School of Engineering (SEG)

The MOE Innergy and Outstanding Innovator Awards were introduced to recognize individuals/teams for their innovations that contribute to significant benefit and impact at their workplaces.

We are proud to share the achievement of our colleagues who were recognized for their innovative solutions and contributions.

Innergy Award (Gold) - “Germicidal Ultraviolet UVC Enclosures for Infectious Disease Control”
Hong Ling Tim & Joyce Lim

Safety for healthcare workers is paramount in the combat against the COVID-19 global pandemic. One way to step up safety and prevent the spread of the virus is to further decontaminate reusable Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and medical tools and instrument in addition to traditional cleaning with disinfectant lotion and wipes.

The Infectious Control team from Khoo Teck Puat Hospital’s (KTPH) partnered with Republic Polytechnic, School of Engineering, to design and develop enclosures suited to conduct “Ultra-violet Germicidal Irradiation” (UVGI) – a decontamination method using short-wavelength ultraviolet (UVC) light. UVC light kills around 99% of bacteria and it has also been clinically proven to eliminate viruses.

Trials were conducted on 10 enclosure prototypes for suitability and performance evaluation. Upon the trial conclusion, the best performing enclosure design was quickly manufactured and deployed to all the wards across KTPH and Yishun Community Hospital.

This project was also featured in the Straits Time under “Combating Covid-19: A birth of innovations”.

Innergy Award (Silver) - “3-Step SA Marking Process with Bot Marker”
Led by Vincent Lim and Yong Fui Long

Every year, lecturers spent a considerable amount of time marking Summative Assessment (SA) and checking through to ensure consistency and accuracy of marking. With an objective to help lecturers in SA marking, a project team from the School of Engineering led by Vincent Lim and Yong Fui Long from the Diploma in Industrial & Operations Management set out to improve the marking process.

The project team developed a 3-Step Summative Assessment Marking Process with Bot Marker combining the best practices of Lean with support from Robotic digital tools. The process consists of the validation of marking scheme followed by automated marking done by a bot marker and finally a visual check by a human marker.

The review after the pilot run of the process confirmed consistency in marking, lower error rate, less fatigue on the human marker and 75% improvement in turn-around time compared to the traditional marking process.

After the successful pilot run, the team is looking to expand employment of this process to other schools within Republic Polytechnic.

Outstanding Innovator Award – Hong Ling Tim

Hong Ling Tim is currently a Principal Lecturer under Industry track at Republic Polytechnic. He has held various positions within Republic Polytechnic such as the Senior Conexus Manager for the SMART Engineering Technology Centre and also Manager for the industry joint laboratory with Texas Instruments specializing in low power wireless applications. Ling Tim was also involved in numerous grants or funding for research and development in the areas of biomedical electronics and has engaged in consultancies project with the industry.