Chung Nin KO holds a B.Sc. (First class Hons, 1980), M.Sc. (Aeronautics, Fluid and Structural Mechanics, 1982) and Ph.D. (Application of Computation Mechanics to the Prediction of Rolling Bearing Performance, 1991) in Aeronautical Engineering from Imperial College London. His career spans thirty years in design and manufacturing of industrial products and processes related to technology research and development, process re-engineering, management and marketing. He is a registered European Engineer (Eur Ing) as well as a Fellow of Hong Kong Institute of Engineers (FHKIE). He has worked in various multinational companies including GEnpact-Asia (a spin-off from General Electric) in Dalian (China) and the Engineering and Research Centre of SKF (Swedish Ball Bearing Company) in the Netherlands. In Europe, he spent 14+ years researching on the prediction of rolling bearings and bearings-related product fatigue based upon materials, residual stresses, housing deformation and real road recordings. He has also had over 25+ years Manufacturing and Business Process Re-engineering (BPR), precision engineering, high-speed Aircraft Bearings, Automotive and Railway Bearings related products. At SKF, he accomplished in reducing the design cycle time of aircraft bearings, automotive hub-units, gearboxes and railway axle-boxes from a year to a few weeks by innovating a smart design system, and also achieving a cost saving of 12-13 % in SKF Ball pressing processes through re-engineering in 1992-1995. After returning to Hong Kong in 1995, he has worked in several local factories in the Guangdong province as Engineering and Operation directors. During the periods in Southern China, he has managed running 3 factories of over 2,000+ people and sales revenues of over 500+ million HKD, in which he had achieved an operation cost reduction of 22% per annum in 1997-1999, 2001-2003 through internal process re-engineering in each factory. He has also taught part-time at HKUST from 1996-2001 on ‘Design and Manufacturing’ and ‘Industrial Applications of Finite Element Method’. In addition, he has also worked in a semi-government organization for many years as a principal consultant in the Materials Technology Division and had numerous successful commercial cases to provide innovative product and process re-engineering solutions (LEAN, 6sigma and statistics) to the industry, ranging from design of medical and healthcare devices (plaster free brace with air cushion for fractured arm) to the manufacturing of precision hairsprings (50nm tolerance in thickness) for the hairspring units in mechanical watch movements. He has won several industrial awards on machinery and process designs both in Hong Kong as well as overseas such as the SKF Business Innovation Award in 1995. As currently the CTO and a board member of Kam Yuen (Group) International Limited (a local Hong Kong company with 50+ years of history), he has been actively facilitating business driven research, mostly in collaboration with other European companies, to develop applied technologies for low cost flexible automation and novel zirconia applications. He has also been leading the formulation and implementation of an effective knowledge management strategy in company group and has particular interest in using Knowledge Management (KM) as a productive tool to facilitate corporate innovation.

Biomedical and novel materials applications, and product innovations.