Wood - UoB Collaboration

Delegates from Wood, the global project, engineering and technical services company, led by Professor Nawal Prinja, visited the University of Bolton (UoB) on 17/07/19 to explore ways both establishments could collaborate.

The UoB team was led by the Head of School of Engineering, Professor Danny Morton. The visit was underpinned by the need to pull resources together for developing a competitive advantage in responding to the Industrial Strategy Nuclear Sector Deal on the development and future of the nuclear industry. The overarching aspects examined include how to enhance leadership skills in the sector, plausibility of rolling out local apprenticeships in nuclear, maintaining cutting edge programmes through Level 8 apprenticeship and exciting the next generation about nuclear through the development of simulation facilities and training.

The government and the sector’s joint support to review decommissioning pipelines to accelerate tasks, manage nuclear waste and clean-up to reduce the risk and cost to the public were of special interest. Triggered by the need to integrate BIM (building information modelling) and nuclear power plant project development, the collaboration is set to birth a consortium to explore research projects on nuclear decommissioning through the securing of appropriate funding arrangements. The experience of Wood in the nuclear industry and the versatile nature of its activities in the sector is important for this partnership.

This is paralleled by the research capability of UoB with resources (human and equipment) in areas such as application of BIM in civil engineering and construction informatics, geospatial systems and analysis, technology assisted living/gestures and gaming technologies. A tour of associated labs and facilities was one of the highlights (see photos).

Dr Akponanabofa Henry Oti, a specialist in BIM applications and digital technologies, coordinated the visit and liaised with the gaming unit of School of Creative Technologies and the geospatial unit of the School of Engineering to showcase the best of contemporary digital technology gadgets. It suffices to mention that the much sought-after BIM applications in learning curriculum is now integrated and systematically delivered in the civil engineering programmes.

This contributes to improving UoB and its civil engineering/construction students’ competitive edge in the developing digital-focused engineering job market. Partnering with Wood will help strengthen aspects of research and problem-based learning from an industry perspective. Ultimately, the outlook of the Wood - UoB collaboration is for our university to build on its position to becoming a centre of excellence in teaching and conducting research on BIM applications, laser scanning and point cloud application for historical data modelling, augmented\virtual reality and artificial intelligence, driverless systems and systems simulation for supporting the decommissioning processes. 

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