Hot on the heels of the successful public listing of TeleEye Holdings Ltd, CityU is banking on yet another winner in the Smart Asset Management (SAM) Research Laboratory, which was launched at a donation ceremony on 14 May. 

In his opening address, Vice President (Research) Professor P S Chung said he has great expectations for the laboratory's "electronic ear", one of SAM's innovative research projects. "It has the potential of becoming another successful company along the lines of TeleEye," he said.

The SAM laboratory's mission is to help industry, especially public utilities and building services, achieve near-zero breakdown in equipment maintenance and service. Through the use of novel technologies such as its "electronic ear" and Web-based remote maintenance, SAM provides expert service in equipment monitoring, fault diagnosis, reliability management and failure prevention.

SAM consolidates industry collaboration through a membership system. Six current members are MTR Corporation, Swire Properties Ltd, Bruel & Kjaer (Hong Kong), S&V Samford Ltd, Fixturlaser China Ltd and SKF China Ltd. Members are given access to the

laboratory's instruments. The main membership benefit, said Dr Peter Tse, Director of the SAM Research Laboratory, is the convenience of an on-site pilot plant to help day-to-day problems.

At the inauguration ceremony, member company representatives presented a donation of HK$ 1,015,000 to the SAM laboratory. Following the ceremony, Dr Tse conducted a laboratory tour of the laboratory.