I was invited recently by Endress+Hauser South Africa to participate in the 2010 Interkama training tour to Switzerland, France and Germany. The 11 day itinerary began among the cherry trees of Basel, included visits to the company’s production facilities in the ‘Three-Countries-Region’ and culminated at the annual engineering fair in Hannover. It proved to be a most informative and enjoyable experience, despite the best efforts of an uncooperative volcano in Iceland to disrupt proceedings.
The company training presentations and facility tours sent a powerful message – professionalism. I have always believed that a professional is someone who will find the means to accomplish activities that are difficult for others and then do so in a way that seems elegant and untroubled. It was strikingly evident at the facilities we visited. From the clean rooms to the dispatch areas the processes complement each other while finished product rolls effortlessly off the conveyors without anyone really seeming to do anything. (Usually this is one of the differentiators between organisations that work ‘hard’ and those that work ‘smart’.) If you want to sell half a million electromagnetic flowmeters in seven years, and over a million in total, this is how to get the job done.
Particularly interesting for me was the visit to the E+H flowmeter calibration centre in Cernay, France. The big calibration rigs are capable of testing instruments with pipe diameters ranging from 1 millimetre to 2 metres using gravimetric techniques. Part of the set-up is a water tower 28 m high to ensure that pressure stays constant throughout the calibration cycle. If you are ever invited to visit you must – the attention to detail here can never be captured adequately in an article or photograph.
Then, the party moved to Hannover and an exhibition where it is just not possible to see it all. Under its new motto: ‘Efficiency – Innovation – Sustainability’ the event this year showcased new developments, technologies and materials from the world of industry. Attendance was reportedly down for the first two days due to the airline disruptions caused by the volcanic cloud. By Wednesday, when we arrived, the airports had been reopened and it was bustling. It was good to experience all the latest automation technologies at first hand, particularly noticeable was the growing prevalence of wireless communications and the impact that Web-based IT solutions are starting to make in the manufacturing environment.
And it was not all work either. Interspersed with the technology sessions were afternoons spent enjoying some of Germany’s brews in the sunshine at the BMW museum in Munich, along with rainy day visits to Bavarian castles in the mountains. There was also a raucous medieval dinner one evening where marketing manager Hennie Blignaut was ‘dubbed a knight’…but that is a story for another time.
Thanks to Rob MacKenzie and the Endress+Hauser team for this well organised event.
Scada reviews
June is the month in which the annual SA I&C scada reviews are published. We have changed the format slightly this year to include more information about the system integrators (where applicable) and the application statistics. As usual, the reviews are designed to offer an opportunity for control professionals to read objective opinions on the different scada options supported currently in the local market.
Bumper issues
As editor, one of the variables I am constantly faced with is the number of pages we can have in the magazine. This issue, and for the first time since I joined the team, the page count of SA Instrumentation and Control has gone into triple figures – something it has been threatening to do for some time. Sincere thanks from me to the contributing editors and production team who helped to put it all together. To all our advertisers: thank you for the support – it is what makes things possible. To all our readers: I hope you enjoy the issue.
Steven Meyer, editor: SA Instrumentation & Control
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