Minutes from the association’s 74th AGM.
It was great to see so many new and old faces in the same room – to encourage networking, we hosted a speed networking session, enabled by the talented facilitator Shaun Sutton of Central Group. Over the space of a minute the group were tasked to find out three interesting facts about each other that were not work related! A little harder than you think. Did you know one of our members once dated a rock star?The AGM went without a hitch, Gary Downes passed over the chains of office to our new President, David Hawley of ABB. We welcomed a new member to the council, while saying goodbye to two others. To hear more about David’s plans for the association during his presidency, refer to his welcome on here
The President’s Report:
On standing down to become Past President, Gary mentioned what a pleasure the last two years have been, in particular working with the secretariat to launch the inaugural Awards, and to re-launch the Conference, both of which have been a big success. True to his heart, he also resurrected the Golf Day, which has become one of the AEMT’s most attended events, second only to the conference and awards.
The AEMT secretariat team also grew to include a dedicated Events manager, Sam Agnew, to help run the increase in events. Our newest recruit, Karl Metcalfe, joined the association at the end of Gary’s presidency to provide the members with Technical support.
Gary went on to endorse his support for the upcoming President David Hawley, who has an enormous amount of experience in the industry. He will no doubt prove to be an excellent President. Gary looks forward to supporting him and the council in his new role as Past President.
Gary finished off by thanking two retiring council members who have reached the end of their terms; Dennis Rawle of Exalto UK, and Tom Grant of GES Group in Nothern Ireland. He also welcomed Howard Lynn from Rapid Solutions in Azerbaijan onto the council, who will bring his international business experience to the council.
The Secretary's Report
2018 turned out to be an excellent year, with turnover rising by 18.5% to hit the £½ million mark. Sessions on the association’s website theaemt.com also rose significantly by 28% to reach 119,000 sessions over the year from 196 different countries. With over 2,300 sessions a month, it is worth considering the importance of membership profiles on the website, and the potential business it can bring.
The Ex courses continue to be of importance, the association trained 97 companies in total throughout 2018. In order to support the courses a new website, www.ex-repair.com has been created to promote the events, best practice, and provide course information. Additionally an Ex Forum has been initiated where answers to some of the most common questions and answers the secretariat often receives are posted.
The association gained 9 members in 2018, but it is worth noting that net numbers have not grown substantially for many years now, and a review of the value the association provides it’s members could help to grow this number. In total the association has approximately 300 members over 500 locations.
Sam Agnew, who joined the secretariat in 2017 produced her first full year of events and on top of the usual regional meetings in the UK, also initiated international meetings in Malaysia and Thailand. Sam has offered substantial support in the office and is continually thinking of innovative ways to involve all members at future events.
Discussions on the new repair standard
After many years chairing the committee which produced the international standard (IEC 60034-23:2019), the association is now able to have a standard to align the quality of our work to.
The secretariat is currently working on various projects to help members make the most of this standard, including training, inspections and promotion to end-users. Importantly, it will also be up to members to inform their customers about the standard, and why they choose to work to it. An informative flyer is being developed to arm you with this knowledge, and copies of the standard are also available via the secretariat at 25% off the marketed price from BSI.
A question was raised by Richard Hale of Deritend; why do we need an AEMT inspection when there are others out there?
As the industry’s trade association we need to give greater meaning to membership and the AEMT logo. Having accredited service centres allows the end-user to discern the standard of service to be expected when contracting work. With no differentiation between the standards of service within the industry, the AEMT mark of quality is lost.
A significant area of the repair standard focuses on the sustainability of repair over replace. Influenced by the recent moves by the government to become carbon neutral by 2050, the discussion evolved onto the important service members are providing industry.
By following the standard, machines that ought to be replaced are replaced with higher efficient models. When the machine is already more efficient, or specific in nature, a repair-to-standard, ensures the efficiency of the machine is either maintained, or in most cases increased. The added advantage of repairs means the energy required to extract the raw materials and process them into new manufactured machines is greatly reduced, lowering the carbon emissions caused by consumption.
Many service centres are now able to recommend ways to improve on the efficiency of whole drive systems, not just the motors. Looking at some of the entries for the AEMT awards demonstrates how carbon emissions are being reduced by our members.
One idea from Shaun Sutton of Central Group is to record the carbon emissions saved by AEMT members. By pooling together the collective savings made by members, this data can be used in public relations to give acknowledgement to the work our industry does.
The association should also consider using this data to lobby for greater support of AEMT service centres, engineering, and improving the efficiency of all industry.
The conversation also focused on how service centres can better serve their customers through selling ‘up-time’ as a service, rather than selling a one-off motor or a repair. The introduction of digitisation will make it much easier for service centres to monitor drive systems and maintain output. How can the association help it’s members change their business models towards this? This could be a discussion for the 2019 Conference.