Stakes and Ladders l A winning strategy using cross industry collaboration

THE SPEAKERS

DANIEL SPIES (CHAIRMAN, MESA AFRICA)

Daniel has been involved with MESA in Southern Africa since its early days and has served on the regional MESA Chapter Special Interest Group executive committee for a number of years, He also held the position of MESA SA Vice Chairman in the past (2013-2014). Daniel is passionate about integrating people, process and technology to achieve business successes and meaningful returns, and in recent years has made it his special focus to promote the application of the above to further Manufacturing Operations Excellence.

Daniel has over 30 years of experience spanning a wide range of business and ICT fields and has worked for a number of leading companies in both management, project and consulting roles in diverse areas including business development and strategy, IT architecture and research, solution development and deployment, customer relationship management and operations management.  Daniel is a people's person and believes in getting results through working with motivated teams to achieve goals.

Daniel holds academic qualifications in science, psychology and business management. Daniel serves as a director on the board of a number of companies including that of MESA Africa.

JOHAN MAARTENS

Professional Engineer, Fellow of the SAIMC NPC and Senior Member of the SAIEE
Started his career as Electrical engineer at Sasol 1, then was appointed Instrumentation Manager
Part of the design team of PetroSA (formerly Mossgas) and then appointed IT Manager
IT department was outsourced and he moved to Siemens as Senior Project Manager (MES)
Was elected as SAIMC President and later appointed as Director and CEO of SAIMC NPC
Director and Public Officer of MESA NPC
Appointed on the board of the Automation Federation
Member of the team appointed by ECSA to define the Discipline Specific Training Guidelines for Mechatronic technicians, technologists and engineers
Working with MICT SETA on new accreditation programs: IoT, Robotics and Quality
Member of the proSET (professionals in Science, Engineering and Technology) of the National Science and Technology Forum
Assessor and Moderator at ECSA

GERHARD GREEFF

Gerhard has been a member of the local (regional) chapter of MESA in South Africa since its inception around twelve years ago. He was involved as part of the expansion committee since the first year. Gerhard was elected as Vice Chairman for 2009/2010 and Chairman from 2011 to 2015 for the MESA SA Special Interest Group. In 2016 the MESA Africa executive committee decided to establish a Non Profit Company (NPC) and he was elected as Vice Chairman and appointed Director for the MESA Africa NPC. Gerhard also serves on the Board of Directors for MESA EMEA.

Gerhard was one of 5 International subject-matter experts invited to participate in development of the MESA International Global Education Program:

• 2 from North America
• 2 from Europe
• 1 from South Africa

Gerhard developed two of the nine course modules (including test questions & answers) and has provided MESA Accredited training in South Africa, India, Australia, USA and the Middle East.

Gerhard believes that a properly designed and implemented Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) System can add tremendous business value to any manufacturer. MOM, when done right, will improve operational effectiveness and efficiency and will assist in increased business value for companies from discreet manufacturing to continuous processing.

As Divisional Manager Process Management and Control at Iritron, a projects design, management, and integration services company with more than 100 employees, he is responsible for Business Development, Sales and Marketing as well as Operations/Implementation for the Division. Iritron focus on Electrical/Instrumentation& Controls, IT/OT Integration & convergence, SCADA/HMI, MES/MOM, Digital Transformation, OT Cyber Security and Business Process Execution. Everything a processing or manufacturing business needs.

He is responsible for the management and growth of the Division within the Iritron Group of Companies.

His chosen field of focus is MES/MOM and he has published various articles about MES and MOM systems in trade publications, a chapter in “The MOM Chronicles: ISA-95 Best Practices Book 3.0” and a book “Practical E-Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management” through Newness Press in 2004. I co-authored three MESA White Papers on the concept and management of the Time-in-State Metric and reviewed a number of other MESA White Papers.

He presents training as part of the MESA Global Education Program(GEP) and developed 2 of the 9 courses and I am one of the few certified presenters of this program globally.

He also Chaired the MESA Africa Special Interest Group for 7 years and is still heavily involved with MESA Africa.

Specialties: IOT, IIOT, Manufacturing Solutions Strategy, Manufacturing Operations Management, Time-in-State Management, Operational Technology, Manufacturing 2.0 Architecture, TISM, MES/MOM, OI/EMI.

Prior to this he was General Manager, IoT at Bytes Universal Systems for 20 years.