For the second year, a student from the Namur Technical Institute wins the Prix Prof. Leenaerts
NAMUR - 5 July 2023 - BEMAS A.S.B.L., the Belgian professional association for maintenance, has awarded the Prix Professeur Leenaerts for the second time. The winner is Alexandre Dumont, a student on the 7th Qualification in Industrial Automated Systems Maintenance Technician at ITN - Namur. The student wrote his TFE on "The maintenance of electrical cabinets and measuring equipment". The prize is named after the founder of BEMAS, Prof. Robert Leenaerts. The winner receives a prize of €300, and the school receives a prize donated by Equans.
Maintenance technicians have been a profession in short supply for years. FOREM's online job vacancy database now contains more than 6,000 vacancies for maintenance technicians. This is almost 3 times more than the number of vacancies for nurses, traditionally referred to as the most understaffed profession. However, the number of schools offering specific training in technical maintenance is limited.
The Prix Professeur Leenaerts is a competition aimed at students in their final year or 7th year of specialisation in technical and vocational education, who are writing their TFE or an internship report on maintenance or reliability. With this prize, BEMAS wants to encourage young people in technical and vocational education to start their career in maintenance, like Professor Robert Leenaerts, with the ambition of becoming a real high-level industrial leader. The Prof. Leenaerts prize is already a first reference on his CV.
Winner and finalists
As a 7th year Industrial Automated Systems Maintenance Technician student, Alexandre Dumont presented a TFE on the maintenance of electrical cabinets and measuring equipment. For his TFE, he did a work placement at Mirrhia, an environmental monitoring company in the pharmaceutical and hospital sectors, where he analysed and improved the maintenance of electrical cabinets. He also created a system for tracking intervention reports using QR codes and online forms. The jury chose Alexandre Dumont for the quality of his internship report, his passion for maintenance, and his integration into Mirrhia's technical team, where he is currently working as a work-study student.
As winner of the Prof. Leenaerts Prize, Alexandre receives not only a certificate but also a cash prize of €300. The Institut Technique Asty-Moulin in Namur receives a useful prize donated by Equans. The prize is a set of 10 industrial safety helmets with face shields that protect against electric arcs in compliance with EN 397 and EN 50365 standards (value: €2,000). This will enable future students to simulate the correct procedures for safe electrical switching in an industrial environment. Pascal Leblanc, Senior Project Manager Reliability at Equans, presented the prize on behalf of Equans.
The other finalists, Nathan Bayet and Tom Hastir, received a cash prize of €100. Nathan Bayet aimed to explore the use of ultrasonic sensors for lubrication monitoring, also at EDF. Tom Hastir carried out a maintenance and lubrication report during his internship at Krones.
Proclamation
At the award ceremony at the Namur Technical Institute, BEMAS Director Wim Vancauwenberghe gave a brief speech and explained the idea behind the Prof. Leenaerts prize: "For us, Prof. Leenaerts is an example to follow. Robert Leenaerts obtained his engineering degree in Liège in 1959. He concentrated more on maintenance. In 1978, seeing how things were going in Belgian companies, he organised a symposium where he brought together some 200 maintenance professionals. This was the first breakthrough for maintenance in Belgium and paved the way for the creation of BEMAS. On 20 March 1989, he was behind the creation of BEMAS vzw-asbl. Professor Leenaerts was also the very first President of BEMAS. He passed away in October 2021 and BEMAS will continue to dedicate itself, as its founder did, to inspiring the Belgian community of maintenance and asset management professionals. "
BEMAS Corporate Sponsors
