We are delighted to introduce Alexandre Santos, who joined Global Wind Projects in 2023 as the Quality Manager overseeing the pre-assembly of turbine towers for the Neart na Gaoithe offshore wind farm.

Read the Q&A below to learn about his typical day, favourite aspects of the role, common misconceptions, and professional accomplishments.

What’s your work history to date?

I began my career in the wind industry in 2013 while studying Aeronautical Engineering. During that time, I was given the opportunity to come to the UK and work as a turbine technician at Tech Services Ltd. I was fortunate to join a team of highly regarded professionals who taught me the fundamentals that still guide me today.

Later, I moved on to Windhoist LTD, where I further developed my skills and methods. Throughout my career with Windhoist, I worked on many significant sites, including the Hornsea 1 and Hornsea 2 pre-assembly projects. In these projects, I served in Quality Management - QA/QC (Offshore Operations), which provided an excellent opportunity to expand my expertise in the Quality and HSEQ departments. These fast-paced, high-demand projects were ideal for sharpening my skills and enhancing my overall experience.

Whilst at Windhoist, Kevin McAlonan offered me the opportunity to take on a full-fledged Quality Role (Onshore Operations) for the Nysater Phase One Project. Kevin later moved across to Global Wind Projects, and I followed suit in 2023 as a Quality Manager (QMiP - QA/QC) for the NnG Preassembly Project. In this role, I leveraged my experience and training to contribute to the project's completion and the continuous improvement of site quality and business project delivery quality.

What’s your current role at GWP and can you describe a typical working day?

As Quality Manager (QMiP - QA/QC), my role involves assessing the quality of work and construction performed on-site, which contributes to improving the durability, reliability, and overall quality of the completed and delivered WTGs. I am also responsible for reporting to line managers on working processes and their corrective actions.

Good client relations are something GWP prides itself on, and my responsibility is to cultivate customer relationships, gather and define requirements, and deliver customer-centric solutions that also uphold Global Wind Projects' interests. Additionally, I am responsible for performing scheduled inspections to ensure a higher level of accuracy and efficiency in the work delivered.

Ultimately, I am tasked with formulating audit reports from the gathered data to evaluate performance, maintaining accurate documentation of “as-built” conditions, and managing the established quality system.

What’s your favourite, or the most exciting part of your job?

To use my knowledge and experience to observe, evaluate, and learn from what our teams do and how they perform on-site. By utilising the metrics and data gathered and presenting them visually, I can help our teams understand the importance of their work and identify areas where there is room and opportunity for continuous improvement, as well as opportunities to streamline task completion.

Quality is everyone's responsibility. However, being in Quality Management aligned with the HSE Department provides the opportunity to push the business toward higher quality project delivery, leading to client satisfaction. Ultimately, this keeps the team working within a Safe System of Work. Quality and Safety go hand in hand.

What’s the biggest misconception people have about your job?

The on-site teams, whose work is very weather-dependent, work very hard. Quality does involve being on-site, but it also has an office side, which sometimes is perceived as "not work."

Gathering data and creating visuals, as well as checking Method Statements when there are recurrent issues at certain project levels, take time and effort. Analysing the data for documentation and improvement can be a lengthy process, and this is sometimes not perceived by the on-site teams.

Additionally, delivering sensitive feedback to teams requires social skills to avoid causing distress. It's important that team leads and team members understand and accept the feedback and improvement requests without feeling discouraged.

Who or what inspired you to pursue the career you have today?

As I grew my capabilities and my influence was further recognised through the years, there have been several individuals from whom I learned and who made an impact on me.

I believe we are an amalgam of the individuals who cross our paths professionally; they impact and mould us. Their attitudes, work methods, and problem-solving approaches — the ‘march on, go through, find solutions’ mentality — have helped shape who I am today. I owe them a great debt of gratitude.

Can you provide details of a professional accomplishment at GWP that you are proud of?

At this stage, I believe that my capabilities and workmanship are an accomplishment and recognition in themselves from Global Wind Projects management.

Being part of this ‘young’ business gives me the opportunity to share my past experiences and lessons learned, contributing to the continuous improvement of the Safe System of Work and Documentation Control.