During 2007, I had the opportunity to visit the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen a town on the northern side of Lake Constance (Bodensee) in southern Germany, near the borders with Switzerland and Austria. Probably the most famous airship built was the Hindenburg built in 1931 to a new, all-duralumin design.
Vivian MacFadyen
It was a visually striking airship, 245 m long and 41 m in diameter, longer than three Boeing 747s placed end-to-end, and only 24 m shorter than the Titanic. It was originally equipped with cabins for 50 passengers and a crew complement of 40, though on the last flight there were an additional 21 crew members in training.
The centrepiece of the museum is a reconstruction of a 33 m section of the craft. What struck me was the size, the opulence of the accommodation, and mostly the skill of the construction crew. The duralumin frame was extremely light, and I almost hurt myself when lifting a 15 000 X 300 X 300 mm section because I was not expecting it to lift so easily. There were literally millions of rivets holding the aircraft frame together, and these were not pop rivets, each one had to be fitted with hand tools.
The workers must have had great pride in themselves and it showed in their workmanship. The rivets were set expertly, the metal cut precisely, and even though the frame would not be normally visible, it was perfectly finished.
In contrast, I live in the neighbourhood of a recently constructed shopping mall and the workmanship is incredibly shoddy, especially since we now have far better machine tools to use.
I believe today's workers in South Africa are just as capable as those in Germany, but unfortunately they have not been trained by skilled master workers. These experienced people have been abnormally displaced but are still out there, and given the right opportunity, could become valuable mentors to the new workforce.
The upliftment of our work ethic needs to be done holistically, and not hindered by lack of insight and prejudice.
Read more...SAIMC: Johannesburg branch SAIMC
SAIMC
Jenine Jansen van Vuuren from Comtest delivered a presentation at the SAIMC Johannesburg technology evening, focusing on electric vehicle charging stations and the key metrics that govern their functionality.
Read more...SAIMC: Durban branch SAIMC
SAIMC
At the monthly meeting of the Durban branch of the SAIMC, Smunye Memela, project manager and switch gear specialist at Gubhuza 3 Trading presented on the subject ‘From sensors to insights: predictive maintenance in action’.
Read more...SAIMC knowledge sharing event SAIMC
SAIMC
SAIMC will host a technical knowledge-sharing session by Hendrik Spies from SICK Sensor Intelligence, who will share his insights into ‘From Condition Monitoring to Predictive Maintenance: The Digital Journey’.
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SAIMC
: At the SAIMC Durban monthly meeting, James Adams from Adroit Technologies presented to a full house on the subject of ‘The intelligent factory: AI, digital twins, zero-defect production, and cybersecurity in modern automotive manufacturing’.
Read more...SAIMC: From the office of the CEO SAIMC
SAIMC
AI has become part of our productivity platforms, our operations and our decision making environments. The SAIMC NPC Power Hour series is one such initiative.
Read more...SAIMC: Johannesburg branch SAIMC
SAIMC
The March SAIMC Johannesburg technology event was proudly hosted by Matech and focused on business intelligence made simple.
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