What is the use?M
This month, I found myself having to answer a very challenging question received in a letter from one of our members – “What is the use of my SAIMC membership?”
It is not a question of what the SAIMC can do for you, but what you can do for the SAIMC. Hogwash! I do not believe in sayings like this. The SAIMC is a Section 21 company and if it does not bring value to the table then it has become obsolete.
Normally, when a company gets letters like these, the answer is: ‘Thank you very much for your letter of protest, we are taking it seriously and we will attend to your problem soonest’. Said in the hope that the person who wrote the letter has blown off steam and will now go away and leave us alone to do as we always did in the past.
The truth of the matter is that the Council of the SAIMC has been asking this question for the last two years – so what have we done about it?
Name change? Huh? So what?
It all started when the Innovations Committee, challenged by the question of whether we were delivering for members, compared the activities of the SAIMC against its constitution. We saw a gap as we were not addressing automation at all and set about resolving this, the challenge being to keep the SAIMC name intact.
Due to the fact that the SAIMC was no longer limited to South Africa, the SA in our name had become redundant. The name was eventually changed to the Society of Automation, Instrumentation, Measurement and Control.
As you might have guessed by now, this provided absolutely no immediate answers to the question: “What is the use of being an SAIMC member?
What! – another committee? If Moses had a committee the Israelites would still be in Egypt!
That may be the case, but the SAIMC Innovations Committee actually performed very well against objectives. It generated a document that compared the terms of our constitution against what we were actually doing. We conformed in the following areas:
* Regular technical evenings to keep members up to date with the latest on technology developments.
* Regular site visits.
* Regular social gatherings.
All well and good? Maybe, but that did not explain the shockwaves when we realised how small a part of the constitution we were actually honouring. We urgently needed a plan to close the gap, but there was no way to get our heads around all the possibilities. More confusion!
After a couple of months of head scratching, the Innovations Committee took the activities required to close the gap, grouped them into categories and prioritised them. The following targets for 2011 were set:
1. Communication among members – for this the SAIMC website was upgraded to incorporate a forum where all members across Africa can communicate with each other. Communication is still not on par with similar sites, but I am sure that our members will slowly get acquainted with the benefits and gather enough courage to actually post. Council is doing whatever they can to get members to use this facility, including encouraging Newbie’s.
2. Take our Industry to the youth – there are a few drivers for this target, among others, government’s desire to take engineering to the youth, our desire to get more people into this industry and a way for our Patron members to become even more visible through the drive. In this regard, I am glad to report that the Lego League trailer is nearing completion (a few months behind schedule but still in time for the 2012 competition).
Value for members
Currently this year, the SAIMC got involved in one of the biggest events of its kind – Process Expo. It was a tremendous experience and ended up a very successful event, the SAIMC being thanked publicly. We brought MESA into the fold, and, while they remain autonomous, the SAIMC is supporting their activities through administrative assistance. We also obtained full membership of the IIG (Industrial Instrumentation Group).
For the future, The SAIMC is involved in the first ever joint Foundation Fieldbus/Profibus workshop. It is also sponsoring two Mechatronic students to attend the 2011 Worldskills event in London. WorldSkills is the world’s largest international skills competition, young people from across the globe compete to be the best of the best in their chosen field. This year, 1000 competitors from more than 50 countries will compete in 46 skill areas.
Ongoing, we are working with Mark Dilchert, chairman of the IIG, and Eric Carter from TurboTrain, to develop a series of practical training programme for artisans, technicians and engineers.
In summary
I hope I have shown how the SAIMC is transforming in a way that adds value for members and in the process has become a trusted voice of industry to Government and other institutions.
There are still many items on our to-do list, but some will have to wait until 2012. In the mean time I urge everybody who has great ideas to register on our website www.saimc.net. Go to Forum>Council >Strategy and let us hear your voice.
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