Great stay together in Japan
Published 3/7, 2018 at 12:05I have to say I returned from the IACDS convention in Tokyo more enthused and more excited about our industry than I have been in a very long time. Firstly, it is a beautiful country and everyone was so friendly and welcoming to all of the different people from the associations from all around the world.
The convention was genuinely inspirational, really bringing home to me how important it is that we network and work together with one another right across the globe. We can learn so much from each other at events like this, and there is nothing like meeting face to face and talking to fellow professionals about how they solved problems and came up with solutions to certain issues.
There were presentations on two amazing and very technical cases studies. One was on the Ruskin Dam seismic retro fit project in Canada, and the other was an underground Tokyo station. Along with these fascinating case studies, there were many other useful topics on the agenda for our industry, such as employing young people and dismantling technologies in nuclear power plants. There was also a great seminar on customer service, and how clients don’t necessarily take too much interest in the technical side of what we do, but they are interested in the way we serve them and get the job done. This provided a lightbulb moment for one of the delegates sitting next to me! In one of the meetings, we had 18 different nationalities represented, which was incredible with the diversity of people, cultures and different ways of working just bringing a real freshness to the convention.
We also undertook an incredible visit to Daiichi-Cutter, the largest concrete cutting company in the world. An insight into its new slurry removal machinery was provided, showing how it can remove thousands of litres of material at any given time.
Overall, there were seven national associations represented including CSDA (USA), DSA (UK), BFB (Sweden), JCSDA (Japan), AEDED (Spain), SNED (France), and FBS (Germany) with over 100 delegates in attendance. Eight speakers spoke on a range of topics, and we’d like to thank Joel Vinsant, Erin O’Brien, Cota Fujio, Brian Wnuck, Jun Ozawa, Martin Braun, Michael Findeis and Reiner Schulze for their fantastic contributions to the event. Of course, we must also thank the sponsor, Tyrolit, without whom we couldn’t stage such a wonderful convention, and our five exhibitors: Shibuya, Pentruder, Hakken, Hilti and Cretebeater.
You may not know that the IACDS has a figure of honorary member and, up until this convention, only one person had received this honour and that was Otto Alte-Teigeler, the IACDS founding president. I was thus thrilled to have the honour of investing a new IACDS member this year, Mr. Norikazu Shibuya. This recognised the great support through his association he has provided, and also to acknowledge the great contribution he has made to the organisation and the industry through the years. He is an absolute inspiration to everyone in our industry.
So now, as we look ahead to the next convention in Bauma, Munich (8 to14 April 2019), and I would really urge you to attend. As I have described above, it’s such a fabulous networking and learning experience with everyone who attends really benefiting from being there, being so relevant to all of us in our industry. Not only that, we are also looking towards the Diamond Awards on 11 April 2019 which will be held during Bauma. We invite contractors to enter, and for the first time the awards will recognise our excellent and innovative supply chain through the award for ‘best product’. For more information on those go to www.iacds.org or contact your country association.
As I always say, please feel free to get in touch with me on any matters that you want the Association to look at.
Julie White, President of IACDS
juliewhite@d-drill.co.uk