Technology evening
The July technology evening was held at the Durban Country Club on 4 July, but nobody seemed interested in celebrating American Independence Day. We did, however, have a record attendance – close on 50 people – who came to hear Mark Calvert, managing director of Industrial Control & Automation, speak about the do’s and don’ts of project work, and take us through the process of a typical project execution cycle (with a real case study example). Mark’s enthusiastic but down to earth approach resonated with the captivated audience, and he was able to give plenty of practical tips on how to get systems and process right in a frenetic world of schedules and deadlines.
Having successfully executed many projects, Mark is eminently qualified to present on this interesting and complex topic. In his experience, many clients want to go from a conceptual discussion to pressing the start button without paying attention to proper planning and design, and the associated costs. Mark highlighted exactly how projects should be executed correctly. Conversely, he also examined the dangers of not doing projects accurately, and what the cost implications could be.
His experience and insight derived from experience in all facets of E&I projects has resulted in the company experiencing tremendous growth – recently they were busy with 11 projects in five different countries and he shared some of this insight with members.
Mark spent nine years at AECI after leaving school, working on a site that comprised several different plants and many different technologies, ranging from pneumatics to modern electronic instrumentation. These years laid a solid foundation for his future career as a technical sales representative and then regional sales manager at Yokogawa, before starting his own company 18 years ago.
The branch thanks Mark for his presentation and generous sponsorship of the evening.
We were also proud to introduce members and visitors to the new president of the SAIMC, Annemarie van Coller, who gave a brief overview of what council has been working on and their plans for the future. It was a pleasure hosting Annemarie and great to have her at our meeting!
Site visit
The branch recently organised a site visit to the UKZN physics laboratory, where head of department, Dr Mathew Moodley, showed interested attendees the ground-breaking work they are doing, and why UKZN is the leader in Africa with this technology.
The enhancement of information security is pivotal because of the rapid developments in digital technology. The fourth industrial revolution sees the merger of science and physical systems to develop emerging technologies based on artificial intelligence, robotics, Internet of Things, 3D printing, nanotechnology and quantum computing.
Quantum-enabled devices are based on the ability to control light on the single photon level. To date, information is protected using the classically constructed mathematical algorithms. However, these can often be ‘cracked’ through brute force attacks.
An alternative method to secure information is by exploiting the laws of physics through an application known as quantum communication. The method is based on a secure key for date encryption through the encoding of quantum carriers in the form of single photons.
Quantum carriers are encoded as quantum bits (qubits) which are transmitted through a quantum channel which can be free-space or fibre. QKD (quantum key distribution) is implemented via transmitters and receivers. Post-processing is performed to further enhance the security of the generated key by eliminating any errors that may occur during transmission, which leads to a shared secure key that can be used for encryption.
The branch thanks Dr Moodley for arranging the visit and introducing members to this futuristic new technology. Interested readers visit www.instrumentation.co.za/+J3610 for more detail about the work of the Quantum Research Group.
| Tel: | +27 11 312 2445 |
| Email: | ina@saimc.co.za |
| www: | www.saimc.co.za |
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