From the president's desk

SAIMC

IBG - SA Instrumentation & Control Buyers' Guide

September 2006 SAIMC

It could be just me getting older or becoming too familiar with change, but it appears that many working within the industrial instrumentation field do not have any passion for the job.

To me this industry provides exciting new challenges each day. Because of the enormous range of engineering skills required of us, it seems impossible that anyone can be bored or uninterested in doing this job. However, on further reflection, because there are different personalities with different needs and pleasures, it is possible that some of those who prefer counting money have been trapped in the wrong job. I must now extradite myself from the hole that I have dug, by acknowledging that the world could not function without those who can be satisfied with work that is more focused.

Vivian MacFadyen, president

For me, I will stay with the invigorating experiences enjoyed in this profession, and I openly admit that I am a techno-junkie.

Take for example the relatively new technique of measuring flow using the Coriolis effect. Coriolis mass flowmeters operate on the principal that inertia forces are generated whenever a particle in a rotating body moves relative to the body towards or away from the centre of rotation. If you have not tried to understand this mouthful before, you can enjoy the experience of perception. Even if you understand, a demonstration is both dangerous and exciting - try throwing a ball to someone on the opposite side of a playground merry-go-round whilst it is rotating. The exciting bit is to stay on the merry-go-round, and evading the park supervisor.

Have you noticed, the year is drawing to a close and there is so much to do! One thing that you must diarise is the SAIMC annual banquet on 6 October. As usual this promises to be a prestigious event and will be held at the Rand Club in Johannesburg. To whet your appetite, I have copied this from their website.

"The Rand Club has indeed seen a great deal of the stuff of South African history. Dullness has never been one of its characteristics. Violence has lapped its very portals and it was once in a state of siege. It survived a war all around it without closing its doors. It has not only been a part of history: some of its members in its earlier years tried consciously to shape that history. And although today its traditional and massive internal architecture might suggest unbreakable links with a departed age, it is in fact a living and lively past, to changing times and customs. Its strength has not been in any long tradition or in any hallowed custom, but in the variety and character of its members."

Now it must endure another test, the SAIMC Banquet!

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From the president's desk

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