The Secunda Branch ended 2015 on a high note and started 2016 on an even higher one. On 13 November, we hosted our first ever formal branch year-end function at Graceland Casino and Country Club. A total of 140 people attended and enjoyed an evening full of entertainment, great food, recognition and feedback of SAIMC activities for 2015. We would like to give a special thank you to Johan and Ina Maartens for attending this memorable event.
Johan Maritz (left) presents Samkelo Sithole with the 2015 Student of the Year award.
Samkelo Sithole, student at the Secunda VUT campus, received the 2015 Student of the Year award. He also received R1000 and a free membership to the SAIMC for 2016.
AGM
The branch AGM was held on 21 January at the Aveng offices in Secunda. Formalities of the evening included the annual chairman’s and treasurer’s reports, as well as the voting in of the 2016 committee. The Secunda committee is a dedicated group of people and are excited for to meet the challenges of the year to come.
2016 committee members. Back (l to r): John Phala (site visits), Rickus Kriel (events), Johan Maritz (chairman & events), Alan Docherty (vice chairman & marketing and education). Front: Xandri Cornelissen (secretary & publications), Marita van den Bergh (electronic communications & newsletters), Gerhard Swarts (treasurer), Floyd Nkuta (technology evenings).
Technology Evening
Johan Maritz (left) thanks Kenneth McPherson after the presentation.
On 4 February, Beckhoff hosted the first branch Technology Evening for the year. Kenneth McPherson presented the topic “Enabling Technology 4.0”, which is the German equivalent of the Industrial Internet of Things. The presentation gave insight into the origins and aims of this revolution. A simplified explanation is the combining of information technology (IT) and automation technology to create a manufacturing process that is able to self-optimise, self-configure, self-diagnose and gives intelligent support to workers. The purpose is to achieve flexible, efficient and sustainable manufacturing processes. It was also mentioned that not only can this process be implemented on green field projects, but it is possible to implement solutions on brown field applications as well.
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