Andrew Tsz Chung MAK 麥子充

Andrew Mak is the Regional Director of Corporate Technology Partnerships for Air Products (www.airproducts.com). He strategizes, plans and manages the corporate intellectual assets in the Region. He has been the Senior Regional Manager in Process Engineering, supporting the company's project, engineering and manufacturing activities and a venture manager for a US$ 400 million capital investment project. Prior to Air Products, he worked for BHR Group Ltd (www.bhrgroup.co.uk) in Cranfield, UK and E I du Pont de Nemours Co, Inc in Wilmington, DE; Parkersburg, WV, in USA and in Singapore (www.dupont.com). Andrew has over 20 years of full time industrial experience. He is a chartered engineer and a fellow of Institution of Chemical Engineers.

Andrew's primary interest is in solid-liquid mixing research in stirred vessels. He is currently working on models which may describe, more effectively, the suspension and distribution of solid particles for industrial applications. With a better understanding of the fundamental governing mechanisms, one should be able to better predict the influence of physical parameters, geometrical configurations and scale upon performance, beyond where the correlations are established. This learning could bring valuable insights into the design and understanding of other solid-liquid processes.

Andrew is also interested in fluid flow related problems, especially their impact on equipment and process design. He believes that fluid mechanics could provide a very convenient platform to link together various unit operations during the design stage, whereas their individual design criteria may at times seem conflicting.

Andrew always strives for continuous improvement and optimization of chemical investments which include the appraisal of investment options; the evaluation of value chain to streamline project scope; the utilization of value engineering exercises during project phase; the fine tuning and on-line optimization of the facility while it is in operation. He also aims at performance excellence through exploration of plant expansion and retrofitting; multitasking; refining of work process and establishing a high performance work system and work force.