G
ood things come in threes – as I never tire of saying. Radiation itself manifests three primary properties that all need some fundamental understanding in order to apply the technology properly.
Another mantra getting a lot of air time at Ceramicx these days is Science – Engineering – Applications.
Customers, customer needs and ideas and uses for technology (applications) provide the drivers for the engineering that is needed to make the products actually work. And science and scientific laws provide the necessary foundations for engineering work.
As experienced Infrared Heating Consultants this trinity of values can be found in all the infrared heating work that we do. The past 18 months has seen shuttling back and forth between the constituent parts. And as customers come to us with more variants for IR useage, so we need to be pushing the boundary of all three frontiers in order to get results.
So much so that the time has now come for a further quantum shift in our IR development – underscored with the formality of a new project and expansion of activity here at the factory.
Ceramicx is now embarked upon the second phase of our Innovation Partnership together with the University of Limerick (UL) and Enterprise Ireland. A brief pause for thanks is due to our friends and associates Mark Southern, Paul McCluskey and Tom Bannon for all their help in framing the project scope and in lining up the terms of reference and the resources.
We are now getting down to realising the new project aims and making things happen. New recruitment of the UL team is underway and over the next two years a detailed series of scientific-based road maps will be created in order to describe the inputs and outputs in the complex manufacturing mix of materials; humidity; temperature and electrics that combine in the manufacture of ceramic-based IR heaters.
Our ambition is nothing less than to create an unequalled matrix and underpinning of scientific know-how for IR heating manufacturing matters; all based on empirical measurement and on proveable and repeatable scientific theory and engineering.
Our first phase of the Innovation Partnership with UL brought us world-class results in terms of our product definition, its measurement and automated quality control. Our appetite to continue on is more than whetted. We are more than relishing the opportunity to go forward at Ceramicx with the help of Mark Southern and his UL team.
As ever, you will be able to read more about this topic in more depth in the next issue of HeatWorks magazine – out next month.
Simply contact us direct for your copy.
It might seem a piece of common sense – but not that common, as the saying goes – to remember that achievements such as the new ICMR centre are created by people. In this case Jim Lawler of Enterprise Ireland had everything to do with this new work and with the great potential ahead.It was therefore our pleasure at the meeting to be able to help pay a small tribute to Jim’s vision, energy and networking expertise.
Our own Ceramicx magazine 
thanks largely to information technology the world has become much smaller – and much faster. Customer expectations for viewing initial results have been raised. As an innovator and supplier, we stand in need of a package that can provide a ‘fast and dirty’ product modelling system with most dimensional and engineering features settled, but with room for quick changes and adaptations. We need the design to be open – not just to the CAD department – but to input from all corners of the business. Many engineers are calling this the establishment of the Release to CAD milestone. For project managers it makes a lot of sense.