40 jobs are being created at the new Irish Manufacturing Research facility in Dublin, working with the Government, industry and academia.
The Irish Manufacturing Research centre (IMR) has been backed by Enterprise Ireland and the IDA to create a non-profit group to partner with organisations across a variety of different sectors, from aerospace to medtech and energy.
Based in Dublin, the new centre will be directed by the head of DuPuy Synthes Johnson & Johnson’s Cork engineering team and Clare senior inter-county hurling manager, Donal Óg Cusack.
The organisation also revealed plans to hire 40 highly skilled staff in various fields including robotics, data analytics and 3D manufacturing.
IMR CEO Barry Kennedy expects that most of these positions will be filled with Irish graduates.
“Ireland is very well positioned for the types of graduates we have coming out of universities,” he said.
“Though some of these types of jobs that we are creating are only new to the market, we are working very closely with our university partners in terms of developing our graduates and postgraduates to meet the growing needs of these emerging skills.”
Ushering in Industry 4.0
Speaking with the The Irish Times, Cusack said that much of what the IMR will be focused on will help further Ireland’s move towards Industry 4.0, within the areas of robotics, 3D printing and the internet of things.
When fully operational, the centre will act as a hub for all parties to come together to share and develop these concepts, similar to the new technology transfer consortium announced in Munster earlier this week.
“IMR is the perfect vehicle for industrialists, academics and SMEs to collaborate on the challenges facing manufacturing in Ireland,” Cusack said.
“This is vitally important as manufacturing represents 24pc of GDP. And it’s even more important against the backdrop of recent geopolitical events such as Brexit.”
