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Praxair Canada Inc. in Mississauga, Ont., has signed a long-term supply agreement to design and build a cryogenic air-separation plant to supply 900 tons per day of gaseous oxygen to Essar Steel Algoma Inc.’s steel mill located in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. The new plant is scheduled to start up by early 2011 and will be fully integrated with Praxair’s existing air separation facilities at Essar in Sault St. Marie.

“Essar has a program underway to expand its operation,” said Rob Hossack, Praxair Canada’s managing director. “Our new facility will provide them with the product they need along with a high degree of production flexibility and reliability to achieve this goal. Essar and Praxair have had a long-term relationship in Sault Ste Marie, and this project positions us to continue to grow together in the future,” he added.

Essar Steel Algoma’s CEO, Armando Plastino, commented, “Praxair has been a reliable supplier to Essar Steel Algoma for over 50 years. Praxair’s ability to match product supply to our production requirements helps us to be more responsive to our customers and also more competitive in the marketplace.”

A member of the Essar Group, Essar Steel Algoma Inc. is a fully integrated steel producer, deriving its revenues primarily from the manufacture and sale of hot and cold rolled steel products including sheet and plate.

Praxair is the largest industrial gases company in North and South America, and one of the largest worldwide, with 2009 sales of $9 billion. The company produces, sells and distributes atmospheric, process and specialty gases, and high-performance surface coatings.
www.praxair.com
www.algoma.com/index.cfm

Almost two-thirds of industry professionals in Quebec anticipate business activity increasing in the next 12 months, according to a recent survey by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME).

The survey was designed to gather information about the economic outlook of manufacturers in Quebec, their spending plans for the future and their views on the recovery of the industry. The survey was conducted to current pre-registrants of the Montreal Manufacturing Technology Show (MMTS), past attendees and manufacturing professionals from the SME's Quebec database.

The study revealed that, while the recent economic turndown had a significant negative impact on their operations, 64.4 percent of respondents anticipated business activity increasing in the next 12 months.

"It is clear from the survey data that optimism in the economic recovery continues to strengthen in key regional manufacturing sectors including aerospace, energy, mining, agri-food and transportation. We are seeing hard evidence of this upward trend, particularly in the aerospace sector with the recent string of major deals announced from market leaders including Bombardier, GE, CAE, Lockheed Martin and Bell Helicopter," said Nick Samain of the SME.

The top industry survey respondents represented aerospace, transportation, medical manufacturing, wind energy, mining, electronics/high tech, energy and consumer products. Additional highlights of the survey were encouraging:

• Significant equipment budgets — 37.4 percent have an excess of $100,000 to spend on manufacturing equipment over the next 12 months, 22 percent are over $250,000, and 7.5 percent are over $1 million.

• Expenditures increasing — 48.9 percent see their manufacturing equipment expenditures increasing in the near future.

• Stable spending — 39.2 percent see their expenditures remaining the same.

• Top technologies in demand — automation, assembly, cleaning, coolants, cutting tools, lasers, machining centres, material handling, measurement, metal forming,

Three leading manufacturers — Eaton, Schneider Electric and Siemens — joined forces with Electro-Federation Canada to develop an awareness campaign ("Don't be Shocked. Buy Authentic.") in order to raise awareness of the risks and hazards associated with the influx of counterfeit and unsafe electrical products in the market. The growing concern over counterfeit products is not only a safety issue but threatens the integrity of the marketplace.

Many counterfeit electrical products are unsafe and may not have been tested and certified safe to use by testing agencies like CSA International who among other Canadian certification laboratories, tests and certifies billions of products for the safety of the public.

The campaign includes print ads, postcards and buttons. Please visit the EFC Website for more information on unsafe circuit breaker products, potential risks and hazards as well as guidance on how to identify and report unsafe products.
www.electrofed.com

Lockheed Martin Canada is donating $100,000 and collaborating with the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies' (SIIT) Aviation Maintenance and Engineering (AME) program to implement an extensive suite of curriculum materials that will help faculty and students develop industry-ready skills. The government's Department of Western Economic Diversification has added its support to this initiative.

"We are pleased to make a financial contribution to the AME program. We also are excited about the opportunity to collaborate with SIIT educators to help bridge the theoretical world of academics with lessons learned in aerospace and systems engineering that reflect the breadth of Lockheed Martin's experience," said Tom Digan, president of Lockheed Martin Canada. "This comprehensive suite of advanced training modules is based on decades of work on complex engineering programs."

Once completed, the AME faculty will benefit from a curriculum of courseware and instructor's materials for training in more than three-dozen engineering disciplines including systems engineering, quality assurance, logistics and interface engineering management.

Today's announcement is part of Lockheed Martin's commitment to the Canadian government to satisfy industrial and regional benefits associated with its role as prime contractor for the mid-life upgrade of the combat systems on board the Navy's Halifax Class frigate. The $1.6 billion program was awarded in late 2008 to Lockheed Martin Canada. In the first 12 months of the contract Lockheed Martin has provided more than $200 million in economic and regional benefits though strategic industrial partnerships and investments in research and development.

Lockheed Martin Canada has about 500 employees principally located in the Ottawa head office, Montreal and Dartmouth, N.S.
www.lockheedmartin.com
www.siit.sk.ca

Non-Destructive Testing assures that components and operational systems perform their functions in a reliable, safe and cost-effective manner. However, investigative reports following disasters and catastrophes often highlight insufficient NDT techniques being employed, both at the manufacturing stage and during the service life of the products.

For the first time, the SGS NDT Training and Examination Center conducted a Time-of-Flight Diffraction (TOFD) course which took place from 17-27 November 2009 in Shanghai, China. This course is accredited by The British Institute of NDT (BINDT) and meets the requirements of the EN 473 Standard.

The Malaysian Nuclear Agency (Nuclear Malaysia) has been awarded an IAEA/TC project for the establishment of procedures and protocols in digital industrial radiography (DIR) 
for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), with the main objective to develop 
local capability in DIR technology and subsequently dissemination to SMEs in Malaysia.

Congratulations to the first batch of students to be awarded the Foundation Degree in Non-Destructive Testing (FdScNDT) from the University of Northampton.

A new online Qualification and Certification Forum has been established on the NDT News website at www.ndtnews.org/Forum

Finally, the NDT industry is catching up with modern technology, or is it the other way round? Whatever the consensus, a new company, Fusion, has broken the mould and introduced NDT to the world of iPhones and iPods. It has created applications for the gadgets that almost 1 in 10 people own and captured the imagination of the NDT industry in doing so.