The shocking loss of Michael Ford of Aegis Software
It was to my great shock and sadness that Aegis Software announced the death of Michael Ford late last night on LinkedIn.
I had just come to the end of my Gym session, doomscrolling my social media, when I came across the post. I must had stayed in the changing rooms in complete shock for another hour.
Of course you can never predict a death so it will always be shocking, even when there is a terminal illness, but it took me back by surprise even more because I had only seen him a week before at IPC WinterCom in Barcelona.
I never knew Michael on a personal level, only by our work engagements but he gain my instant respect by what he said. He had been there, done it, and bought the t-shirt.
Times are changing, but traditionally marketers would be the spokespeople of the industry spouting the company line. Michael was different; he was able to communicate on a level that made sense to the engineering community.
He was able to do this because he had been the key architect at Sony Electronics so knew of the battle scars of creating a Smart Factory and more importantly the dangers of creating bespoke solutions.
For that reason, he became the Co-chairman of the Connected Factory Exchange (IPC-2591) and he did great work in prompting the new factory data standard. Unlike many engineers, who like to say something once and move on, Michael had the skill of being able to present to an new audience and keep it fresh every time. Being staff of Aegis Software, he was able to do this remaining natural to any debate and fielding difficult questions in a professional way.
I had first made communication with Michael while he was promoting the OML at Mentor Graphics (now known as ODB++M). We were in a market discovery phase of starting the business so were investigating any data standard that were appearing. Michael told me he left Mentor because they started to believe they could sell the standard and I respect him for knowing that was a recipe for failure.
Ever since, knowing we were a Start-up business, he would often check-in with me to understand our progress and signpost me to opportunities. He was always interested in the development progress of our CFX Adaptor and how well our Hermes Adaptor was selling. Running a new business can be a lonely journey so while simple to do, I am very grateful to him for doing this and shows what a warm person he was.
In work as in life, you need to surround yourself with people you can look up to. They are very hard to come by, but Michael was one of these people to me. I wanted to impress him. I wanted to get his stamp of approval. I will truly miss him and I will attempt to continue his legacy.
Born in 1961 Michael was 62 years old. From what I read, his death was completely unexpected by his family.
- April 2024: Video - Michael Ford Tribute by Global SMT TV
About 4IR.UK British Systems
We are a Smart Factory solutions provider for the SMT Electronics Assembly manufacturing industry. We were founded in 2016 after the support of a seed funded Business Accelerator. We create hardware Adaptors that operate in more than 20 countries that extend the life of SMEMA based manufacturing equipment by providing solutions for production monitoring and supporting data connections to the Hermes Standard and the Connected Factory Exchange CFX. We also develop Software Extensions for the Low-Code No-Code MultiPlug Edge Computing Platform. The flexibility of off-the-shelf software combined with inside industrial experience means that 4IR.UK is ideally placed to anticipate and respond to a factory's changing needs.
