"Engineering for engineering sake is very expensive and can be the downfall of a worthwhile project," says Dr Michael Hunt, winner of the 2000 Technology Top 100 Autodesk Award for the most effective use of design technology. "Do not, for example, specify productionised manufacturing techniques at prototype level. Rather stick with laser or flame-cut profiles, for example. If you can get a suitable hydraulic pump, a gear, or a motor off-the-shelf, there is no need to design one."

With more than 40 years' engineering experience in the UK and South Africa, Hunt says engineering and economics are closely linked. Today, at MS Hunt Consultants, Hunt provides a consultancy service overcoming complex engineering challenges posed to him by leading local and international companies. The consultancy service provides design studies, layouts, structural analyses and complete engineering design for manufacture.

"During the country's years of isolation, SA companies were in an artificial environment where they had to reverse engineer or re-engineer every single component for a project," explains Hunt. "We are in a much more favourable situation today. The sliding value of the rand makes SA technology very competitive on the global market. And if we do not over-engineer projects, we can make South African designed technology doubly attractive, from a financial point of view. We have the potential to be an engineering force to be reckoned with."

Rock-drilling machine

Since the inception of MS Hunt Consultants, Hunt has designed capital equipment the value of which runs into many millions of rands. This includes a purpose-built giant rock drilling machine - called the Scorpion - for Rossing Uranium in Namibia, a furnace scraper for Mozal, and a reach borer designed specifically for the American market.

The Scorpion is a special purpose rock-drilling machine comprising two large aerial platforms. It enables an operator, located in a control station on one platform, to operate a three ton rock drill mounted on the other platform, drilling at any position on a rock face up to 20 m high. Drilling takes place in difficult-to-reach places so that rock bolts can be inserted into walls of rock left exposed during open cast mining. The procedure helps prevent major rock-falls.

While the Scorpion was built on a 160 ton haul truck provided by Rossing Uranium, two other Hunt designs - the furnace scraper and reach borer - are also mounted on standard chassis structures. The furnace scraper with its heat shield and double glass has a telescopic arm that reaches into a furnace to scrape impurities off the molten aluminium. The design is integrated with the main driving unit of a Caterpillar front-end loader. The reach borer - designed for the US utility companies market - has a drill at the end of a six metre arm which accesses difficult-to-reach sites to bore holes for planting utility poles. The reach borer was designed to be mounted on a range of standard truck chassis. To date, 75% of the production of these machines has been exported to the US. Other projects tackled by Hunt include the complex linkage mechanism for releasing and storing the combined seat squab and bed system on South Africa's Blue Train.

Global design resources

Hunt uses PC-based solutions AutoCAD 2000 and Mechanical Desktop Release 5 - from global design resource company, Autodesk, to develop and communicate designs.

"Autodesk software lets me provide genuine design solutions," says Hunt. "My clients pay me for my engineering expertise, not my technical drawing ability. Autodesk design solutions complement my analytical packages very effectively. Once I have created a front-end engineering package I can e-mail the file on to my clients for detailed drawing."

Hunt has been using Mechanical Desktop's parametric 3D facility for some years, and finds it useful to communicate design intent to clients who are not conversant with interpreting 2D drawings. "I have found 3D a completely new approach to design. There is much less drawing and much more manipulation and assembly of models. The parametric power of Mechanical Desktop Power Pack is phenomenal."

Hunt is the winner of the first Technology Top 100 Autodesk Award for the most effective use of design technology in the manufacturing sector. The award was presented to Hunt last year by Alec Erwin, Minister of Trade and Industry, Brigitte Mabandla, Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, and Errol Ashwell, Managing Director of the sponsoring company, Autodesk Africa.

Ashwell says the award was presented to companies in the manufacturing sector and the built environment that were judged to have made the most effective use of computer-aided design (CAD) technology to promote innovation, design excellence and competitive advantage - for themselves and for South Africa.

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