Engineers Ireland celebrated excellence in the fields of maintenance engineering and asset management at its annual MEETA (Maintenance, Engineering, Environment and Technology Association) virtual conference and awards, which took place online via Zoom from November 25-26, 2020.
The awards recognise the ingenuity shown by those in maintenance and asset management in providing value to their companies and are an initiative of Engineers Ireland’s MEETA society, a special interest group for maintenance, reliability and asset management practitioners.
The event was opened by the president of Engineers Ireland, Maurice Buckley. He was joined by the chairperson of the MEETA society, Jim Kelly, Bernard Yore, CEO, ESS Ltd. and Dee Kehoe, CPD and STEPS director of Engineers Ireland.
The conference was chaired by the MEETA Society and John Coleman, Jerry Larkin and many members of the MEETA Society were in attendance. The sponsors of these awards, ESS and EirData Ltd were thanked by by the president for their support.
Winners of MEETA Awards 2020:
- Overall Industry Award: Ciaran Finnerty, Conor Jones, Natasha Kelly, BMS Cruiserath, 'Machine learning predictive maintenance'.
- Maintenance Technology Category Award: Darol O’Donovan, Biomarin, 'The use of technology during the COVID-19 pandemic'.
- Health and Safety Category Award: Eimear Duggan, Laura Scally, Biomarin, 'Switching from task-based risk assessments to risk-based risk assessments'.
- Management Category Award: Shane McManus, Alex Oliveira, Diarmuid Barry MSD Brinny, 'Asset management digital process'.
- Environment Category Award: Fiona Hegarty, BMS Cruiserath, 'Biologics WFI usage model'.
- Student Award: Jack Murphy, CIT, 'Energy optimisation of compressed air at Thermo Fisher Scientific Cork'.
President Maurice Buckley said: “The MEETA Society … has ambitions, you have dreams and you certainly think outside the box. It is really important to emphasise that bond and link between Engineers Ireland and MEETA. Engineers Ireland is really proud to be associated with MEETA and I hope that MEETA is really proud to be an integral part of the Engineers Ireland family.”
The MEETA conference, which was part of the two-day event, featured speakers on the theme of 'Restoring vision from 2020'.
Speakers included Mark Gallagher, Formula 1 executive and broadcaster who presented on 'Performing with vision' and Rachel O’Connor, asset and risk compliance manager at ESB Networks, who discussed 'Risk mitigation'.
Attendees also heard from James Gorry of James Gorry Health and Safety on 'Risk and vigilance'. They also heard from Pat King, CEO and co-founder and Nick Greig, head of client accounts at OneLook Systems, on the 'The pros and cons of electronic contractor management systems'. Brian Flood from Eastland Engineering Supply (EES) gave an overview of 'Inventory management'.
President of Engineers Ireland, Maurice Buckley, who is also executive chairperson of the Office of Public Works, together with OPW conservation architect Fergus McCormick, shared their insight on 'Skellig Michael 2020 – seeing beyond the present'.
Attendees also heard from Paul Phelan, reliability engineer at MSD Asset Reliability, from Derek Murtagh,digital engineering lead at MSD Biotech, John McGrath from TE Laboratories Ltd and from David Grimes, author and physicist on the subject of 'Good decision-making makes good decisions'.
For more information on Engineers Ireland’s MEETA society, visit: https://www.engineersireland.ie/groups/societies