In another twist on their popular network evening theme the Maintenance Engineering Society held a network evening with a difference in Manukau in October when it teamed up with the Heavy Engineering Research Evening (HERA) and Australasian Corrosion Assn (ACA) to hold an Awareness Evening variant of its Kaeser Compressors Network Evening Series.
Brainchild of MESNZ stalwart Larry Wiechern, the awareness evening centered on learning and the latest expert advice. Three short presentations were given, each one providing some interesting insights and a great many 'take-away' learnings.
General Manager of HERA's Welding Centre Michail Karpenko kicked-off the learning with a brief overview of the importance of quality management and steel compliance. Some of the costs incurred in the cases mentioned were staggering. Attendees got to see a fascinating video of seismic testing of a welded steel joint.
This was followed by "Rusty steel: Issues and solutions" by Raed El Sarraf, a Corrosion and Asset Integrity Consultant with Opus. It is only after seeing a presentation like this that you look around and see the magnitude of mistakes we all make in designing to minimise corrosion.
Barry Robinson, General Manager of S.A.F.E Ltd, was the final presenter with "How the life of steel is affected by what you do to it". This was a real eye-opener showing the types of mistakes every engineer makes on a weekly if not daily basis as they go about fabricating steel products.
The 3 presentations were well received, as was the light refreshments afterwards and opportunity to view sample pieces from the contributing companies. The success of the first awareness evening warrants a repeat of the formula across the country.
The Kaeser Compressors Network Evening series is as much about exchanging information and solutions as it is about spectacular achievements or interesting maintenance challenges and the awareness evening did not pull up short on ensuring our designers, fabricators and maintainers are up to play with the issues facing them in industry.
The MESNZ Kaeser Compressors Network Evenings are hosted to showcase local operations and provide networking opportunities for engineers across all regions of New Zealand. The evenings offer the opportunity to take a look at the host operation and discuss common issues and solutions in a relaxed after work environment. Open to interested members of the public, the nights are well patronised.
The Maintenance Engineering Society is active across New Zealand, providing professional development opportunities for maintenance engineers and manufacturing operations to network and share innovations and experiences; both at a national level at their annual national conference or at these regional events. The 2017 National Maintenance Engineering Conference will be held at the Claudelands Ev
