Mervyn Gans (right) thanked by branch chairman Howard Lister.
The March Technology Evening was held at the Durban Country Club and this month’s speaker was Mervyn Gans of Engen Refinery. His topic was: Functional Safety Systems for Instrumentation and Safety Integrity Level (SIL) Determination. The evening generated much interest and attracted record attendance.
Mervyn is well known to many Durban branch members and we were very pleased to host him. He graduated from the University of Natal in 1971 and holds a B.Sc. Eng (Elec) and M.Sc. Eng (Elec) and is also a certified functional safety professional. He is a senior member of the SAIMC and SAIEE and a member of the IET, and with nearly 40 years experience in the industry he was well qualified to talk to us.
It was during his time at Conlog that his interest in safety aspects came to the fore when he introduced the FSC (fail safe control) system into South Africa. This was subsequently taken over by Honeywell when Anglo American sold off the Conlog Systems Division. In 1997 he started the Systems Integration company Autotronix and then in 2002 he went back to his love of safety by engineering as lead engineer at Honeywell Safety Systems. He is currently principal IPF engineer at Engen Refinery and is responsible for all the IPF systems throughout Engen.
Mervyn gave a simplified (but really interesting) guide that provided members with an understanding of the basic principles of all aspects that are vital for the proper design and maintenance of all instrumentation that is used to protect lives, equipment and the environment.
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