Engineering students help Royal Mail weigh it up

TALENTED students from South Eastern Regional College’s Lisburn campus devised an innovative solution which has helped the UK’s largest postal company, Royal Mail, streamline its bag weighing systems.

The trio of Manufacturing Engineering students, Scott Elliott, David Agnew and Neil Martin worked on the project as part of their Extended Diploma course, supported by SERC Industrial Development Engineer Brendan Merrigan.

Royal Mail presented the challenge to the students, and following a number of meetings with senior management, together developed a suitable solution.

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Working in partnership with the engineering team at Royal Mail, the students designed and created an innovative spring balanced weighing system for small parcel sorting as part of a health and safety solution.

The innovative system allows operators to efficiently fill posting bags up to 11KG, the safe allowable weight, through the use of a set of intelligent weight sensing load bars designed to offer a more sophisticated method of weight gauging while also taking the risk out of despatch at a critical time.

An intelligent sensor was incorporated into the programme, measuring the weight of each bag quickly and easily, dramatically reducing the risk in manual handling and resulting in savings due to rework and safety checks.

Brendan Merrigan commended the students on their innovative product; “We are very impressed by the quality of the students work and their ability to apply their knowledge to a ‘real life’ workplace scenario. This experience will stand them in good stead when applying for jobs in the future. It is important that young people understand that it is not just their knowledge but also their skills, creativity and attitude which matter in the workplace.”

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The innovative project was so impressive that it also won the SEMTA Science and Engineering Award at the annual College BEST (Business and Education through Training and Skills) Awards held in Cookstown.

Kieran McKenna, Head of Engineering at SERC said: “The BEST awards are a great opportunity to motivate and recognize the capabilities of our students who competed against some of the best up and coming innovators of the future. Each of the students worked extremely hard on their projects and were delighted to receive £200 in recognition of their achievement. Industry projects such as this, are designed to give students the opportunity to showcase their expertise and get a real insight into the world of work. It also promotes the high level of teaching and learning that goes on within SERC.”

Engineering student Scott Elliott said: “It was great to get the opportunity to work with Royal Mail and to get hands on experience. We got the opportunity to work on a live industry project from concept right through to completion. The whole project was fantastic experience for us and will look great on our CV. Also, the fact that we won an award for our project has given us real confidence in our engineering ability. We also had the chance to develop our project management skills which will now help us with our coursework.”

Royal Mail are currently developing a solution based on the concept created by the students and hope that this will be integrated into their processing centre at Mallusk initially. This will enhance safety and efficiency and lead to savings, adding to the company’s existing efficient postal processes.

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