The Technology Exhibitions Week held at Rho, Milan’s new exhibition centre, from 20 through 23 September drew over 65,000 visitors. The event was dedicated to components, instrumentation, electronics, automation, motion control and industrial maintenance and aimed to test a new format by hosting five pre-eminent international trade shows at the same time.

APV, part of the Invensys Group, has announced the completion of its US$5m purpose-built manufacturing plant in Xidu, Shanghai. The factory will manufacture and assemble pumps, valves and other fabricated products for the Chinese market.

In a breakthrough for the oil and gas industry in Asia-Pacific, Western Australian company ISA Technologies has announced that it is working with Schlumberger, the world’s leading supplier of information solutions for the oil and gas industry.

Safety In Action will celebrate its tenth anniversary in 2007, with organisers of the workplace safety exhibition planning two new feature areas to keep visitors up to date.

The adoption of RFID continues to gather momentum, and hardware and software spending will accelerate in late 2006 and 2007 as true benefits are documented, according to Gartner, Inc.

Frost & Sullivan has selected Emerson Process Management as the recipient of the 2006 South-East Asian Customer Service Leadership Award for Process Automation Suppliers.

Despite Brisbane’s traffic chaos, a steady stream of visitors attended the Queensland Manufacturing Technology Exhibition (QMan) 2006, held from 17-19 October. The exhibition attracted just under 1900 visitors and 94 exhibitors.

Embedded Logic Solutions has announced that it is the Australian distributor for Wind River in the non-aerospace and defence market.

An international competition is calling for designs for a universal nanotechnology hazard symbol.

Frost & Sullivan has selected Emerson Process Management as the recipient of the 2006 South-East Asian Customer Service Leadership Award for Process Automation Suppliers. Emerson was recognised for responding to customer needs and demonstrating a continual focus on long- and short-term customer profitability goals.

Compressor sales, service and hire company, PremiAir has joined forces with international compressor technology group, Sullair Australia.

BOC is partnering with Alcoa World Alumina Australia and CSBP, a Wesfarmers subsidiary, in a 15-year contract that is set to be the biggest in Australia using waste carbon dioxide (CO2).

The 2006 Engineering Excellence Awards have this year recognised the world-class expertise of Queensland engineers with the award of the overall RW Hawken Award being presented to Brisbane-based Sinclair Knight Merz working with HOK Sport Venue & Event for their work on the Nanjing Sports Park in China.

Honeywell has been awarded a $17.5 million contract to supply process controls for Vietnam’s first oil refinery. The Technip Consortium, which will build the refinery in Dung Quat for state-owned company PetroVietnam, selected Honeywell to supply its process automation system, the Experion Process Knowledge System (PKS). The refinery will begin production in central Vietnam in early 2009.

More students must be encouraged to take up maths and science in schools if the federal government’s move to increase university engineering places is to have any effect, the Association of Consulting Engineers Australia (ACEA) has warned.