South West College (SWC) marked the completion of the TARGET Project with a special closing event at the Farnham Estate in Co Cavan.
The TARGET project aimed to promote opportunities in digital manufacturing, with the key objective of making regional manufacturing globally competitive and innovative.
Over a three-year period, the €2.1m business initiative has helped local SMEs to become more globally competitive. Five local companies were also selected to develop tools which would enhance the capacity of manufacturing companies in the Northern Periphery and Arctic (NPA) programme region and to encourage them to adapt and embrace new technologies.
The TARGET project is expected to live on through the curriculum provision at SWC, particularly in the areas of robotics and CAD simulations to improve processes in lean manufacturing. SWC will also continue to collaborate with its Project Partners - The Artic University of Norway, Centria University of Applied Science, Finland and Lulea University of Technology, Sweden.
John Moore, Deputy Head of Department, SWC and TARGET Project Researcher said;
“It was a fitting end to the TARGET Project, which began back in 2015, which has been all about innovation and investing in the future.
“Through the project, SWC has worked with a variety of local manufacturers over the past few years, helping them develop into more globally competitive companies, and we look forward to seeing how they progress and grow in the years to come.”
Alongside the event, the project partners took part in the Second International Symposium on Small-scale Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (SIMS) Conference - a leading international forum for academic and industrial experts, which brings together a range of global experts to discuss recent theories, practices and research results in the SIMS field.
SIMS also aims to incorporate state-of-the-art technologies with cutting-edge management methods to achieve continuous improvement on flexibility, reliability, productivity and sustainability of manufacturing systems, providing customers with highly customised products at a reasonable price and with rapid delivery.
For more information on the TARGET Project, please contact Edel McCusker, tel: 028 8225 0109 or email: edel.mccusker@swc.ac.uk