This week’s Sector Spotlight focuses on events by the Civil Division, Project Management Society, South East Region, West Region, MEETA Asset Management Society and North East Region.

The second generation Eurocodes – a preview of what is happening and what to expect

 

The Structural Eurocodes are a set of harmonised structural design codes for building and civil engineering works. The first generation of the Structural Eurocodes were seen as the most comprehensive and advanced suite of structural design standards in the world when published more than 10 years ago.

Now however, changes to the Eurocodes are on the way with the development of the second generation Eurocodes. In this webinar by the Civil Division and ICE ROI, Jim Mansfied (chair of the Irish Eurocode Consultative Committee) and Ken Murphy, (Eurocode programme manager with the NSAI) discussed some of the changes and innovations that are being proposed to the existing Eurocodes and ways that designers and other stakeholders can get involved and stay up to date with the changes being made.

Lean and the project manager – delivering improved project outcomes

 

The project manager plays a vital role when it comes to successful project delivery as they are responsible for managing team performance, addressing daily issues and challenges whilst ensuring the client’s objectives are met.

This requires the project manager to have appropriate systems, processes and project management tools in place that will create an effective and efficient project delivery environment based on collaborative team engagement and mutual respect and understanding.

Adopting Lean thinking and practices will enable the project manager to create this project delivery environment. The Project Management society and South East region hosted speakers from Lean Construction Ireland (LCi) who outlined how Lean is implemented on projects, the role of the project manager and gave an overview of how LCi is supporting the Irish construction sector in its understanding of Lean and its implementation.

The Sustainability Grand Tour: Sustainable housing

 

The Sustainability Grand Tour aims to provide an opportunity to explore the role of engineers in developing more sustainable cities and communities.

Housing is at the core of cities and communities and this talk will consider the factors that make housing sustainable and how these can be incorporated into efforts to address Ireland's housing crisis.

This event examined sustainable housing through the delivery of affordable and fully-integrated housing. In this session, the West region was joined by Hugh Brennan, CEO of Ó Cualann Housing and Orla Hegarty, assistant professor at the UCD School of Architecture.

A Guide to TPM in Manufacturing Overall Equipment Effectiveness and OEE2

Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) methodology gives an organisation the ability to see and understand the underlying reasons for poor performance of machine utilisation. OEE is considered the gold standard for benchmarking equipment losses and exposes the potential to continuously improve manufacturing output.

Used correctly, it improves productivity, increases effective machine capacity, and can also be used to significantly delay or even avoid expensive CAPEX spend. 

In this webinar by the MEETA Asset Management society, Eamonn Redmond, senior consultant at LBS Partners, a leading Lean Manufacturing Consultancy firm based in Limerick, explored the fundamentals of measuring OEE and how to use it to continuously improve machine performance.

President’s luncheon discussion – manufacturing innovation in the North East

 

This panel discussion by the North East region provided insights on manufacturing innovation. Moderated by president of Engineers Ireland, Maurice Buckley, this event featured some of the key players in innovation-driven organisations in the North East Region – McAree Engineering (Claire McAree), Dromone Engineering Ltd (William Egenton), Focused Engineering Network DAC (Alan Kilpatrick) and MACFAB (Robin Markey).

Coming up in Sector events this week:

  • ‘Brexit Lecture Series: The new EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) and Inter Trade Ireland Brexit Supports’ by the North East region will take place on Monday, March 29, at 7pm, register here;
  • ‘Fastrack Delivery of Covid Products during a Pandemic’ by the Chemical and Process Engineering division will take place on Tuesday, March 30, at 7.30pm, register here;
  • ‘The Sustainability Grand Tour: South East Greenway’ will take place on Wednesday, March 31, at 7pm, register here.

The Sector Spotlight series showcases and celebrates the events of our Regions, Divisions and Societies. This community facilitates networking and connectivity, encourages continuing professional development and the exchange of knowledge and expertise, and informs public policy.