August 2011
Maintenance - a platform for growth
Nico de Villiers, in his article on condition monitoring in this issue, believes that conditioning monitoring is a differentiator for world-class company performance, and Martec's Mario Kuisis says that "ageing infrastructure, in both our public and private sectors, is threatening the reliability of our utilities and the competitiveness of our industries."
Clearly, poor maintenance standards could easily relegate SA into the lower tier of world nations, in terms of industrial performance. Maintaining a world-class economy is likely to be increasingly difficult for everyone. How does one develop world-class industry and how can we emerge was a world-class nation in these uncertain times?
We need to encourage all South African people and corporate citizens to look after what we have and to be proud to do so. If we can do that successfully, positive economic growth, reduced unemployment and a batter life for all will surely follow.
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In our special report for August, MechTech visits Consol's soon-to-be opened flint-glass bottle manufacturing facility in Nigel. The Nigel greenfield project is set to add a further 220 000 t/a to the company's current output, taking Consol's total glass capacity to over 1-million t/a - equivalent to 4-billion glass containers. The proactive maintenance, lubrication and contamination management feature leads with the highlights of the forthcoming annual Predictive Maintenance and Reliability Engineering conference, being held at ABB SA's headquarters in Johannesburg, from 4-5 October. Exciting news in the material handling and logistics feature, is Ludowici Meshcape's acquisition of leading SA screening media manufacturer Meshcape. The new entity is called Ludowici Meshcape. In heating, cooling, ventilation and air conditioning, we lead with ACTOM Mechanical Equipment's GM Craig Johnston's recent presentation at the Mining and Industrial Optimisation (MIEO) seminar, which examines some of the factors that influence the power consumption of industrial and mining fans. The manufacturing technology and plant automation feature includes a visit to Special Steels, to find out more about the role of imports in improving the competitiveness of the South African manufacturing sector. MechTech's popular innovative engineering article repots back on a visit to Coca-Cola SA/s new Heidelberg bottling plant for Valpré Spring Water - the greenest plant in Africa - and the first to introduce PlantBottleTM, a PET plastic bottle, formulated from renewable plant-based material. Features for the forthcoming September issue:
• Pump systems, pipes, valves and seals
• Robotics, mechatronics and automation
• Power, energy and energy management
• Modern transport and vehicle solutions
• Innovative engineering Please note that in October, we'll be covering:
• Power transmissions, bearings and bushes
• Computer-aided engineering
• Modern engineering materials and processing
• Hydraulic and pneumatic systems
• Innovative engineering
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