In his short-sleeve pale-blue shirt, Steve Hill looks out of place as he meets me in a room filled with 200 suits, almost exclusively male company bosses.

I call it a room, but it is actually one of two giant blow-up domes outside the headquarters of automotive technology giant Delphi in Gillingham.

They have been set up to host the firm’s second international conference (the first was in Luxemburg a few years back) focusing on the challenges facing the commercial vehicle industry.

The blue-lit room is peppered with exhibition stands displaying all shapes and sizes of chrome components, each accompanied by enthusiastic technical blurb.

Mr Hill, who lives in Sittingbourne, does not spend long among this sea of corporate types, wasting no time leading me to his company’s newest piece of kit in the fight to lower emissions and raise engine life.

Entering the technical centre, we walk past dozens of engineers staring at graph-covered screens.

Huge noisy machines are proudly presented at various points as we meander through a series of corridors of the supplier, which had revenues of $17 billion (£11.2bn) last year.

Each new piece of kit allows the company’s technical whizzes to measure how an engine is reacting to different environments, recording emissions to “incredible levels of accuracy”.

“You have got to be moving forward to stand still,” said Mr Hill, product development and endurance manager.

He reveals a “pod” that houses a fuel-injection testing machine, the product of hundreds of hours of work from the design team.

The firm has built four and aims to have 32.

“We had restrictions in the past because testing was done inside a machine,” he said. “Now we can walk inside a controlled room where the machine is accessible and it also allows us to expand the equipment in future.

“It is easier to work on and gives you evolution capacity to get in larger systems. Power and pressure grows over time, so you need bigger space.”

Joe Hanson, 27, has been at the company for six years since graduating from the University of Kent with a degree in electronic computer systems engineering.

He was part of the design team who made the new testing kit.

Joe added: “It has taken over a year to develop the solution, designing it on the computer and getting contractors to build it.

“It’s strange that after you design it on the computer, you walk inside it a year later and see what you made.”

The firm takes on 20 graduates a year and has 12 apprentices in training.

Many of its 490 engineers and 295 factory staff have been through their programme.

One of them is Paul Smeed, who joined as an apprentice in 1979. A local lad from Rainham who went to Robert Napier School, today he is the engine and vehicle test manager.

“This gives us the ability to truly test the equipment,” he said. “We can test it in any condition it would experience worldwide. We can simulate road conditions and humidity in China or the streets of Gillingham to improve the durability of the engine.

“It’s an exciting time to work for the firm. It’s securing the future of engineering in the area. It’s always evolving. We never stand still. This is the biggest investment in laboratory equipment ever seen at the technical centre.”

The Delphi conference was opened by Medway Council leader Rodney Chambers, who steps down at the end of the month. He eulogised about the area’s long history of engineering through the Chatham Dockyard.

The Medway UTC, due to open later this year, will specialise in engineering and construction. Delphi’s technical centre manager Paul Charman sits on its board of governors.

“Engineering is such an exciting career for young people,” he said. “It is very cutting edge. It is as advanced as anything in aerospace and just as challenging. Delphi has a huge history in this area and this is one of the major technical centres for diesel systems in Europe.

“We have expertise and technology here which compliments the new facilities. The majority of people who work here are degree-qualified engineers with experience in fuel-injection systems.

“The facilities we have just opened complement that experience very well. The technical challenges are constant. We rise to them very well and the people here are enthused by the opportunity to develop new products. The challenge to generate, control and make components live under increasing amounts of pressure is what these guys relish.”