The Durban branch of the SAIMC held its October technology meeting, not on the first Wednesday of the month as usual, but on the second Wednesday to accommodate their very interesting presenter, Nico Erasmus from Abacus Automation. Nico started his career in process instrumentation at Eskom’s Kendal Power station in 1998 as a student, before joining the Heinz Food Company in 2005 at its tuna cannery on Mahe Island in the Seychelles. Joining Abacus Automation in 2007 as a project technician, in his words he was ‘gracefully guided’ over the past 17 years, to grow into the director and shareholder he is today.
Nico is the proud father of two teenage daughters, and they and Nico’s wife, Susan were present at the evening. Elsabe, the older of the two daughters has just competed in the African speed Rubik’s Cube championships, and was crowned the female runner up. Nico very cleverly used Elsabe’s skill with the Rubik’s cube to demonstrate the advantage given by a ‘hands-on’ approach to any task, which added to the evening’s interest and introduced an element of entertainment that is often missing.
This, of course, all tied into his original theme: ‘Digital development or division? An African context’. Today’s industry craze is all about creating digital twins, but is it also causing the digital divide? He showed how even the most sophisticated simulators in the world used by Formula 1 battle to get their simulations to match real-world results when on the racetrack. As Nico commented, this creates a distrust of simulated operations used for factory acceptance testing, especially in places like Africa where support is difficult to access. Additionally, it makes it harder and more challenging for young and inexperienced technical personnel as they seek to grow. It also makes it harder to create a cost-effective real-life application that can aid in both, and be flexible enough to adapt to different applications. This is a key obstacle but, as Nico showed, the good news is that it is not impossible.
A delicious dinner and further discussion followed the presentation. The Durban branch would like to thank Abacus Automation for its kind sponsorship of the evening.
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From left: Nico Erasmus, Elsabe Erasmus, Mark Calvert.
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