Electrex 2002
At a meeting with TML Reed last week it was decided to amend the name of our next exhibition to Electrex - process control and automation - 2002 - this will clarify the purpose of the exhibition. I must also point out that potential exhibitors can get up to 20% discount on their floor space. By signing up before the end of June 2000 to get a 10% early bird discount and, if not yet a Patron Member of the SAIMC, joining up to get a 10% Patron Members' discount. The exhibition is scheduled for 13 to 15 March 2002, again at Gallagher Estate and will be combined with Fluidtrans and Airtech. This is a good mix as pneumatics and hydraulics are becoming integrated with PLCs and scadas. Just look at Festo and Bosch as typical examples.
Jo Melville, MD of TML Reed, has kindly offered to sponsor the guest speaker at the SAIMC Formal Dinner at the year-end. This means that we will be able to get someone really dynamic to add to the attraction of the evening. Watch this space!
Exhibitions galore
John Immelman, our past President, sums up the situation extremely well in an e-mail circulated this month, to quote: "We have recently congratulated ourselves on our success in bringing some commercial common logic to the exhibition market place for control and instrumentation. It did appear that our wish for one exhibition every two years would materialise. Now we are back to two exhibitions every year -an alternating Electrex/Tradeworx and a Kyalami exhibition! It is my view that we should collectively make our requirements known to these players and then withdraw our support until there is a suitable solution; possibly one big exhibition and one Kyalami every alternate year." (Send your comments on e-mail to [email protected])
Mentoring
Amongst the many ideas that the SAIMC council promotes is one of mentoring. As mentioned before I was privileged to have been mentored by the late Gus Tilch in the sixties. I believe that for engineers or technicians to be really useful to our industry (or themselves) they need to have a solid grounding in the practical application of process control. The old days of apprenticeships with the emphasis on practical training seems to be falling away and replaced by a more thorough theoretical training at Universities and Technikons.
These graduates need experience that can be acquired by the one-year's practical training called for by Technikons or by mentoring. At Instrotech we have had a policy of employing two students each year from Witwatersrand or Pretoria Technikon for their practical training. The mentoring is not of a formal nature as various in-house experienced engineers and technicians take part in their training. In most cases the students, having completed their practical, are given an opportunity to be employed on a permanent basis. Those who move on into the process control field have the advantage of a good practical background and have not had problems finding employment.
A measure of the success achieved is indicated by Andy van der Barselaar winning the Eskom Award for the best final year project and Mohammed Sali-Ameen winning last years Industrial Communications Competition sponsored by Schneider Controls, Industrial Data Communications and Crown Publications.
Skills Development Levy (SDL)
As most of our Patron members should know by now, we have a levy that must be paid to the Receiver of Revenue for skills training. John Crossland, who is head of our Education sub-committee, noticed that no Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) had been allocated for our industry. This would have meant that any levies for training paid by us would have gone to other industries. He made waves about it and we now have our own SETA class for industrial process control equipment. Please advise your financial administration people that the new reference is SETA Code 37430. - Thanks John.
Dave Howcroft
(011) 462 192
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