Cavan Welcomes International Academic Symposium

Cavan is to be the venue for the second international symposium on Small-scale Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (SIMS 2018) to be hosted at the Farnham Estate Spa & Golf Resort, Cavan 16-18 April 2018.

SIMS is the leading international forum for academic and industrial experts to disseminate information on the most recent theories, practices and research results in the field of Small-scale Intelligent Manufacturing Systems. Small-scale Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (SIMS) is an emerging concept and is of paramount importance for improving and enhancing the competitiveness and sustainability of manufacturers, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, in order to survive in today’s rapidly changing market.

SIMS aims at incorporating state-of-the-art technologies with leading edge management methods for achieving continuous improvement in flexibility, reliability, productivity and sustainability of manufacturing systems in order to provide customers with highly customized products at reasonable price and rapid delivery. The SIMS symposium aims at providing a common platform for academics, researchers and practitioners to interact and discuss the trends and advances in a broad extend of SIMS. This high level international academic symposium, organised under the auspices of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE), Institute of Education Sciences (IES), brings together senior academics from universities in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Germany, Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The symposium is being brought to Cavan on the initiative of Cavan Innovation & Technology Centre, the Local Enterprise Office and South West College (Northern Ireland). Marcella Rudden, Head of Enterprise, said the symposium provides a unique opportunity to showcase Cavan to a wide international and influential audience as well as enabling local enterprise agencies to stay abreast of rapidly changing technological advances affecting the manufacturing sector. Keynote presentations will be made by leading professors from universities such as UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Queens University Belfast, and University College Dublin.

Welcoming the symposium delegates, and Minister Humphreys, who will be addressing a special Gala Dinner on 17 April, 2018, Vincent Reynolds, on behalf of Cavan Innovation & Technology Centre (who are acting as Symposium Secretariat) paid tribute to the quality of authors who are presenting papers at the symposium. A range of academic papers will be presented at the symposium on a wide variety of themes, including Robotics and Automation; Innovative Product Design and Optimisation; Operations Management; Intelligent Manufacturing; Environmental Management and Safety, Security and Risk Management.

The selection of Cavan as the symposium venue emanated from the participation of Cavan Innovation & Technology Centre and the Local Enterprise Office in a project entitled TARGET funded by the European Union under the Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme. TARGET Project The key to this project is the application of innovation and embracing new processes and practices such as virtual and parametric design and simulation, reverse planning, modelling and 3D printing, remote monitoring and programming of NC machines and robots, 3D measurements, application of digital data and vision based quality assurance. Coupling these with key market analysis skills such as trending, testing and integrating products into a whole cycle of service delivery will build the competitive advantage and value of manufacturing firms. The key is to converge all of these technologies to produce an integrated, automated and highly efficient manufacturing environment. Simply stated, this involves putting the knowledge economy into manufacturing.

The TARGET project partners are:

• South West College, Northern Ireland – Lead Partner;
• UiT – The Arctic University of Norway;
• Centria University of Applied Sciences, Finland;
• Luleå University of Technology, Sweden;
• Cavan Innovation and Technology Centre and the Local Enterprise Office Cavan, Ireland;
• Local Enterprise Office Sligo, Ireland.

The project partners have developed a toolbox of supports to build future global competitiveness of NPA region manufacturers giving them a new influx of innovation, technology and novel processes. This will open up new and promising opportunities and reduce the competitive and knowledge gap through the introduction of new processes, techniques, knowledge and skill and will demonstrate the benefits to be gained through the application of these supports to position NPA manufacturing industries as world leaders in their sectors and building sustainable competitive advantage.

Pictured; Marcella Rudden, Head of Local Enterprise Cavan; Cllr Paddy McDonald, Cathaoirleach of Cavan County Council; Heather Humphreys T.D., Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation; Dr John Moore, South West College; Vincent Reynolds, CEO Cavan Innovation and Technology Centre.