Student wins with ‘bottleneck’ solution

A Cork Institute of Technology student has won a prestigious engineering award for preventing bottlenecks in a manufacturing process, while a student from IT Carlow was also recognised for his work to allow straw quality and moisture to be constantly evaluated.

CIT student Patrick Byrne, from Patrickswell, Co Limerick, won first prize in the Engineers’ Ireland Level 8 Innovative Student Engineer of the Year Awards 2013, which are sponsored by Siemens.

Titled ‘Automation of Ultrasonic Cleaning and Blast Processes at Zimmer Orthopaedics’, Mr Byrne’s project analysed the ‘bottleneck’ locations in the existing manufacturing practices to find a solution which will be integrated into Zimmer’s improved manufacturing process.