Harrison Grierson makes H&S history The New Zealand owned engineering and design consultancy, Harrison Grierson, recently made health and safety history, with the highest score ever recorded in New Z ealand for Sitewise certification. The company scored an impressive 99% with 153 out of 155 possible points for its annual health and safety assessment. Harrison Grierson’s HSE manager, Amandeep Kaur, says the company was very proud of its achievement, which reflects its strong commitment to workplace safety. Harrison Grierson employs over 300 people in six offices across New Zealand. It is New Zealand’s oldest established engineering consultancy and works in four key market sectors, Land and Buildings, Water and the Environment, Utilities and Transport. SiteWise is an online prequalification system that grades contractor’s health and safety capability and publishes that grade in a database. It was created in response to the influx of construction contractors and subcontractors into Christchurch after the Canterbury earthquakes. After success in Canterbury, the system was rolled out nationwide. www.engineeringnews.co.nz 9 Mastercam sponsors 2017 FIRST Robotics Competition Mastercam has announced sponsorship of the 2017 FIRST Robotics Competition by granting use of the Mastercam Educational Suite for the duration of the competition to teams in need of CAM software. “We are proud to be able to supply the use of Mastercam software to the teams involved in the FIRST Robotics competition,” says Doug Nemeth, CNC Software’s director of sales. “Along with the use of industry leading software, these teams will have access to our worldwide network of Resellers, who will be there to assist and mentor the FIRST teams when needed. It is vitally important that we show students, parents, and teachers that a career in manufacturing is rewarding, high tech, and fun. We support the efforts and vision of FIRST, as it aligns with CNC Software’s vision of the importance of manufacturing in education.” The FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition is held yearly. High school-aged teams and adult mentors the world over compete head to head on a special playing field with robots they have designed, built, and programmed. Under strict rules, limited resources, and the guidance of volunteer mentors Why would a company need to impose a short sighted blanket clamp on spending if your maintenance budget is linked live to a five year rolling forecast? Many times have I encountered engineering managers sweating about key performance indicators (KPI’s) in deference to what’s actually happening with their own systems. Why don’t you have the confidence to develop your own measures that tell your customers how good you are? Think about your own situation – if your internal customers thought your department was the best thing since sliced bread, delivering the highest plant reliability at the lowest delivered cost for the greatest operational confidence, why would your boss need to beat you around the head with KPI’s, KRA’s or worse still, a contrived service level agreement? Convinced yet? Enough examples. I am sure you can think of your own. Regardless of the topic, my whole point is that engineers need to lift their game and aim for professionalism, regardless of their industry or situation. Check your own barometer. How would your site respond if I asked them what they really want from their engineering department? I would wager that they would desire a proactive function delivered as professionally as the other business functions. Sadly, like the 80/20 rule, most engineering departments I encounter have their heads down in the trenches, dodging bullets. The good news is, the journey from ‘ok’ to ‘excellence’ is not that difficult and does not take a lot of expense, training, resources or tools. It takes the cheapest, most effective resource out there, attitude. There are some distinct steps along the way and embedded cultures that you might have to stomp on, but the rewards are enormous, in dollar and self-esteem terms. If I haven’t touched a nerve, then good on you. You either have your act together and are already a white knight of engineering (20%er), or are blissfully unaware of a world outside of the trench. If, as I suspect, you recognise at least one example, do yourself a favour and consider today how you can lift your game. If you are part of a corporate group, consider how you can collectively harvest the best of what you do to lift the game of all of your sites. If you work in isolation, a great starting point is by talking to your peers and mentors at the Maintenance Engineering Society (MESNZ). MESNZ strives to support and lift the game of maintenance engineers in New Zealand. That is why MESNZ receives my full support. MESNZ seeks to encourage those in the 20% bracket to share their experience and achievements with the other 80%. The society achieves this by recounting its collective experiences and inspirations to maintenance engineers throughout the country, via print, mentoring, the National Maintenance Engineering Conference or connecting companies with practitioners . Regardless of your role in the maintenance function, customer or department member, talking to the MESNZ via any forum is a great way for you to begin lifting your game. including engineers, teachers, business professionals, parents, alumni, and more, teams of 25+ students have just six weeks to build and program robots to perform challenging tasks against a field of competitors. They must also raise funds, design a team “brand,” hone teamwork skills, and perform community outreach. In addition to learning valuable STEM and life skills, participants are eligible to apply for $25+ million in scholarships. SIGN UP FOR YOUR FREE eMag www.engineeringnews.co.nz N E W S
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