Director Mary is getting Sligo’s new Digital Futures centre up and running
THE newly established Digital Futures Manufacturing Centre in Sligo has appointed Mary Kearney, pictured right, the centre’s new director.
The centre was set up through a consortium of IT Sligo and Sligo and Leitrim County Councils and was funded by Enterprise Ireland.
The newly established base will be a centre of excellence to prepare companies in the North West to embrace new technologies such as automation and artificial intelligence and establish Sligo as a research lead in manufacturing supply chains. The development of the Digital Future Manufacturing Centre (its working title) is making great progress and Mary’s first task as centre director will be to go to tender to upgrade and adapt the Market Yard building in Sligo to accommodate the project. Mary commenced her new post on April 12 and over the coming weeks will be engaging with all the various stakeholders to introduce herself and the new centre.
IT Sligo vice president of research, innovation and enterprise Chris O’Malley welcomed the appointment of Mary Kearney to the position.
He said: “This is a very exciting project and will prepare industries across the region in the fast changing manufacturing industry in what is regarded as the fourth industrial revolution, known as Industry 4.0. “Mary has many years experience across a diverse range of industries which will be very beneficial in her new role. ” Mary is a business and operations professional with over 25 years’ experience across a wide range of industries which include high speed manufacturing, financial services, medical devices, utilities, supply chain and logistics.
She has a reputation for driving operational excellence and delivering business and financial performance.
More recently she held the role of chief operations officer for Parcel Connect. Before that, she was operations director for the Nightline Group.
Mary and her family recently moved from Dublin and are now based in Dromod, Leitrim.
She holds a MBA from Michael Smurfit Business School and more recently a diploma in organisational transformation and change, also from the Smurfit Business School.
She says that she is looking forward to meeting manufacturing companies in the North West in her new position.
Mary said: “I am both delighted and excited to be leading the development of this new centre which I believe will be of major importance in assisting companies in the North West region to adopt and benefit from the new technologies associated with industry 4.0.
“The centre will also provide a central location for industry collaboration and space for companies to meet and explore new projects and technologies as well as providing a gateway to the other great Centres such as Confirm, I-Form and IMR.
“I am looking forward to meeting and working with both our stakeholders and companies in the region to define our overall mission and purpose so that the centre can support the key business challenges associated with these new technologies.” For further information about the the Digital Futures Manufacturing Centre contact Dr Chris O’Malley, vice president of research, innovation and enterprise at IT Sligo, at omalley.chris@ itsligo.ie.