After a very successful two year tenure, Johan Maartens is stepping down as SAIMC president and his vice president, Vinesh Maharaj, is about to take over the reins. Johan’s energy and enthusiasm brought many positive changes to the Society, most notably perhaps the formation of subcommittees to tackle the important issues of career development and training, rebranding the organisation to reflect an image that is appropriate in 2013 and a rework of the constitution to support these.
Johan was the architect of transformation during his presidency and it is exciting to hear Vinesh talk of how he intends to build on that and keep the momentum going. He has set himself very clear and measurable objectives and the idea of formulating a five-year plan is exactly what is needed. The idea is to get input from key stakeholders as to the role we as the SAIMC can play in education, industry, society and our country as a whole.
Leaders in industry, academia and other interested parties, such as ECSA, will be invited to give input. The output will be a five year plan, to which future presidents will subscribe. Each year, part of the plan will be prioritised and executed. Council will have its objectives determined by this annual plan and the branch objectives will be aligned with that of council. The achievement of objectives will be measured every year at the AGM where members will decide if council and branches have succeeded or failed.
You can read more about the vision Vinesh is bringing in his first letter 'From the president’s desk'. We wish you well Vinesh, you are a fine leader.
Pinto’s prognostications
In his column this month Jim Pinto speculates that the Internet of things (IoT) will bring a new inflection point to automation technology. For industrial automation, the Cloud is a transformative approach that fundamentally changes how masses of IoT generated data can be used for real-time interaction.
He forecasts that major growth will result for companies that can demonstrate practical productivity results. Smartphones and tablets will be everywhere, with iPad, iPhone and Droid apps proliferating for just about anything you can imagine. In the automation world, the days when expert operators stayed behind control-room operator panels are quickly disappearing. Every technician can be an expert, working from any location with wireless connected tablets. Emboldened by mobile communications trends, supposedly conservative industrial plants and factories have begun to accept the clear advantages of industrial wireless sensors and actuators.
Jim also gives us his views on the annual list published by Control magazine of the top-50 automation companies in North America and the world. The top 10 are mostly unchanged apart from some place swapping, but it is interesting to see the gains GE has made after its separation from Fanuc. Read more about Jim’s views on his favourite growth companies in 'The Jim Pinto Column: Pinto's prognostications 2013'.
I hope you enjoy this issue.
Steven Meyer
Editor: SA Instrumentation & Control
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