Michael Lord

At its peak, the Monkbridge Works site on Whitehall Road, which was acquired by Doncasters in 1951, employed 1,500 people and housed the world's largest screw press at 6,000 tonnes and Mr Lord was always proud to be one of the team there.

He was brought up in Hull, and educated at Hymers College, and St John's College, Cambridge, where he gained academic success in economics and modern languages.

During the Second World War, he served as a captain in the Army in the Far East and India.

It was his early interest in machines and electronics that defined his career. In his spare time he built radios and a television in the late 1940s using war-surplus components.

From being a general management trainee, he quickly specialised in developing a series of methods for the accurate and efficient measurement of blades. Turbine blades are manufactured to three-dimensional accuracy with little tolerance for error, but have no flat faces or centres from which measurements can be taken.

Following serious machine failures, Mr Lord was at the forefront of work to measure the loads which were produced when blades were forged.

He later championed the use of screw forging presses as the optimum process for blade production, outstripping the technology which was being used by competitors.

Having produced heat-resisting turbine blades and titanium compressor blades for Concorde, the most significant of his achievements was the development of forged fan blades for Rolls Royce by-pass turbines.

He was awarded the MBE in 1974 and the same year was made the firm's technical director. He was a pioneer of the application of computers in engineering. He quickly realised the limitations of commercial software, so taught himself to write his own programs for use in blade manufacture.

This marked the beginning of mainstream digital applications and led to him being retained as consultant for the transition when he retired in 1984.

Outside his professional interest, he had a love of music that he

passed on to his children and grandchildren.

He played a number of instruments, including piano, guitar, clarinet, saxophone and piano accordion.

Mr Lord and his family worshipped at the Holy Name Roman Catholic Church, Ireland Wood, Leeds, where his funeral was held.

When he became increasingly housebound he welcomed visits from local clergy and the chance to chat about their shared interests of jazz music and electronics.

He was a self-effacing man with a strong sense of humour and of irony mixed with much common sense.

Mr Lord is survived by his wife Bernie, whom he married in 1960, their three children and seven grandchildren.