WHAT’S HAPPENING OUT THERE
We as employees of a company, often operate in our own space and the activities of others are sometimes lost on us. Below we will try and give some insight into what functions and services are being provided by either your colleagues of the Gauteng Branch or the employees of other branches of Southey.
…in Cape Town
Our Cape Town branch has become the 2nd largest owner of High Pressure Pumps in South Africa.
This accolade gives them the capacity to undertake some of the largest and most complex Ultra High Pressure cleaning contracts. This service is complimented by their two very big and highly sophisticated vacuum units.
These units are able to work
in some of the most hazardous situations due to their safety systems. Work is presently being done on offshore contracts (mostly off the coast of West Africa) and on the refineries around South Africa.
2500Bar UHP Water Jetting Units
Vacuum Unit working in Cape Town Docs
..in Durban
Our Durban branch has purchased a number of Thermal Spray Aluminium units.
This equipment gives them the capacity to spray an aluminium coating on to steel surfaces, which provides an exceptional corrosion barrier. The biggest application for this corrosion prevention system is presently for “under insulation corrosion” application.
A pipe being coated with aluminium via TSA systems
…in Richard’s Bay
The branch in Richard’s Bay provides a number of the facilities in the area with conveyor wind guards.
Richard’s Bay, being an export terminal, is littered with conveyor systems and, as is common at the coast, the wind blows. These wind guards prevent the materials being transported by conveyor from being blown off, thus reducing waste and pollution. This is another innovative idea that was developed by the very capable and inventive personnel working there.
Conveyor Windguard in place on a conveyor in Richards Bay
…at our Power Station Contracts
At our power station contracts, a lot is asked about our personnel and the equipment we supply to them.
For the outages on the “Big 6” Coal fired power stations, large quantities of scaffolding needs to be brought onto site, erected and dismantled in exceptionally short periods of time. There is always a huge safety risk and the management of these risks lies squarely on the shoulders of the management of these contracts. They go out of their way to manage, mitigate and nullify these risks so that all of our personnel can go home every evening.
…at our Sheeting Division
Our Sheeting division have been undertaking a very interesting roofing installation at the Medupi Power Station.
In this case, the “roof” is made up of 3 elements and these are
- a mineral wool filled panel with 0.5mm chromdek on either side, followed by
- a 3mm coating of polyurea and then
- a conventional “IBR” type roof installed on the top of all of this.
This is a contract that requires a great deal of co-ordination and planning
and has been very well executed by Tate & Nicholson. After a somewhat tentative start, they have been applauded for their safety systems and the practical implementation of these at the job site. Well done to all involved.
APPOINTMENT OPPORTUNITY
STAFF NEWS
We welcome 2 new employees to the Gauteng division :
-
Egmont Dennyschen
has been appointed as the Quality Manager. He has extensive Eskom experience as well as a good knowledge of the ISO901-2008 system. We welcome his novel and enthusiastic approach and wish him well in his endeavors to “re-invent” the quality system.
Egmont Dennyschen
-
Mark van Eijden
has been appointed as Project Manager. His primary duties and responsibilities will be the Project Management of the New Multi Purpose Pipeline Tanks contract being undertaken in Heidelberg. His other responsibility will be as Outage Manager at the Kendal Power Station to ensure that certain fundamental requirements are complied with.
Marck van Eijden
-
Chris Wilson
Chris Wilson, Contracts Manager for the Maintenance Contract at the Komati Power Station, has resigned. We wish him well in his new ventures.
HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR COMPANY?
Did you know :
-
Okapi
export the majority of their knives to the Middle East. Their agricultural knives are predominately used in South Africa on the sugar cane farms however, large numbers are also exported to East African countries.
-
Southey Gauteng
was awarded the External Painting and Internal Lining contract for the NMPP tanks at Terminal 2 at Heidelberg by the CB&I/M&R Joint Venture.
-
Southey Oman
has been awarded their first substantial contract. This contract is for the maintenance painting at the OMIFCO plant.
-
Southey Angola
provide mechanics, welders, electricians and rope access personnel to service the offshore industry. They work on all sorts of offshore structures and vessels.
KNOW THE STAFF
Name : Limba Khuselo
Limba Khuselo
Date Joined : January 1972
Wife : Nongenile
Children : 7 – 3 sons (Aged 36, 31and 23) and 4 daughters (Aged 27, 25, 23 and 21)
Best times with Southey :
In 1983 when he was appointed as a Supervisor at Sasol 2 and was mentored by a German gentleman who worked for Fluor with regard to Sheetmetal developing. Then, whilst working at SA Nylon Spinners in Cape Town, he had to apply this and being able to do this type of work on his own.
Name : Richard Chetty
Richard Chetty
Date Joined : 16 March 1981
Wife : Joy
Children : 1 son, Daylen
Your most memorable day at Southey :
10th September 1981 when it snowed in Johannesburg
Worst time at Southey :
When Southey was defrauded of R258 000 by a “skelm” supplier
THE ISO 9001-2008 MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
As mentioned in the previous edition,
this is a system that is critical to the effective management of our processes such that our client benefits from knowing that we have a system of checks and procedures that ensure that the product delivered to him meets with the necessary standards and conforms to agreed quality levels. This system therefore encompasses a number of very vital aspects and has controls built into it so that there are clear guidelines as to what needs to be done and how it must be done.
One such example, is that of purchasing.
In order to be sure that we are getting the correct and appropriate materials and goods, it is a requirement that our suppliers too have the necessary systems and controls in place to guarantee that we get what we have ordered.
To achieve this,
our major suppliers are audited to make sure that they have sufficient quality assurance procedures which does not allow them to deliver the incorrect or substandard goods.
Our Quality Manager
will be reviewing our purchases and suppliers and will therefore be conducting audits on our major suppliers.
Suppliers
who are not able to provide sufficient evidence of having the necessary controls may be removed from our supplier database or given notification of improvements that we would like to see implemented.
A very important and fundamental part of the ISO9001-2008 system
is that of the notification of a Non-Conformance. A Non-Conformance Notification or a Corrective Action Request (CAR) is raised when there is a break down in the system and the goods delivered to the client do not conform to the set standards or where the procedures contained in the system are not followed. These CAR’s are issued when one of the above occur and are sent to the responsible person who is then required to analyse the CAR to determine the root cause of the problem and why it happened.
There are 3 very common reasons that cause these errors to occur
and they are :
- Lack of Training of the operator,
- Lack of Knowledge of the ISO system requirements and/or
- Not having a procedure that covers this aspect of the work.
What ever the reason, this system ensures that we review our procedures and implement the Corrective Action such that we do not repeat the mistake.
This brings us to the very core of the ISO system – continual improvement.
We need to continually analyse our activities and ways of doing things such that we identify the failures and implement the necessary actions and controls to prevent them from being repeated or we improve our present control systems so that they are more effective and relevant.By doing so, we reduce the amount of re-work and therefore make the organization more efficient and are able to deliver a better and more cost effect product to our clients.
THE ISO 14000 – ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
What the ISO9001-2008 system does for the management of processes and procedures with regard to the delivery of goods and services, the ISO14000 system does for the environment.
This system is very similar to ISO9001- 2008
however rather than focusing on the goods and services it focuses on the way the organization manages its impact on the environment. It too is a continual improvement system and requires the organization to review its effects on the environment with the view of reducing it impact.
It is the intention to implement this system into Southey Gauteng
over the next 12 months with the view of achieving accreditation by March 2012. We will therefore require your assistance in providing data such that we are able to set our base lines and consider our current impact on the environment so that we are able establish meaningful and achievable improvement objectives.
WHAT HAS LANDED?
Dehumidifier
A couple of items have arrived at the Linbro Office and a number of you are wondering what exactly they are!
As mentioned previously, we have been awarded
the internal lining of the NMPP tanks at Heidelberg and we are required to blast the internal surfaces. To be able to do this efficiently, we need to control the air within the tank. Reducing the relative humidity, allows us to blast for very much longer periods than would normally be the case as the rate of rusting is related directly to the level of the relative humidity. By reducing the relative humidity we are able to maintain Sa2.5 and Sa3 cleanliness levels for long periods of time.
Dehumidifiers
These each have the capacity to handle 18000m3/hr of air and remove up to 54 liters of water per hour from that air. This is done by the same material that is in those little white packets that are in pill containers (silica gel) and the humid air is passed through/over the silica gel where the water is absorbed and thus dry air is delivered on the other side.
It is anticipated
that these pieces of equipment will enable us to be more productive and provide a superior product to our valued clients.