Council

 

  

 

Damian Kennedy, Federal President                              

 

 

         

 

Current Federal President, Dr. R. Damian Kennedy was elected in September 2005. He has been a member of the Institute of Industrial Engineers since 1980.

 

Damian's professional experience spans some 33 years and includes work as a research and development engineer, product development engineer, academic and consultant to industry.

He is currently Senior Lecturer within the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Monash University where he lectures in the Department's Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management undergraduate degree program. He also has responsibilities for supervising several research students in the Department's Master of Engineering Science and PhD programs.

Damian's main teaching areas lie within engineering management, operations management, systems modelling and simulation, and design of productive systems. His research has included manufacturing cell formation algorithms, maintenance management policy and supply chain management decision support systems models. He supervised Monash's first PhD in industrial engineering in 1999.

He began work as a research and development engineer with main UK electronics and communications firm, Plessey plc, and as product development engineer for a local start up company, Hybrid Electronics Australia. His responsibilities included micro electronics (thick film) product design and later included supervision of production line staff. Later he joined the staff of the Department of Communications and Electronics Engineering, RMIT in the late 1970's and on a part time basis, graduated with a Graduate Diploma in Management from the same institution. In 1978 he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship (sponsored by General Electric) and the following year completed his Master's degree by research into thin film optical communications waveguides at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. In 1980, Damian was made lecturer in the Electrical Engineering Department of Caulfield/Chisholm Institute of Technology. 

In 1981, he was invited to become visiting professor, Department of Industrial Engineering, West Virginia University, USA where he began his research for the PhD in industrial engineering. He was granted his PhD in 1988 and by the late 80's, Damian was Senior lecturer and course leader of Chisholm Institute's new Industrial Engineering degree program.

Chisholm Institute of Technology was to later amalgamate with Monash University in the early 1990's and Damian took on the additional role as Director of the Monash Manufacturing and Industrial Engineering Centre. Numerous IE training programs for industry were undertaken over a period of several years and included such diverse organizations as Australia Post, Australian Meat Council, Ford Motor Company, Hawker de Havilland, Robert Bosch and Safeway. Research consultancies were also undertaken for local and international companies: Amcor Fibre Packaging, Ansett Spares and Services (Los Angeles), ANZ, BOC Gases, Holden Engine Company, IBM, NHP, Pacific Dunlop and Village Roadshow.

By 1999, Damian was made deputy Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Monash University and served in that role until 2003. Prime responsibility during the period was to further develop the IE graduate program and by 2003, some 15 new students were undertaking studies in the MEngSci / PhD program.
Damian’s continuing interest is in the further development of Industrial Engineering in Australia.  He very much looks forward to his new, professional-service role as Federal President of the of Industrial Engineers Australia.

2005 Councillors:

• Lex Clark (ACT), (Chairman, Membership and Grading Committee)
• Chrys Hawkins (NSW)
• David Karr (WA)
• Michael Kelly (Qld)
• Damian Kennedy (Vic), (Federal President)
• Daniel Kulawiec (Vic), (Federal Secretary) 
• Robert Murphy (Vic)
• Margaret Nasinski (SA)
• Selvarajah Radhakrishnan (Vic), (Treasurer/Company Secretary)
• Glenn Seaby (Qld)
• Robert Watson (WA)

 

Back Row L-R Lex Clark, Chrys Hawkins, Robert Watson, David Karr, Margaret Nasinski, Daniel Kulawiec, Robert Murphy
Front Row L-R Damian Kennedy, Derek Andrews