The Maintenance Engineering Society of New Zealand Inc (MESNZ) held their annual conference and Awards Dinner in Hamilton early October.
A core MESNZ mission is to “grow great engineers” and so they love to celebrate excellence in engineering.
The main award is the MESNZ Bill Buckley Engineering Scholarship for promising young engineers, sponsored and presented by their Patron, Bill Buckley. Recipients receive a cash award to be put towards their training or tools of trade. This year was an amazing line-up of brilliant applicants that made the judging process a real struggle for the judges. In the end an unprecedented eight applicants received the coveted award!
The recipients are: Sienna Robinson, Benjamin Steininger, Cassandra Hammond, Joel Granitzer, Kennedy Florence, Michael Rubery, Russell Macken, Wina Prasetyo.
Before any awards were presented Bill Buckley gave a brief talk, with the audience thoroughly enthralled. Bill is quiet and softly-spoken, but the room was silent as everyone listened intently to what he was saying. It was fitting that the Scholarship recipients got to get a sense of the excellence and achievement associated with MESNZ Bill Buckley Scholarship before they were presented with their award.
Starting last year the MESNZ also introduced four new MESNZ Excellence Awards:
- Best Safety Improvement Project, sponsored by PILZ NZ, and received by CR Automation for an innovative safety solution on a roll-forming machine. The award comes with Certified Machine Safety Expert (CMSE) training with a value of $4,000.
- Best Reliability Improvement Project, sponsored by Energy Systems Management. A whopping three recipients: Index Engineering Ltd for a machinery redesign project at Oji Fibre Solutions Kinleith pulp and paper mill; Fonterra Edgecumbe for implementation of an ultrasonic condition-monitoring programme; Mac Valves for their bag-house air valve retrofit project at NZ Steel. The award comes with Cat 1 ISO-Certified Airborne and Structure-borne Ultrasound Inspection training with a value of $3,000.
- Best Energy and Carbon Reduction Project, sponsored by Eurotec NZ, and won by Mac Valves for their baghouse air valve retrofit project at NZ Steel. The award comes with Cat 1 ISO-Certified Infrared Inspector training with a value of $3,000.
- Best Apprentice Training Organisation, sponsored by METEX Ltd. This Award is different in that only the Apprentices get to make the application, describing how good their organisation is at training apprentices. This was won jointly by Page Macrae Engineering and Red Stag Timber, with Materials Awareness & Failure-Prevention training with a value of $3,800.
The 2023 Awards Dinner was a thoroughly enjoyable evening with a special buzz and excellent feedback from those present. Kiwis are usually humble about our achievements or talent, or we think that perhaps we are not “worthy” enough for an award. But the application process is easy, so the MESNZ strongly encourage businesses and trainees to look out for the Awards for next year.
