design through capturing and analysing data collected from products and services in-use.

I welcome applications from PhD students in engineering design, design for manufacture, computer aided design and additive manufacture.

You can view my TEDx talk on Additive Manufacturing here:

https://youtu.be/pytIqEHUsHU

and my blog posts on the Design@Open blog here:

http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/design/author/hll88/

Teaching interests

Helen's has broad teaching interests in engineering design, manufacturing, computer aided design and stress analysis. Open University teaching activities include:

Module team chair for T805 Manufacture Materials Design

Module team member and author for T272 Core Engineering B

Module team member and author for T192 Engineering: origins, methods, context

Tutor for T276 Engineering: Professions, Practice and Skills 2

International links

Member ASTM Committee F42 on Additive Manufacturing Technologies (F42.04 Design)