Roads and Infrastructure attends IPWEA public works conference

IPWEA’s 2019 conference in Victoria ran over two days at the Arts Centre in Melbourne.

It brought speakers from across the sector to present, with the main focus on ‘Engineering Thriving Communities’.

A mixture of council and industry representatives presented ideas and examples from around the state to showcase their recent and upcoming works.

Councils were able to present their projects in the ‘smarter cities, suburbs and towns’ section. These presentations covered many ideas such as Warrnambool’s Smarter Parking System and Bendigo City Council’s regional case study on use of the Internet of Things.

Attendees could decide between two topic focuses each day with presentations occurring simultaneously.

Industry experts were also able to inform attendees of their ideas for intelligent asset management.

Melbourne Water presented on its idea for technology to be applied through the asset lifecycle and Lycopodium Infrastructure explained its idea that asset management is much more than data collection.

The first afternoon of the conference included an overall engineering update and looked at news and views from across the public sector.

The excellence awards presentation then took attendees through the evening recognising outstanding work from across the sector.

The second day focused on sustainable livability and performance enhancement.

City of Whitehorse presented their strategies for managing former landfills in an urban areas and La Trobe Business School discussed motivation – understanding what drives employees high performance.

The final panel included speakers from Fulton Hogan and Swinburne Institute of Technology discussing new innovations and the younger generation of potential workers.

Across the two-day conference discussions and presentations encouraged key industry players from around Australia to network with their peers.

Attendees were able to learn about the latest trends and emerging technologies while developing technical knowledge to take back into the industry.