News Releases

Winston G. Lewis to speak on Steelpan Manufacturing Systems & Standards

For Release Upon Receipt - January 19, 2011

St. Augustine


Can the steelpan be manufactured to become more competitive in the global arena? The use of Integrated Management Systems (IMS) to improve manufacturing capabilities in the Caribbean Region can create efficiencies allowing for greater competitiveness for our national instrument.

Professor Winston G. Lewis, Professor of Industrial Systems Engineering at The University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine, will address the effectiveness of IMS in the manufacturing of musical steel drums, when he delivers his Professorial Inaugural Lecture on Thursday 27th January at Lecture Theatre #1, Faculty of Engineering, from 5.30pm.

This lecture will focus on the use of Management Systems and Standards in the production of large quantities of musical steel drums or steelpans to make them more accessible in the Caribbean region and the world over. The manufacturing processes used in the production of musical steel drums include, Handforming, Marforming, Hydroforming and Spinforming. The use of these processes will be discussed within the framework of an IMS for the large-scale production of the steelpan musical instrument, in order to achieve more consistent and deeper formed components, while maintaining the high quality of the instrument.

Professor Lewis has been promoting research and development work in the undergraduate and graduate levels in the areas of Metallurgical & Industrial Engineering, Sheet Metal Forming, Manufacturing of the Steelpan Musical Instrument, Applied Ergonomics and Workplace Design, Engineering Quality Management and Nano-technology. This work has been published in several leading international and regional journals.

Professor Lewis was honoured by the World Congress of Arts, Sciences and Communications in 2007 with the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Leadership, Service to the Engineering Profession and Country, and Outstanding Academic Achievements in Teaching and Research.  He was also presented with an international award for extraordinary distinction of meritorious achievement in innovative leadership and service to the Caribbean people at the World Forum of Arts, Sciences and Communications in St. Catherine’s College, Oxford University, England in August 2008. Professor Lewis was also invited by the United Nations to be a Policy Advisor on the UN Millennium Project in the areas of engineering and innovation.

 

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About UWI

Over the last six decades, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a full-fledged University with over 40,000 students. Today, UWI is the largest and most longstanding higher education provider in the English-speaking Caribbean, with main campuses in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and Centres in Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, The Bahamas, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Christopher (St Kitts) & Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent & the Grenadines. UWI recently launched its Open Campus, a virtual campus with over 50 physical site locations across the region, serving over 20 countries in the English-speaking Caribbean. UWI is an international university with faculty and students from over 40 countries and collaborative links with over 60 universities around the world. Through its seven Faculties, UWI offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Pure & Applied Sciences, Science and Agriculture, and Social Sciences.

 

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