2025 SAIIE Awards

Best Industrial Engineering Work conducted in Industry - Prof Schalk Grobbelaar

Runner-Up: Best Industrial Engineering Work conducted in Industry - Tané Coetzer

Best Industrial Engineering Paper Published in the SAJIE - Future Mines’ Compressed Air Planning Using Digital Twin Simulations

Author: Paul Burger

Co-Authors: Jan Vosloo & Jean van Laar

Affiliation: Centre for Sustainable Mining, North-West University

Published in: SAJIE Vol 35 No 3 (2024)

Read it here: https://sajie.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/3094/1300

Runner-Up: Best Industrial Engineering Paper Published in the SAJIE - Developing an Industrial Engineering Capabilities Framework for the Adoption of Engineered Wood Products in the South African Construction Industry

Author: Ferdinand Hassan

Co-Author: Schlak Grobbelaar

Affiliation: Department of Engineering and Technology Management, University of Pretoria

Read it here: https://sajie.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/3088/1304

Runner-Up: SAIIE Award for Most Active/Vibrant Student Chapter - DUT-SAIIE

2024 SAIIE Student Awards for Best Final-Year Industrial Engineering Students from their respective universities

From left to right: Gabriel Michael Milne (WITS); Tanyaradzwa Prisca Kudadirgwa (UJ); Markus Bosch (TUT); Boaz Knud Hansen (SU); Anina Loots (UP); Safwaan Govender (NMU); absent - Christiaan Pieter Kasselman (NWU)

Kris Adendorff Impact Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Industrial Engineering Profession -

Adriaan Scheeres

Adriaan Scheeres, CEO and co-founder of the Company has lead Pragma for the last 33 years. His deep understanding of asset management trends and market needs, has led to the design of unique products and services such as the On Key CMMS, Optimal Maintenance Mix and the Asset Care Service Model. This focus on leadership and innovation has put Pragma in a position to grow at an average rate of 25% annually.

Besides the company growth, Pragma has also played an instrumental role in building the asset management standards and knowledge base in South Africa, Brasil and Mexico.

Adriaan has created, through his focus, determination and technical ability, a focus on physical asset management and the related technology that would not have existed otherwise. He is, in many ways, the father of asset management as a sustainable business in South Africa.

Pragma is an international professional services provider offering asset management advisory services, business process outsourcing services, training and software products to many critical industries such as Oil and Gas, Manufacturing, Local Government, Mining and Retail. Pragma employs 450 professional people around the globe, delivering services to customers in more than 20 countries.

He was instrumental in defining the following products, concepts and methodologies:

Working with several asset types across industries he soon realised that different maintenance tactics were required to ensure the optimal maintenance of assets and he coined the term and methodology of Optimum Maintenance Mix (OMM). 

• During Pragma’s infant years he was instrumental in the development of a best of breed enterprise asset management software system, On Key, which would in later years compete head-on with software giants SAP and IBM Maximo. 
• Within a couple of years of starting Pragma, Adriaan initiated the outsourcing of asset management and coined the term Asset Care Centre which in later years became an industry norm. 
• The lack of tertiary training and enablement in asset management gave rise to the Pragma Academy, and since its small beginning, the Pragma Academy became the go-to asset management training provider from operational, through tactical to strategic level.
• With Adriaan as inspiration and integral part of the development and testing team, Pragma developed a very well- known assessment tool, the Asset Management Improvement Plan.  This was the starting point of formalising Pragma’s IP into a structured package called the Asset Care Pack.

Adriaan has coached several individuals; both in the fields of business and asset management and he is also a well-known face on conference stages where he shares his insights on asset management.

He is a non-executive member on the board of Pragma Holdings.

Adriaan holds an Industrial Engineering degree from the University of Stellenbosch and a Masters degree in Information Systems.

Adriaan is married to Hettie and has 3 daughters and 6 grandchildren of which all are based in Cape Town.