Director of Transducer Engineering at Tymphany
China
- Current
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- Director of Transducer Engineering at Tymphany HK Ltd.
- Past
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- Director of Panyu Engineering at Tymphany Corporation
- Senior Manager of Electroacoustics at Tymphany Corporation
- Sr. Transducer Engineer at Tymphany Corporation
- Senior Transducer Engineer and Supervisor at Bose Corporation
- Transducer Engineer at Bose Corporation
- Transducer Engineer at Boston Acoustics
- Research Assistant at Queen's University
- Summer Intern at Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics
- Co-op student at Pacific Weather Center
- Co-op student at TRIUMF
- Co-op student at Charles Howard and Associates
- Education
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- Post-Graduate
- Queen's University
- The University of British Columbia
- Recommended
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27 people have recommended Richard - Connections
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328
connections
- Industry
- Consumer Electronics
- Websites
Richard Little’s Summary
14-year veteran of the audio/acoustics industry, specializing in loudspeaker transducer engineering, and working at all levels of management, in companies large and small.
• Significant experience in transducer (traditional woofer and tweeter, and linear array transducer) design and engineering, laboratory management, project management, systems design, documentation control, and department management.
• Primary industry experience in the Automotive OEM field, designing loudspeaker drivers and enclosures (bass boxes) for vehicle premium sound systems, so as to meet tight deadlines despite technical challenges. Understand Automotive OEM documentation requirements (DFMEA/PPAP), and experienced with Automotive OEM quality requirements (QS9000/TS16949).
• Industry experience also covers the fields of home theatre, multimedia, automotive aftermarket, consumer electronics, and professional sound products.
• Experienced traveller to customers, suppliers, and manufacturing sites in the USA, Mexico, Japan, China, and Malaysia.
• Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Physics.
• Co-inventor on several patents in audio transducer design.
• Peer-reviewed papers have been published in the fields of acoustics and non-destructive evaluation/testing.
Richard Little’s Specialties:
Transducer engineering, including:
• Magnetics finite element analysis (Ansoft, Infolytica, ANSYS)
• Structural finite element analysis (ANSYS)
• Statistical and numerical analysis (Matlab, Excel)
• Magnetics engineering
• Acoustic circuit modelling (Pspice)
• Reliability engineering
• Transducer measurement techniques
• Loudspeaker systems design
• Project management
• Technical writing
Richard Little’s Experience
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Director of Transducer Engineering
Tymphany HK Ltd.
(Public Company; Consumer Electronics industry)
June 2008 — Present (1 year 6 months)
Leading a department of of roughly 40 engineers and technicians in 3 groups:
• transducer R&D and new product development
• engineering laboratory services and continuing engineering
• test and measurement services, including reliability testing
Active roles in R&D, production, new product development and project management, reliability engineering, technical training, IP issues, and customer engineering/sales support.
Presentations and Papers:
• AES 126th Convention, Munich, May 2009: Workshop 16: Loudspeaker FE/BE Modeling -
Director of Panyu Engineering
Tymphany Corporation
(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Consumer Electronics industry)
December 2006 — June 2008 (1 year 7 months)
Responsible for an engineering department, sized 30 - 40. The department serves multiple functions, including transducer engineering (both local and in support of the Denmark design group), factory operations support, validation testing, and acoustic test.
Specific job functions include:
• Overall resource control for Panyu engineering operations.
• Gateway interface with the corporation’s other engineering offices.
• Local control of IP issues.
• Control of overall policies and procedures for engineering.
• Final technical review of all engineering work product in the factory.
• Laying out engineering departmental strategy, in accordance with corporate strategy.
• Conducting local engineering training program, to bring the team towards a world-class level of engineering excellence.
• Acting as LAT design and process expert resource.
• Engineering/sales interface role for visiting customers. -
Senior Manager of Electroacoustics
Tymphany Corporation
(Public Company; Consumer Electronics industry)
June 2006 — November 2006 (6 months)
Responsibilities included the management and control of engineering activities relating to transducer design and product development, working with other senior managers to provide input to corporate strategic plans and objectives, and ensuring effective achievement of engineering team objectives. This position required regular reporting to the VP of Engineering of technical issues, goals & objectives, and required extensive visits and stays at the Tymphany factory in Panyu, China. Significant effort was also extended during this period of time to research methodologies for designing a linear array transducer for high-volume production.
Published paper:
Andrew D. Unruh, Richard W. Little, Christopher J. Struck, Ali Jabbari, and Jens-Peter Axelsson, “An Extended Small Signal Parameter Loudspeaker Model for the Linear Array Transducer”, Audio Engineering Society 121st Convention, October 2006.
Activities:
121st AES Convention, San Francisco, October 2006 - Session Chair -
Sr. Transducer Engineer
Tymphany Corporation
(Public Company; Consumer Electronics industry)
November 2005 — June 2006 (8 months)
Responsibilities included transducer design, prototyping, design-for-manufacturability, validation testing, and project management in a high-volume OEM setting, for Tymphany’s Linear Array Transducer technology. Also included in these responsibilities were acoustic engineering activities such as systems tuning/equalization, enclosure design, and listening evaluations. Research activities included advanced acoustic modeling, new materials evaluations, advanced motor design research, and advanced acoustic research. Support for product and technology demonstrations was regularly provided. Technical discussions with customers regularly occurred as a part of product development. The team leadership role required mentoring and training of the team’s engineers. Initial development of the LAT 250 transducer occurred during this time.
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Senior Transducer Engineer and Supervisor
Bose Corporation
(Privately Held; 1001-5000 employees; Automotive industry)
January 2001 — October 2005 (4 years 10 months)
This was a dual-role position, acting as both a senior engineer developing bass-producing products/systems, and as the transducer lab supervisor.
Engineering responsibilities included the design/development of various bass production products, including transducers, ported bass box and passive radiator designs, including the Richbass® woofer family and the PowerNd® woofer powered speaker family.
The supervisory role included responsibilities to organize the work unit's projects and define staff assignments, recruiting, and to act as technical oversight. Laboratory management responsibility was inclusive of the development of new measurement and analysis capabilities, and the development/support of measurement standards, processes & best practices. Support was given to efforts to define/refine product development processes across the division, for QS9000 compliance.
Eight internal papers were authored; topics ranged from magnet thermal behavior to listener preference testing. -
Transducer Engineer
Bose Corporation
(Privately Held; Consumer Electronics industry)
June 1997 — January 2001 (3 years 8 months)
Responsible for designing transducers as a part of new product development, troubleshooting the transducer manufacturing process, and ensuring that current and new transducer designs pass various environmental and acoustic performance specifications as required for automotive OEM applications.
Specific projects taken on during this timeframe: the design and of a new set of 6.5” water-resistant speakers for use in vehicle door applications; managing the validation testing of a group of at least 20 different transducer designs, including the responsibility for trouble-shooting all resulting design, manufacturing, and supplier issues; acting as a lead design resource in the redesign of the Nd® woofers; and providing design-for-manufacturability support for an additional group of roughly 10 transducers.
During this timeframe, Bose Corporation achieved QS-9000 certification, so support was provided to develop processes in support of transducer design and development. -
Transducer Engineer
Boston Acoustics
(Public Company; BOSA; Consumer Electronics industry)
October 1995 — June 1997 (1 year 9 months)
Responsible for woofer design as a part of new product development, including designing a new set of woofers for use in a new line of stereo speakers; design of cones, surrounds, voice coils, and spiders; magnetic shielding evaluation; new materials research and evaluation (including magnets, ferrofluids, and adhesives); building prototypes and generating BOMs; trouble-shooting the production process; and magnetic motor design for woofer and tweeters through FEA. Design work was also carried out for home theatre systems, multimedia systems, and automotive aftermarket applications.
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Research Assistant
Queen's University
(Educational Institution; 1001-5000 employees; Higher Education industry)
September 1992 — April 1995 (2 years 8 months)
Research assistant position while engaged in M.Sc. research in the Department of Physics.
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Summer Intern
Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics
(Research industry)
May 1992 — August 1992 (4 months)
Research in the field of astrophysics (aurora).
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Co-op student
Pacific Weather Center
(Government Administration industry)
May 1991 — August 1991 (4 months)
Technical computer support
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Co-op student
TRIUMF
(Educational Institution; 201-500 employees; Research industry)
May 1990 — December 1990 (8 months)
Design and design analysis of nuclear accelerator components at the Tri-University Meson Facility, located on the University of British Columbia campus, using Pspice circuit analysis and PE2D magnetics finite element analysis.
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Co-op student
Charles Howard and Associates
(Civil Engineering industry)
January 1989 — August 1989 (8 months)
Computer programming and numerical analysis of network behaviour of sewer systems and water distribution networks.
Richard Little’s Education
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Post-Graduate
post-graduate courses 1995 — 2009
Courses while working at Tymphany (2005-2009):
• Soundcheck™ 6.11 Training Course, Listen Inc., October 2006.
• Fundamentals of Electroacoustic Test and Measurement, Listen Inc., October 2006.
• Successfully Managing People, American Management Association, June 2006.
Courses while working at Bose Corporation (1997-2005):
• Effective Supervision, Bose Corporation, March 2002.
• Microsoft Project 98 Introduction, Bose Corporation, February 1999.
• Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, Bose Corporation, September 1998.
• Acoustics, Bose Institute, April 1998.
Courses while working at Boston Acoustics (1995-1997):
• Introduction to Ansys, Jordan Apostal Ritter Associates, November 1995. -
Queen's University
M.Sc. , Physics , 1992 — 1995
Specialization: Applied Magnetics. Courses in magnetics, electromagnetic field theory, and numerical modeling.
Published papers:
R.W. Little & D.L. Atherton, "High Resolution Read Head Sensors for Magnetic Flux Leakage Systems" CSNDT J., Vol. 18, No. 1, 9-15, Jan 1997.
T.W. Krause, R.W. Little, R. Barnes, R.M. Donaldson, B. Ma & D.L. Atherton. "Effect of Stress Concentration on Magnetic Flux Leakage Signals from Blind-Hole Defects in Stressed Pipeline Steel" Res. Nondestr. Eval., Vol. 8, 83-100, 1996.
Richard Warren Little, “The Design of Ultra-High Resolution Read Head Sensors for Pipeline Steel Defect Detection,” M.Sc. thesis, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, April 1995.
D.L. Atherton, R. Barnes, R.M. Donaldson, T.W. Krause, & R.W. Little, “Effects of Line Pressure Stress, Magnetic Properties and Test Conditions on Magnetic Flux Leakage Signals”, Annual Report for the Gas Research Institute, May 1993 - April 1994, GRI Contract #5093-260-2605. -
The University of British Columbia
B.Sc. , Honours Physics , 1987 — 1992
Courses in electromagnetics, fluids, thermodynamics, experimental physics, plasma physics, optics, quantum mechanics, solid state physics.
B.Sc. thesis title:
“Laser Speckle Photography: Flow Field Analysis by Spatial Fourier Transform”.
Published paper:
R.W. Little and M.K. Kepke, “Aspects of Ion Motor Propulsion”, the 27th Annual Canadian Undergraduate Physics Conference, the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, November 1991.- Activities and Societies:
- Co-operative Education Program
Additional Information
Richard Little’s Websites:
Richard Little’s Interests:
tennis, squash, hockey, travel, movies, music, photography
Richard Little’s Groups:
Audio Engineering Society, UBC Alumni Association
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Canadians -
ALMA International -
Queen's University Alumni -
University of British Columbia (UBC) Alumni -
Audio Engineering Society -
UBC Alumni Association -
Queen's University @ Kingston -
Bose Alumni -
MATLAB Users -
University of British Columbia Asia Alumni -
Magnetism & Electromagnetics Interest Group -
Electro Acoustics -
SoundCheck Users
Richard Little’s Honors:
Patents:
US 7,551,749: Baffle Vibration Reducing (2009)
US D573,586: Loudspeaker (Design) (2008)
US 7,120,270: Audio Device Heat Transferring (2006)
Corporate Awards:
Bose Automotive Excellence Awards (8), 1997 – 2005.
Bose Annual Profit Improvement Award, February 2004.
Bose Manufacturing Engineering Achievement of Excellence, April 1999.
Scholarships:
Reinhardt Scholarship, Queen’s University, 1992 & 1993.
University of British Columbia Scholarship, 1987 & 1988.
B.C. Provincial Scholarship, 1987.
F.W. Howay Home & School Association Bursary, 1987.
Richard Little’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- job inquiries
- expertise requests
- reference requests
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