Electronic Specifier

Local charities and community groups with a particular focus on inspiring and encouraging women and girls into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are being urged to apply for up to £20,000 of funding. Applications for funding from People’s Postcode Trust, a grant-giving charity funded entirely by players of People’s Postcode Lottery, are open from 1-15th August, and a funding pot of £1m is available for projects focussing on employability, promoting human rights and combatting poverty.

Within the construction industry, experts have noted considerable concern for the fact that the sector is currently struggling with a lack of skilled workers. According to City & Guilds, 87% of employers last year were already having difficulty in recruiting the required skilled workers their business needs. Plus, as revealed by Construction News, official figures reveal that 12.6% of the UK's workforce within construction come from abroad.

A CCTV camera system designed for surveying sewers has been put to a new use - investigating concerns about a pipe blockage at a gas plant. Drainage engineers based at the Lanes Group depot in Aberdeen were called in to survey the gas pipe at the biogas generation plant near Coupar Angus, in Perth and Kinross.

During London Tech Week Mike Butcher, editor at Tech Crunch hosted a panel evening with Clare Gilmartin, CEO at Trainline, Amali de Alwis, CEO at Code First: Girls, Ana Avaliani, of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Chi Onwurah, Shadow Minister for Industrial Strategy, Science and Innovation to discuss the real reasons why there aren’t enough women in technology and what we can do about it.

The successful national programme, The Secondary Engineer Fluid Power Challenge, which aims to attract secondary school pupils into engineering is being launched into schools in Cambridgeshire and East Anglia. The project is set to run during 2018/19 and aims to introduce over 200 14-year olds to the fun and challenge of building a pick and place robot arm using low cost materials and fluid power principles.

Only 17% of employees in the tech sector are women out of the 2.1 million people, so how does the industry plan to solve this? Well recognition is a start, and last weekend we saw the International Women in Engineering Day 2018, and it is safe to say there has been a real buzz about encouraging more women into the industry – which is fantastic to see.

Yorkshire’s largest independent vehicle-hire firm is celebrating International Women in Engineering Day on June 23 with a pledge to actively work to increase its’ female workforce. In contrast to the predominately male industry in which it operates, currently 25% of Arrow Self Drive’s personnel is female; several of which hold senior management positions and take a leading role in driving the company forward.

Andy Street, West Midlands Mayor has recently opened a £5m collaborative space for businesses, artists and academics to work together on new innovative projects. The Mayor cut the ribbon to open Phase One of Birmingham City University and Eastside Projects’ STEAMhouse facility, which has been masterminded as a place where SMEs and artists can work together on new projects and business ideas.

You can broaden the horizons of your digital transformation to capture more value from your products, with Aston Business School, as it has relationships with over 100 manufacturing firms which allows insight into the industry’s journey to digital maturity, transformation, and servitisation, adding value by reshaping products into services.

The British Safety Industry Federation (BSIF), the trade body for the UK’s safety industry, has announced its support for Maintec, the UK’s only exhibition dedicated to maintenance, plant and asset management held at the NEC, Birmingham on 6th and 7th November 2018.  The BSIF, who provide support and guidance on a wide range of occupational safety issues will be attending Maintec 2018 in recognition of safety being a increasingly important addition to the maintenance engineers job responsibility. 

The Viva Technology conference returned to Paris last week, bringing together some of the most innovative companies across the globe. In attendance at the conference, ENGIE, the international energy company’s African business unit, showcased its latest projects, and signalled commitment to decentralised energy in Africa. 

Speed dating, is it the worst idea ever or the best? That depends sat in a room full of potential partners that don’t look promising – worst idea ever. Sat in a room with ten technology pioneers and companies that only have five minutes to tell you about their latest innovations and solutions – ingenious. That is exactly what Anna Flockett from Engineering Specifier experienced last week, and here is what she found out:

Last week the House of Lords’ Artificial Intelligence Committee released a new report titled ‘AI in the UK: ready, willing and able?’ Outlining the development and current uses of artificial intelligence (AI) in the UK, the paper identified five principles on which AI should be based. Article written by Salvatore Minetti, CEO and founder, Prospex (pictured below).

After heavy rains and flooding in Queensland left tens of thousands of residents without power, many turned to the reliability of a portable Kings generator to power their homes back up until the mains were back on. It was during this time many people realised that portable generators aren't just handy on the jobsite or at camp; they're perfect backup power at home and can save you hundreds in damages if your food and drink goes off in the fridge and freezer.

We can all agree that yes, a sheet of A4 is convenient, but your data won't be exact or real time. Well, more than a decade after we started talking about the paperless factory, it has yet to arrive. While the internet has revolutionised how we operate, with connectivity transforming how information moves around the enterprise, it is common to see a lot of paper moving around too – and this is especially true on the shop floor.  

In this new era of production techniques and technologies, new buzzwords are being circulated throughout the internet. ‘Lean’ is a relatively new model for managing businesses, especially in fields like manufacturing, software development and construction. Basically, anywhere where massive workloads are involved and effective distribution of them is necessary within a tight accommodation of budget and resources.

Modern society is digitised in nearly every imaginable aspect. Phones, televisions and computers seem to be merging into one continuous - and interactive - viewing experience. The digitised society needs specialists to support the components and infrastructure that make up the connected world. Individuals who have a passion for technology and want to work on the cutting-edge of the digital realm start out by building a foundation in computer science. From there, a world of electronic possibilities awaits.

Within business, constant attention needs to be given to cost structures. Even companies with a good history of profit margins continually target areas where they can further streamline costs. The increasingly competitive marketplace, shrinking product development cycles, ongoing leaps in technology, changing taxation policies, and environmental sensitivities compel organisations to continually drive down their internal costs.

With the recent National Careers Week, The Careers & Enterprise Company took the chance to call out to employers across all sectors and industries to help make a real difference to the lives of young people.  By providing encounters with their work place, businesses and enterprises, both large and small, can bring the world of work to life for young people.

With International Women’s Day being a vocal topic over the last week or so, Assystem Energy & Infrastructure is calling for the engineering industry to make a stand for female engineers in a bid to highlight that the industry is arguably ‘falling short’ when it comes to gender diversity and there is a real need to enhance industry appeal and drive female interest.