Electricity + Control January 2019

COMMENT

ON THE COVER

Welcome to 2019 May the noise be less and the inspiration greater!

A s we find with all new years, this one starts with many changes. Some may be subtle, others rather more obvious. It is an election year, and that always holds the promise of intrigue and excitement. However, I am confident that the noise levels may recede just a bit – and that we will get back on with the task of building the economy. When we reflect on where we have been as a country, it becomes easy to imagine that times have never been worse. That, of course, is far from the truth. There are indications that Basic Education is improving in some respects; and we know that, as a sector, our tertiary education institutions are very good – without exception. There seems to be growth in the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector – and just the other day I saw a newspaper headline expounding the virtues of aTVET education as opposed to a varsity one. These are interesting things to be seeing. It does strike me that our industry needs high-level technical skills – andmany of those skills do not require a university degree. In fact, our entire profession and our industry is built on the foundations laid by skilled artisans. Again, if we consider the pyramid of skills that drives our industry, we need to remember that it should be broader at the base: more skilled artisans than technicians; more technicians than technologists; and more technologists than engineers. Our engineering programmes at university are massively over-subscribed –

and whereas I do think there is no harm in over-producing engineers (unlike in some other disciplines…), it implies that we may be deploying engineers at inappropriate levels in industry – and hence not operating optimally. We need to broaden that base! With this comes the ever-present spectre of the 4IR. Will all these skills be replaced? Well, I have commented on this before – but I am of the view that some formally protected disciplines (such as surgery and law) are quite probably at greater risk than the dextrous skills offered by skilled artisans. Think about that. My suspicion is that the 4IR offers untold opportunity to the technical disciplines – where the full ambit of human skill and intellect are combined to solve problems, install systems, trouble shoot and repair. I am hopeful that youngsters see this – and that our industry is ready to honour all levels of skills within our disciplines. Success, after all, is a team sport. May I wish you the very best for this year ... and see what you can do to up-skill a young person. We need that.

FEATURES: · Control systems+ automation · Drives,motors+ switchgear · Energymanagement+ environmental engineering · Lightning+ surge protection · Pressure+ levelmeasurement+ instrumentation

EC_Jan 2019 cover.indd 1 12/13/2018 3:38:23PM www.electricityandcontrolmagazine.co.za

Beckhoff has a new EL3783 power monitoring oversampling terminal for high-resolution diagnostics of alternating voltages up to 690 V AC. (Read more on page 13).

Magazine Team

Publisher: Deputy Publisher: Design & Layout: Advertising Managers:

Karen Grant Wilhelm du Plessis Adél JvR Bothma Helen Couvaras

Heidi Jandrell Karen Smith Ian Jandrell

Circulation: Editorial Technical Director:

Circulation

Circulation: Quarter 3 (Jul – Sept) Total print circulation: 4866

Contact

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Ian Jandrell PrEng IntPE(SA) BSc(Eng) GDE PhD, FSAAE FSAIEE SMIEEE

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