Implementing a site waste management plan: a case study of a medium sized building contractor in Ireland

Construction and demolition waste management is becoming increasingly important on construction sites as landfill space in Ireland is rapidly depleting and waste management costs are rising. Due to these factors waste management plans are seen as a good response to minimising waste on site and this thesis aims to investigate how to implement such a plan on a practical case study as well as investigating the legislation regarding construction and demolition waste along with market availability for the reuse of the waste. Main contractor surveys were also carried out in order to gain a better understanding of current attitudes within the industry and these surveys are analysed in chapter five. A survey was also carried out among sub-contractors but this survey has not been used for this thesis as the study is on-going. The primary aim of this thesis is to examine the waste hierarchy opportunities that are available for construction and demolition waste in Ireland and to examine the effects of management strategies on construction and demolition waste reduction at the project level. A partnership was developed with Carey Developments Ltd in Co. Galway and an analysis of their waste management practices was undertaken. The primary case study will be the ‘Taylors Hill’ project in Co. Galway where work commenced in March, 2012. The secondary aim of the thesis is to develop specific waste minimisation strategies for the company and to develop a training tool kit for use on site.

Design, development and testing of a CAD integrated design for environment software tool.

The research described in this thesis was developed as part o f the Information Management for Green Design (IMA GREE) Project. The 1MAGREE Project was founded by Enterprise Ireland under a Strategic Research Grant Scheme as a partnership project between Galway Mayo Institute o f Technology and C1MRU University College Galway. The project aimed to develop a CAD integrated software tool to support environmental information management for design, particularly for the electronics-manufacturing sector in Ireland.

Development of a disassembly methodology for DFE

The research described in this thesis was developed as part of the Information Management for Green Design (IMAGREE) Project. The IMAGREE Project was funded by Enterprise Ireland under Strategic Research Grant Scheme as a partnership project between Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and CIMRU University of Galway. The project aimed to develop a CAD integrated software tool to support environmental information management for design.

Development of an integrated approach to reliability management and operation

The research described in this thesis has been developed as a part of the Reliability and Field Data Management for Multi-component Products (REFIDAM) Project. This project was founded under the Applied Research Grants Scheme administered by Enterprise Ireland. The project was a partnership between Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and Thermo King Europe. The project aimed to develop a system in order to manage the information required for reliability assessment and improvement of multi-component products, by establishing information flows within the company and information exchange with fleet users.

Development of a life cycle management system for remote products.

The research described in this thesis has been developed as a part of the Reliability and Field Data Management for Multi-Component Products (REFIDAM) Project. This project was funded under the Applied Research Grants Scheme administered by Enterprise Ireland. The project was a partnership between Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and an industrial company, Thermo King Europe. The project aimed to develop a system to manage the information required for maintenance costing, cost of ownership, reliability assessment and improvement of multi-component products, by establishing information flows between the customer network and across the Thermo King organisation.

Implementation of a customer relationship management system in an SME

The research conducted for this thesis has been carried out over a two year period as part of the Mobile Tools and Technology for customer care (MOTTO) project. The project was funded under the Applied Grant scheme administered by Enterprise Ireland and Nortel Networks Ltd. It was a partnership project between Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, University of Limerick, National University of Ireland Galway, and a global Internet and communications company, Nortel Networks. The project aimed to investigate the enabling mobile communications technologies in e-Business and mobile communications in the area of Business-to-Business (B2B) customer care. The development of the application discussed in this thesis was developed in conjunction with the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, University of Limerick and AMT Ireland. The decision to develop the application in the Electronics Company of AMT in Limerick came about as a result of the contact established by Mark Southern from the University of Limerick. Mark was involved in overseeing the development and assisted in establishing the user requirements.

Development of a semi-automatic self learning pattern recognition system for the control of electronic boards

This project was funded under the Applied Research Grants Scheme administered by Enterprise Ireland. The project was a partnership between Galway - Mayo Institute of Technology and an industrial company, Tyco/Mallinckrodt Galway. The project aimed to develop a semi - automatic, self - learning pattern recognition system capable of detecting defects on the printed circuits boards such as component vacancy, component misalignment, component orientation, component error, and component weld. The research was conducted in three directions: image acquisition, image filtering/recognition and software development. Image acquisition studied the process of forming and digitizing images and some fundamental aspects regarding the human visual perception. The importance of choosing the right camera and illumination system for a certain type of problem has been highlighted. Probably the most important step towards image recognition is image filtering, The filters are used to correct and enhance images in order to prepare them for recognition. Convolution, histogram equalisation, filters based on Boolean mathematics, noise reduction, edge detection, geometrical filters, cross-correlation filters and image compression are some examples of the filters that have been studied and successfully implemented in the software application. The software application developed during the research is customized in order to meet the requirements of the industrial partner. The application is able to analyze pictures, perform the filtering, build libraries, process images and generate log files. It incorporates most of the filters studied and together with the illumination system and the camera it provides a fully integrated framework able to analyze defects on printed circuit boards.