Report on Limerick automation seminar

Over 70 delegates from vendors, end users, systems integrators and academia attended the 2005 Irish automation seminar held in Dublin on 7 September, hosted by the University of Limerick

Over 70 delegates from vendors, end users, systems integrators and academia attended this year's Irish automation seminar held in Dublin on 7th September.

The seminar was jointly organised by the Automation Research Centre, at the University of Limerick, and the Technology, Automation, and Productivity Division of Enterprise Ireland.

This seminar builds on the previous two seminars on "Fieldbus Technologies" and "Innovation in Industrial Automation", which were held in 2004 in Limerick.

The theme of the 2005 seminar was "Holistic approach to Automation".

Philip Thornton, of Enterprise Ireland, opened the seminar; this was followed by the keynote speech given by Andrew Bond of Automation Insider in the UK.

According to the keynote speaker, automation as we know it today will cease to exist and a new generation of IT based automation is to dominate in the future.

Martin Ginty of Mitsubishi Electric Europe spoke on the advantages of using JAVA in Industrial Automation with some interesting car parking application stories in Tokyo.

A risk-based approach to validating automation systems was covered by Nigel De Haas of DH Controls, Cork.

Enda Ruxton of Siemens covered how to achieve cost effective flexible manufacturing through automation, while Tony Donnelly of Endress+Hauser talked about use of the Internet in management of bulk and liquid inventory.

John Cosgrove, from the Limerick Institute of Technology, covered the application of PC-based control systems in medical device manufacturing, followed by a Systems Simulation speech by Garret O'Donnell of Trinity College, Dublin.

An interesting application on Reducing measurement and inspection times using vision technology was covered by Eugene Pigott of Douglas Controls and Automation.

The presentation by Brian Robinson of Dataworks, on Shop Floor and IT, and Declan Lyons of Enterprise Ireland on Funding available for productivity projects, wrapped up the seminar.

The pdf version of all the presentations is available from Automation Research Centre web site for download.

Back to top