Congratulations to SAE-A Automotive Engineering Excellence Awards winners

A large crowd of industry leaders and special guest Victorian Minister for Manufacturing Richard Dalla-Riva cheered the winners of the 2011 SAE-A Automotive Engineering Excellence Awards at the presentation dinner at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre last night.

The SAE-A annual Awards recognise excellence in automotive engineering, manufacturing, design and quality to help raise the standards and public perception of the Australian automotive and related industries. Entries and nominations are invited from all organisations and individuals, who directly or indirectly provide products, processes or services to the Automotive and related Industries. Award winners

Winners of the 2011 Awards included:

• Gold: Frank Will, Deakin University senior lecturer, for his innovation shown in creating the environmentally friendly OVER7™ – Waste Heat Recovery system.
• Silver: SMR Automotive Australia with the University of South Australia, for a lightweight integrated plastic rear vision mirror.
• Bronze: Gregory Linke, Manager, Virtual Manufacturing Engineering, GM Holden, for his Bottleneck Indicator Tool for manufacturing optimisation.
• Certificate of Commendation: The Bolwell Edge, a new fully moulded lightweight fibreglass caravan.
• Young Engineer Award: Stephanie Radion, Senior Engineer, Seating, GM Holden.
• Young Engineer Award Runner-up: Christopher Ebejer, Team Leader Reliability Testing, Automotive and Body Electronics Division, Robert Bosch Australia.

 Award Judging Panel

An independent panel of judges from within the industry and engineering academia judged the entries. The 2011 Judging Panel included Chair Bill Malkoutzis, David Ford, Dr Shane Richardson, Prof Simon Watkins and Prof Harry Watson, all current or past members of the SAE-A Board of Directors. Bill Malkoutzis thank the Judging Panel for both their commitment to the Awards program, and for their long term dedication to SAE-A.

Guest Speakers

In his address to the Awards dinner audience, Minister Dalla-Riva recognised the contribution made by the automotive industry to the economy and committed his ongoing support to automotive manufacturing in Victoria. He presented the Gold Award to Frank Will.

Guest speaker Richard Marshall, Director of Energy, Environment & Technology at GM Holden expressed the need to ensure that Australian automotive manufacturing continues to gain the support of governments, particularly in terms of maintaining a level playing field compared to other nations.