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HIMA expert to speak on Singapore’s safety case compliance at TÜV Rheinland conference

The leading independent provider of smart safety solutions, HIMA, is speaking at the Singapore Safety Case Symposium to address the functional safety aspects of the new legislation for process plants and bulk storage facilities. This symposium, from 14 to 15 March and organised by TÜV Rheinland, focuses on facilities that are considered a Major Hazard Installation (MHI) under the new Workplace Safety and Health regulations. HIMA’s expert will speak on the role of functional safety in helping industry practitioners currently administering and overseeing the safety case for their facility to understand how to fulfil the technical requirements of the new legislation. Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower has introduced the Major Hazards Installations (MHI) Regulations under the Workplace Safety and Health Act, to be implemented from the last quarter of 2017 through 2019. The core feature of the MHI Regulations is the Safety Case Regime where the submission of a safety case is compulsory. The Safety Case Regime is a structured set of documentation that sets out how major accidents are prevented and the risks to people and environment mitigated at MHIs. Sujith Panikkar, Senior Consultant Functional Safety/ Safety Instrumented Systems, HIMA Asia Pacific, who will be speaking at the symposium, said: “The safety case and functional safety are closely related. Moreover, the functional safety aspect of building the safety case tends to be the most important, and also the most technically complex. Many working in MHIs will need assistance in building their safety case to comply with regulators. So through our collaboration with TÜV Rheinland, we hope to help those tasked with this challenge. “The complex operating environment and the presence of large amounts of hazardous chemicals at MHIs mean that any accident can potentially result in catastrophic consequences. Therefore, strict compliance with the legislation is essential in ensuring a safe […]

Labelexpo Southeast Asia opens registration for visitors

Trade visitors can now register online for Labelexpo Southeast Asia 2018. Focused entirely on label and package printing, the show makes its debut as it runs 10 – 12 May at BITEC in Bangkok, Thailand. Aimed at printers/converters, brand owners, label and packaging technicians, buyers and design specialists, the event expects visitors to attend from across Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea and Australasia. Supported by the Thai Screen Printing & Graphic Imaging Association (TSGA) and the Department of Industrial Promotion (DIP) under the Minister of Industry, the event will cover over 3,500sqm and host 200 of the global industry’s principal manufacturers and suppliers. Confirmed exhibitors so far include HP, Bobst, Epson, Flint Group, Konica Minolta, Lintec, Omet, UPM Raflatac, Xeikon, Yupo Corporation and Zhejiang Weigang Machinery Co. In addition to a sold-out show floor packed with real-time live machinery demonstrations and the multiple product launches due to hit the Asian market, Labelexpo Southeast Asia will also offer a variety of valuable learning opportunities. Alongside the exhibition, visitors will be able to attend a range of topical conference sessions, or register for access to two exclusive workshops being held in association with the Label Academy covering shrink sleeve technology and die-cutting and tooling. Labelexpo Southeast Asia is free to attend and visitors can register for their full expo pass by visiting www.labelexpo-seasia.com.

Tanaka begins shipments of SJeva, a high-quality Au deposition material

Tanaka Holdings Co. Ltd. announces the start of sample shipments of SJeva, a newly-developed, high-quality Au deposition material, by Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo. The new deposition material has higher purity than earlier products, making it possible to reduce the amount of precious metals used, increase productivity and cut costs by reducing processing, and raise recoverability and recyclability. By improving manufacturing methods, Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo successfully reduced the amount of non-metallic inclusions in the deposition material compared to conventional materials. Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo previously handled Au deposition materials with a purity of 4N (99.99% gold content) to 5N (99.999% gold content), and the new deposition material enhances the lineup of high-quality products. By using a deposition material with extremely low non-metallic inclusions, contaminants that collect on the surface during melting of the deposition material are reduced, eliminating the need for cleaning. The high-purity deposition material also makes it possible to shorten the preheating time before film formation, decreasing consumption of deposition material that does not contribute to film formation and reducing costs. In addition, the new deposition material contains low levels of gas, and as a result, a reduction in splash phenomenon from the deposition source during film formation can be expected, and it is possible to reduce the number of particles[4] that form on substrates, even during high-rate deposition. As a result of the above properties and benefits of the new deposition material, it is expected to contribute to higher end-user productivity and lower costs when manufacturing final products that use deposition materials such as micro-wiring and MEMS in the semiconductor fields as well as optical devices, LEDs, and medical equipment. Benefits of the New Deposition Material – Reduced number of cleaning processes Usually, various shapes of deposition materials including pellet, plate, ribbon, wire, and grain shapes are used depending on […]

Business books 2017

The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone by Brian Merchant This examination of the iPhone includes analysis of both the enormous cultural impact of the device and a history of its manufacturing process. It was on the shortlist of finalists for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year. “‘The One Device’ is a road map for design and engineering genius, an anthropology of the modern age and an unprecedented view into one of the most secretive companies in history. This is the untold account, ten years in the making, of the device that changed everything,” the Financial Times says. The Captain Class: The Hidden Force That Creates the World’s Greatest Teams, by Sam Walker The deputy editor for enterprise at the Wall Street Journal and a former sports columnist, Walker identified the preeminent sports teams throughout history and determined they all had an influential captain at the time they reigned supreme. He then analyses the seven commonalities of those captains. Reset, by Ellen Pao This is Pao’s story of suing the esteemed venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers for discrimination. She lost the suit, but the litigation brought attention to the overwhelmingly white, male culture of Silicon Valley. It was a finalist for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year. Principles: Life and Work, by Ray Dalio Business and life coach Tony Robbins preaches the importance of constantly educating yourself. The book is Dalio’s explanation of the highly unique leadership strategy he employs at his wildly successful hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates. Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson The authors from MIT’s Sloan School of Management explain how businesses can best use artificial intelligence and crowd wisdom and how leaders should manage amid these massive technological changes. “Beneath all the concrete problems it raises, an intriguing question lies at the heart […]

Virtual Reality Scene 7.1 for construction, design and forensics

Faro Scene 7.1 enables an immersive VR experience with integration of detailed photographic textures, i.e., surface details of an object and rendering of 3D scan data so quickly that it appears to be generated in real time. While Scene 7.1 is optimised for the Faro laser scanning product portfolio, e.g. FocusS or Freestyle, it is also device agnostic, so it can seamlessly accept and manage 3D scan data from other, non-FARO laser scanner products. Immersive Virtual Reality Scene 7.1 enables users to view an entire project, i.e., the full range of related scans in full 3D virtual reality through a compatible VR headset from the comfort of the user’s office or workstation chair. This significantly elevates the beneficial use and reduces project cycle time by enabling architecture, engineering and construction professionals, public safety forensics experts and product designers to quickly simulate and compare reality for such tasks as evaluating as-built documentation, reconstructing crime or accident scenes, or optimising design plans. Productivity Enhancements in Virtual Reality Scene 7.1 advances well beyond the “see it better to understand it better” concept common in most industrial VR solutions. It enhances productivity by enabling users to take/capture screenshots, tag comments or notes specific to images and navigate the system overview map in real time, all without needing to exit the Virtual Reality environment. Merging of Faro Terrestrial and Handheld Scanning Data Historically, Faro Focus and Freestyle products have had their own unique, coded targets (markers that identify scan areas/specific targets), which could not be shared by the other scanning device. With Scene 7.1 enhanced functionality, not only can both devices share coded targets, but they can also now verify registration of scans from both devices in a single, real time registration report. This ensures not only a more cohesive workflow between these devices but […]

These 5 industries will be first to do business in space

Companies around the world – in transportation, exploration, energy, construction or hospitality – are all looking upwards for the next growth opportunity. Space is quickly becoming a place where the industries that power our global economy will conduct business. What do we call an economic area like this, that is not limited to a single planet, and no longer has physical boundaries? We can’t call it an industry, when private industrial groups can generate revenue and profit not only from the Earth but from near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), the Moon and Mars and beyond. It is simply a medium in which humanity conducts commerce. Let’s take a look at the industry sectors that will be the first to take advantage of our expanded economic sphere, and some of the specific opportunities for growth. Energy Valued at over $8.4 trillion and growing at a 4.1% compound annual growth rate, energy is the largest industry on Earth. Humans are prolific energy consumers, and soon there will be more humans in space. Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon, anticipates “millions of people living and working in space” in the coming decades. Bezos is so confident of this outcome that he is investing more than $1 billion per year into his space transportation firm, Blue Origin. An in-space population of this magnitude will require enormous amounts of energy to live, work, and transit. This energy will come from solar power, which is more effective when gathered in space due to the lack of a filtering atmosphere; and chemical rockets, which will be the primary transportation mechanism for the foreseeable future. The most efficient chemical rocket propellants are composed of cryogenic liquid oxygen combined with liquid hydrogen or methane. Initially, the propellant needed to fuel the space economy will be launched from Earth, as both […]

AI needs to create jobs for all, not the few

Stephane Kasriel CEO, Upwork ‘For the majority of us, AI will take away the most repetitive and boring tasks’ Whenever I talk to people about the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, it’s clear there is a lot of anxiety surrounding these developments. And no wonder: these technologies already have a huge impact on the world of work, from AI-powered algorithms that recommend optimal routes to maximise Lyft and Uber drivers’ earnings; to machine learning systems that help optimize lists of customer leads so salespeople can be more effective. We’re on the verge of tremendous transformations to work. Millions of jobs will be affected and the nature of work itself may change profoundly. We have an obligation to shape this future — the good news is that we can. It’s easier to see the jobs that will disappear than to imagine the jobs that will be created in the future but are as yet unknown. If, as The Wall Street Journal suggests, we think of AI as a technology that predicts, it’s much easier to map its impact. We must push ourselves to do that and understand the future of work. Here are six principles to keep in mind as we imagine how the world of work will evolve. 1. Expect massive disruption As Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains, we’re in the midst of a “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, after steam power (the first), electric power (the second) and digitisation (the third). The fourth, which incorporates AI and robotics as well as other technologies, will have an even greater impact. Of course, most new technologies create new opportunities at the same time as they eliminate old jobs, but there is rarely a perfect correspondence between these two forces. The people whose jobs […]

Move Fast and Break Things

-Jonathan Taplin (Jonathan Taplin is Director of the Annenberg Innovation Lab and a former tour manager for Bob Dylan and The Band, as well as a film producer for Martin Scorsese. An expert in digital media entertainment, Taplin is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and sits on the California Broadband Taskforce and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Council on Technology and Innovation. Fake news. Digital monopolies. Stealth Marketing. This is the story of how the internet, which began as a dream, has become a nightmare and the people that did it. The modern world is defined by vast digital monopolies turning ever-larger profits. Those of us who consume the content that feeds them are farmed for the purposes of being sold ever more products and advertising. Those that create the content – the artists, writers and musicians – are finding they can no longer survive in this unforgiving economic landscape. But it didn’t have to be this way. In Move Fast and Break Things, Jonathan Taplin offers a succinct and powerful history of how online life began to be shaped around the values of the entrepreneurs like Peter Thiel and Larry Page who founded these all-powerful companies. Their unprecedented growth came at the heavy cost of tolerating piracy of books, music and film, while at the same time promoting opaque business practices and subordinating the privacy of individual users to create the surveillance marketing monoculture in which we now live. It is the story of a massive reallocation of revenue in which $50 billion a year has moved from the creators and owners of content to the monopoly platforms. With this reallocation of money comes a shift in power. Google, Facebook and Amazon now enjoy political power on par with Big Oil and Big […]

Vitafoods Asia 2017: Meeting the Region’s Nutraceutical Needs

Singapore – As the final preparations for Vitafoods Asia round off, Informa Exhibitions looks forward to welcoming trade professionals to discover, learn, and network at Asia’s only dedicated event for the nutraceutical, functional food and beverages, and dietary supplement industries. From 5 – 6 September, uncover the latest innovations and key developments that will impact industry and product development at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre in Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. “At each edition of Vitafoods Asia, our various partners and industry experts actively contribute by sharing their in-depth insights with us and the industry at large – both leading up to and at the show,” said Chris Lee, Managing Director of Global Health & Nutrition Network, Europe, Informa Exhibitions. “Their extensive knowledge of global industry trends and broad exposure to the cutting-edge innovations have helped many companies in shaping their business development plans. We are delighted to have some of the best minds from both the commercial industry and academia share more about the hottest trends across the region at Vitafoods Asia, whether in the Conference or on and around the show floor.” Healthy Ageing: A Pressing Concern for Asia According to United Nations’ Economic & Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)[1], about 60% of the world’s population of older persons, defined as people at 60 years or older, live in the Asia Pacific region. Population ageing is happening at an unprecedented pace because fertility rates have been declining rapidly, while life expectancy has improved tremendously. In fact, the number of older persons in Asia Pacific is expected to more than double from 547 million in 2016 to nearly 1.3 billion by 2050. Clearly, the notion of healthy ageing is a pressing concern for Asia Pacific countries and its people, and this presents opportunities for the nutraceutical […]

Fewer defects from a 2D approach

In the picture: Improving the efficiency of materials will help to further advancements in designing and optimising perovskite solar cells. Improving the efficiency of solar cells requires materials free from impurities and structural defects. Scientists across many disciplines at KAUST have shown that 2D organic-inorganic hybrid materials feature far fewer defects than thicker 3D versions. Modern-day electronics rely on technologies that can develop almost perfect crystals of silicon; flawless to the atomic level. This is crucial because defects and impurities scatter electrons as they flow, which adversely affects the material’s electronic properties. But hybrid perovskites, an exciting class of electronic material, cannot be constructed using the epitaxial or layer methods developed for silicon. Instead, they are produced using solution-based processes. While this makes them cheaper than silicon, it also makes purity much harder to achieve as defect population and species are sensitive to the processing conditions. Osman Bakr from the KAUST Solar Centre together with colleagues from multiple divisions across KAUST and the University of Toronto, demonstrate that two-dimensional layers of perovskite material can achieve levels of purity much higher than is possible than in their 3D counterpart. “Two-dimensional hybrid perovskites are a subgroup of the big hybrid perovskite family,” explains Wei Peng, lead author and doctoral degree recipient from Bakr’s lab. “They can be derived by inserting large organic cations in three-dimensional perovskite structures.” Hybrid perovskites are made up of lead and halide (such as iodine) atoms and an organic component. This class of materials in solar cells has already shown ground-breaking potential for energy conversion efficiency while having low production costs and the possibility for being integrated in flexible devices. This combination of qualities makes hybrid perovskites an exciting material for optoelectronic applications. Peng, Bakr and coworkers created a 2D material made of periodic layers of hybrid perovskites […]

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