Frank Thurner

I am a mechanical engineer (Dipl.-Ing.), Six Sigma Master Black Belt and CEO, with extensive experience in engineering, industrialization, production management and quality optimization.

Throughout my career, including management positions at Siemens and ZF, I have been responsible for complex industrial projects, manufacturing operations, production planning and ramp-up. My experience covers more than 1,100 industrial projects across automotive, aerospace & defence, electronics, medical technology and mechanical engineering.

Experience in Defence & Safety-Critical Systems

My work includes the initial design and validation of key components for air defence systems, using Engineering AI, simulation and real-world data.

Further experience includes the development and validation of safety-critical electronic systems, sensors, power electronics, reliability and lifetime prediction, as well as the industrialization of complex manufacturing processes.

How I can support Defence-Tech companies

I focus on four typical industrial challenges:

1. Scaling production: Moving from small-batch manufacturing to larger production volumes while reducing scrap, rework and quality issues.

2. Meeting increasing demand: Expanding production capacity, validating manufacturing lines and accelerating ramp-up while maintaining stable processes and reliable delivery.

3. Industrializing new products: Optimizing product designs, validating functionality and reliability, and reducing development and validation cycles to shorten time-to-market.

4. UAV and Defence-Tech start-ups: Supporting the transition from functional prototypes to validated, cost-efficient and scalable series production.

Engineering combined with AI

My approach combines hands-on engineering, Robust Design, Design for Six Sigma and our patented Engineering AI Analyser®.

Unlike conventional AI approaches requiring large datasets, Analyser® can identify complex relationships between product characteristics, manufacturing parameters and quality outcomes even with small data samples.

This enables predictive quality, root cause analysis, optimized process settings, reliability prediction and real-time quality control.

Results from previous industrial applications include up to 50% shorter time-to-series, 50% less scrap and 10–30% lower manufacturing costs.

I am interested in exchanging experience with Ukrainian Defence-Tech companies and exploring opportunities for joint engineering projects, product validation, industrialization, production scaling and technology transfer.