I would like to congratulate Vinesh Maharaj on becoming the vice president for 2012 and wish him everything of the best with this appointment as well as his new business opportunities here in Gauteng. (He moved from KwaZulu-Natal to Pretoria recently.)
I would also like to congratulate Johan van Jaarsveldt on his appointment as treasurer, a position that he has held successfully for many previous years.
The SAIMC has three goals for 2012:
* Education and training.
* Value for SAIMC members – what is it and how can we provide it.
* Re-branding of the SAIMC.
Although these are most definitely not the only activities of the SAIMC for provinces they are the ones that will get the most attention.
New job descriptions in automation
One of the activities that the SAIMC will concentrate on this year is catching up with the activities of the Automation Federation, We signed an Agreement of Cooperation during February 2012 and it was definitely a milestone for us. For instance, we have had many complaints that electricians are taking over the responsibilities of instrumentation engineers. There is a very good reason this is happening: many employers have no idea what the responsibilities of their instrumentation personnel actually entail. The job titles are extremely confusing and not implemented uniformly, and when salary surveys are conducted it is extremely difficult to gauge which jobs can be compared to which others.
The SAIMC is planning the implementation of a certification system whereby people will be able to get certificated in certain specialty roles. But, before this can happen, it is important to ensure that roles are properly defined and consistently applied. This will give companies the reassurance that a person certificated by the SAIMC will be equipped with certain knowledge and skill sets.
Automation professionals are engineers, technologists, technicians and others who create and apply technologies such as robotics, electro-optics, wireless instrumentation and systems integration to control manufacturing and production processes in many different industries. This is a high-tech environment that changes continuously and few people are equipped to handle it, hence the huge shortage of skilled workers in the industry.
The Automation Competency Model framework was developed through a collaborative effort involving the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and industry experts from the Automation Federation. A competency model is a clear description of what a person needs to know and be able to do – all the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to perform well in an occupation.
There are basically seven occupation descriptions that have already been finalised:
* Automation technician.
* Control software engineer.
* Control systems engineer.
* Advanced control engineer.
* Enterprise integration engineer.
* Automation network engineer.
* Automation sales and marketing professional.
I will define these positions further in the months that follow, this month please visit http://instrumentation.co.za/+C16332A for more information on the position of automation technician.
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