SAIMC Durban Branch

SAIMC

IBG - SA Instrumentation & Control Buyers' Guide

June 2005 SAIMC

The Durban branch has had a good start to 2005, meeting on the last Wednesday of every month at the German Club in Westville.

In January we had a presentation sponsored by G&D Agencies on a new technology power saving device. This was a very topical issue considering the capacity of electricity supply in the country at present.

In March, Phoenix Contact kindly sponsored an evening and presented the topic 'Industrial Ethernet Solutions in the convergence of the IT and plant floor/mining environments'. Lorè Holzhauzen graphically explained the differences between traditional IT equipment such as hubs, switches and routers, and the industrial specifications for the equivalent devices in a factory type environment. The information related to redundant network configuration as well as prioritising of important data streams over less critical data was excellent and everybody (even those less IT-enabled) found the presentation informative. It is clear that Industrial Ethernet is advancing tremendously.

Left to right – John Owen-Ellis (SAIMC), Loré Holtzhausen (Phoenix Contact presenter), Stuart Hall (Phoenix Contact DBN), Brett Randall (Phoenix Contact DBN), Dean Trattles (Chairman – SAIMC Durban Branch)

Our April meeting was kindly sponsored by Jaako Poyry and the topic was titled 'The Virtual Mill - ProElina 3 Mill information management'. The graphics were exceptional and everybody present was impressed by the 3D capabilities of the software as well as the seamless movement between a 3D rendering of the plant itself, and the data related to each discrete component. While 'walking' through the mill, one can simply click on a pump to view the data sheet, pump curves and other related information. It demonstrated the extent to which engineers now rely on a powerful database to store relevant information regarding a project as well as the ease of use of the Web enabled tools. The line between CAD software and document management tools is becoming more and more blurred.

Left to right – Bernard Chadrou (J-P), Barrie Skinner (SAIMC), Tomi Lonka (J-P), Warren Wootton (J-P), Keith Forrest (J-P), Brett Boswell (J-P)

The Durban branch continues to host top class speakers with interesting and informative topics and we look forward to your support. We would also like to thank those companies that continue to sponsor the evenings - your support is appreciated.

Warren Sachs

Branch PR

SBCPro@beier.co.za

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