Approach

Our Approach

Strong teamwork is essential for successful project delivery. Downes Associates is always willing to take the extra step necessary to achieve this by participating fully and openly with the client and all members of the design team.

For every project, irrespective of scale, our aim is to provide designs which are, Functional, Creative, Elegant, Safe, Economic, Flexible and Sustainable.

As part of our design philosophy, we listen to client, architectural and design team requirements and use our expertise and experience to explore innovative solutions and technologies which meet the client’s brief, budget and desired programme.

Our experienced Project Directors and Senior Engineers are actively involved in all aspects of the design in an open office environment where creative problem solving is constantly discussed and encouraged.

This approach, in conjunction with our level of experience, knowledge and dedication to detail ensures that Downes Associates provide high quality engineering solutions on all projects.

Quality Assurance

Downes Associates has an ISO 9000: 2008 approved system to control quality of design, review of designs, checking of design calculations and checking of drawings. This quality policy is implemented by means of our procedures documents, which contain guidelines and standard forms to ensure that design solutions have been appropriately checked and reviewed as required by ISO9000 certification. Objectives and Goals are updated and reviewed to allow the Company to continually improve and the quality policy is continually reviewed to ensure it always meets the objectives of the organisation.

Downes Associates senior staff holds regular monthly in-house project meetings to review future personnel resources to ensure that all active projects are staffed satisfactorily. These review meetings highlight potential forthcoming peaks or troughs in demand for resources thus allowing the managed allocation of forecasted resources on a week by week basis.

In conjunction with the above, Downes Associates senior staff holds regular monthly in-house managerial meetings. The purpose of these meeting is to monitor, discuss and amend technical library, computer equipment and software, membership of relevant institutions and to generally share and discuss engineering ideas to ensure the delivery of consistent high quality engineering design from the organisation.

CPD

Continued Professional Development (CPD) of the staff at Downes Associates is essential to the ongoing success of the Practice in meeting the demands of projects. As a recognition of the importance of CPD, Downes Associates is a member of the Engineers Ireland CPD programme.

Downes Associates has a policy and framework to develop all personnel in order to maximise team and individual contributions to the organisational objectives. Downes Associates believes in the promotion of career satisfaction and progression through providing relevant internal training and education, participation on new projects and acquiring new skills is key to individual and organisation success.

Downes Associates supports the development of the working team, so those individuals can acquire additional skills for their present positions and new skills for future opportunities within the organisation. All employees working for Downes Associates are encouraged to take advantage of development programmes both within and outside the organisation. As recognition of the importance of CPD, Downes Associates is accredited with Engineers Irelands CPD programme to ensure best practice for our CPD policy.