ABB is to install advanced collaborative robotics for medical laboratories and hospitals, starting with a new healthcare hub at Texas Medical Center in Houston, US, in October. The new facility at Texas Medical Center’s innovation campus will focus on non-surgical medical robotics systems, a global market that is estimated at nearly 60 000 non-surgical medical robots by 2025.

Today, the technology exists to build sewage treatment plants that are 100% water and energy autonomous. This is demonstrated at the Veolia-built and operated T PARK sludge treatment facility in Hong Kong.

As witnessed during the recent floods in KwaZulu-Natal, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, clean water sources can become contaminated with bacteria that can cause diseases. Without adequate testing facilities on site, finding and processing water at the source can prove difficult. UJ’s Health Science faculty has come up with a solution.

Omnia’s new R670-million nitro-phosphate (NP) plant in Sasolburg, which has recently come online, is built around an innovative and highly efficient new production method that is going to be a game-changer for the company. Johnson Controls’ Sabroe compressors, which power a custom-build ammonia chiller plant, play an important role in achieving this.

Upgrading its Jet Park laboratory has given CHRYSO Southern Africa the capacity to expand its solutions to customers in fields including aggregates, concrete aesthetics and cement.

The value of Weir Minerals’ Warman® AHF pump range has been successfully proven at two mines in South Africa’s Limpopo province – one in platinum and the other in phosphates – pumping frothy, high density and viscous slurries.

WEG Automation Africa and WEG Transformers Africa, part of the Zest WEG Group, have shift DRDGOLD’s new Far West Gold Recoveries Project into high gear with the commissioning of a containerised substation and control room solution at the Phase 1 tailings site.

Arveen Gobind, one of Martec’s Asset Reliability Specialists, talks about the difference between reliability engineering and maintenance engineering and gives some tips about how companies can improve their business maturity through reliability.

Marthinusen & Coutts, a division of ACTOM, has successfully completed overhauls on a 70 MVA generator set for South 32’s Metalloys – within six weeks – and a major repair at Eskom’s Ingula pumped storage hydro-electric plant, which is the largest rewinding project ever conducted in South Africa. These achievements showcase a local capacity to take full control of large mechanical and electrical refurbishments.

Research into nanomaterials in South Africa was formalised in 2005 with the publication of the National Nanotechnology Strategy and its 10-year plan, but there remains a need for technologies to be developed and employed for large scale local manufacture of these materials. SAIChE IChemE President, David Lokhat compiles a technology overview.

“In Mixtec’s 35 years of doing business we have supplied more than 35 000 agitators – and we are growing stronger every year.” Mixtec’s Rudi Swanepoel presents the case for the company being amongst the world’s premier manufacturers of mixing and agitation technologies.

In his opening message for African Fusion this month, SAIW President and Eskom’s chief welding engineer, Morris Maroga urges against taking hasty and expedient decisions. Short term thinking doesn’t help anyone and yields only short term gains, but if we succeed in putting the economy back on track, everyone will gain for the foreseeable future, he says, before urging fabricators and manufacturers to focus on developing properly skilled young people for the future: “Without skilled people, it is impossible to realise an African continent with thriving economies, peace and prosperity – and there is no better time to upskill employees than now.”

Since the late 1970s, OMV (Pty) Ltd has been reprocessing a waste gypsum dump created by a phosphate fertiliser plant in Potchefstroom. MechChem Africa visits this now modernised plant and talks to OMV mechanical engineer, Marinus van den Berg and the company’s MD, Oscar Goudriaan.

Recognised as a finalist in the SACEEC Exporter of the Year Awards held in Johannesburg recently, Kwatani is one of few local manufacturers to hold an ISO 9001:2015 quality certification as well as a Level 1 B-BBEE rating. Significantly, the company was placed in the Exporter of the Year Large category and came second in the Export of the Year Africa category.

MechChem Africa visits the South African manufacturing facilities of Multotec’s Gravity Separation division and talks to the unit’s general manager, Wynand Erasmus, about spiral technology and the company’s latest product enhancements.

At a CTC-hosted annual open day to showcase its Artisan 4.0 training initiative, managing director Johan Venter urged industry to start preparing for Industry 4.0 now, to enable them to take advantage of creative collaboration between automated machines and highly skilled people.

The latest version of Altair’s flagship simulation platform, HyperWorks, unifies design, engineering and manufacturing communities for faster than ever development cycles.

Evert Janse van Vuuren from Omron Industrial Automation in Johannesburg, South Africa, talks about the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) on production lines and unpacks the advantages of and the differences between cloud and edge computing.

Bosch Rexroth South Africa Group of Companies continues to invest in its production floors – with Hytec Engineering, the latest Group company to have optimised its manufacturing and repair operations.

Deon Crous, BMG’s national product specialist for NORD Drive Systems talks about ideal solutions for sewage treatment, while Kelly MacIver, BMG’s Gears Business Unit manager talks about the Varvel Brand and its new worm drive solution for the PV Solar industry.