MESA forums focus on sustainability

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IBG - SA Instrumentation & Control Buyers' Guide

September 2010 News

2010 is the year selected by the MESA SA executive committee to focus on sustainability in manufacturing. This year’s first user forum was hosted by Sappi at its group head office in Braamfontein. The forum was opened by Paulo de Sousa Gomes who introduced MESA as the Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association, whose objective is to promote MES (manufacturing execution systems) in southern Africa through education and events.

The first presentation titled ‘Where are we going?’ was made by Liezl Krummeck, regional chairperson for Sappi’s sustainability council. Liezl provided an overview of Sappi’s sustainability mission and explained why this has become an important business imperative for the company. The next presentation covered corporate sustainability, presented by André Oberholzer, Sappi group head corporate affairs. André’s presentation stressed the importance of building an internal understanding to support behaviour change based on Sappi’s sustainability charter. The last presentation was given by Dr Paolo Gianadda on ‘Energy 101 – Environment, Energy and Climate’. This was based on Sappi’s energy focus and its roadmap beyond 2010.

Liezl Krummeck

André Oberholzer

Finally, partially sighted motivational speaker, Leon Steyn, gave a fascinating talk on ‘HMI – A new Perspective’. This gave the attendees an inspiring view on how partially sighted persons deal with the daily challenges normally sighted people take for granted.

The second forum, hosted by EOH on 3 August, continued the sustainability theme with very informative presentations by the guest speakers. The forum was opened by Gerhard Greef from Bytes and facilitated by Paulo de Sousa Gomes from Honeywell.

[L to R]: Bobby Kupresan (PBMR), Shaun Tosen (Sappi), Gerhard Greef (Bytes), John Coetzee (SAB) and Ugan Maistry (EOH)

The first presentation was made by John Coetzee, business systems manager: manufacturing, SAB. He spoke about SAB systems and sustainable manufacturing. The next presentation by Bobby Kupresan of PBMR focused on cyber security in industrial control systems and stressed the importance and implications of security on sustainability. The final speaker was Claire Janisch, senior associate of the Cambridge Programme for sustainability leadership in South Africa and a founding director of Engineers for a Sustainable World SA. Claire’s presentation was an insightful look at the field of biomimicry and how wonderfully the creatures in nature can provide us with answers about how to do things with less negative impact on the environment in the future.

Presentations can be downloaded from http://rcpt.yousendit.com/922380655/48e866f6c957bf368759185721abcdd7

The highlight of the year will be the annual conference scheduled for 21 October.

For more information contact Shaun Tosen, MESA SA, +27 (0)11 407 8212, [email protected]

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