Sparks Electrical News November 2018

CONTRACTORS’ CORNER

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PERSONALITY OF THE MONTH –MARCEL KELLY

KEEPING IT SIMPLE

complex issues on site.

Sparks: What is your favourite quote? MK: “Get busy living, or get busy dying,” Steven King.

Sparks: Name three things on your ‘bucket list’. MK: I would like to visit Disney World in the USA, go surf the pipe in Hawaii, and go on a beach holiday in Thailand.

Enquiries: www.woodbeam.co.za

Marcel Kelly

W ith over two decades in the industry, Marcel Kelly, Sales Engineer at Woodbeam, a local company delivering substation protection,metering,auxiliary relaying,SCADA,and automation and Ethernet networking systems and solutions, still enjoys working in the evolving, dynamic environment that is the electrical industry.

MK: Martin Bell at SPDL; the gravity he brings to a meeting and/or presentation is really impressive.

Sparks: What, to your mind, is one of the biggest challenges facing the industry at this time? MK: With advances in the complexity of devices, comes the greater need for specialists and skills.

Sparks: Where were you educated? MK: I studied at Cape Technicon.

Sparks: What do you enjoy most about your job? MK: Meeting lots of different people with vastly differing needs.

Sparks: How long have you been involved in the electrical industry? MK: I have worked in the industry for 22 years.

Sparks: How do you motivate your staff? MK: I motivate staff with a fairly complex incentive scheme, and by assisting wherever I can. Sparks: If you could ‘do it all again’, would you change anything? If so, what would that be? MK: I would have become a dentist. They charge like wounded buffalos! Sparks: Would you advise a person leaving school to enter the electrical industry? MK: I would, mainly because it is a fast changing and forever evolving dynamic environment in which to work. Sparks: What is your advice to electrical contractors and/or electrical engineers? MK: Keep it simple, I prefer to go home and sleep at night, not solving

Sparks: When and where did you start your career? MK: I started in 1996 at what was then Nampak Mono Containers in Cape Town. Sparks: What are the greatest changes you have seen over the years? MK: The biggest change for me has been the transfer from analogue to digital technology. Sparks: What major projects have you worked on and what is your greatest accomplishment? MK: Quite a few, most notable include the Transnet signals infrastructure upgrades and PRASA traction.

Sparks: Who has been your inspiration or have you had a mentor who has influenced your career?

TALKING ELECTRICITY WITH ANDREW LUKE DAPSHIS

UPDATING TO BECOME OUTDATED F or many years now companies have been depending on PLCs, IPCs and PACs to improve production lines in every facet

Group coined the term Programmable Automa- tion Controller. A PAC combines the capabilities of an IPC with a PLC, in essence, two or more processor-based devices linked together to auto- mate control over multiple pieces of equipment. There is no IPC, PLC or PAC that does not basi- cally perform the same function – control. It all depends on what is required by the customer or installation. More memory, more function, better speed or better price; all these factors and more determine which is best for the required opera- tion. Since the 1960s we have progressed to the point where one controller can multitask across numerous machineries. As future generations of mechatronic engineers, specialist electricians and robotic programmers try to find quicker, cheaper and faster ways to produce, there will always be a next model, another programming language or an additional electrical device to stun and amaze. To think for a second that we have reached the pinnacle of progress is ludicrous. We still have much to improve and many more updates to come our way.

relay-based systems. By the end of the 1980s it had been continuously adapted as remote (single processor controlling Inputs/Outputs) and distributed (multiple processors controlling Inputs/Outputs) inputs and outputs became the norm as technical staff moved to more control- lable, dependable solutions to their automation requirements. The limitations of PLCs became obvious once it was possible to program them via a personal computer. This lead to the birth of the IPC (Indus- trial Personal Computer), which was supposed to ‘take over’ the industry in the 1990s but wasn’t adaptable enough to make the impact expected. The IPC is built to handle hazardous environ- ments, high temperatures, etc. Much higher in cost than normal personal computers because of the specialised hardware required – and its sometimes compact size – it was not, in its early days, seen as a necessity by most of industry. Yet, as time progressed and new advancements were made, it become more cost- and user-friendly. Come 2001, a company called Arc Advisory

of manufacturing, from cars and computers to loaves of bread. Everything has turned to auto- mation and robotics, advancing the process and putting more faith in machinery than in human counterparts. Recently, one of the major players in automa- tion released its latest IPC range with a claim that it would never need updating and would be able to cover all a company could possibly need for its automation requirements. This statement goes against everything we have seen in our quest to find an as close to per- fect solution as we can to streamlining manufac- turing via robotics and automation. But, before we get into the pointless argument of which is best, let’s get to know the contestants a bit better. As the pioneer controller in the automation in- dustry, the programmable logic controller (PLC) is most well-known. It has been around since the end of the 1960s and was introduced to replace

NOVEMBER 2018 SPARKS ELECTRICAL NEWS