ANNUAL REPORTS

ITA CHAIRMAN'S REPORT 2009/2010

31st Annual General Meeting - Chairman’s report for 2009/10

The 31st year of the ITA (2009 and the first quarter 2010) have been a very busy period. ITA 30th anniversary celebrations continued through 2009 with receptions in Moscow, São Paulo, Bangkok and Istanbul.  I am very pleased that a third of the ITA membership was able to celebrate our anniversary in person with us.  The ITA’s commemorative book “Past, Present & Future”, which outlined the thirty year history of the ITA has been well received by the members and the industry at large.

Since our last AGM the ITA has supported or exhibited at several key exhibitions around the world: Tube Russia; Tubotech; Tube Southeast Asia, Metal Expo, all in 2009 and so far in 2010, leading up to the flagship Düsseldorf exhibition, Tube India and Boru.  At all of these events the ITA provides key services and advice for members, whether exhibiting or visiting.

2009 also saw our major biennial technical conference, Pipe & Tube Istanbul, which took place in Turkey in November.  This excellent conference, attended by 160 participants, featured 25 technical papers and 4 very well received market overview/survey papers.

At the end of 2009 our long standing Honorary Treasurer John Metcalfe, retired from the management board after many years of loyal service to the ITA.  I extend to him on behalf of the entire membership our sincere thanks for everything he has done for the ITA.  Also, I am very grateful to Mike Bull for agreeing to be Acting Honorary Treasurer until this AGM.

The appointment of new representative offices in Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and Russia late last year has already resulted in the recruitment of new members and I hope that this, together with the efforts of our longer standing representatives in India, China and the Ukraine will ensure that the ITA retains a strong membership base.  It was very pleasing to see that the recent excellent Tube India exhibition resulted in 23 new members alone.

I am particularly pleased to record that our long standing President, Professor Kiuchi has been awarded the “John C Hogg Lifetime Achievement Award” for his outstanding service to the ITA and has been made “Honorary Life President Emeritus” in recognition of this.

Dipl.-Ing. Albert Sedlmaier - Chairman
International Tube Association
April 2010

TECHNICAL MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE REPORT

Technical Management Committee (TMC) Report 2009/2010

Chairman: Stephen Loynes
Committee: Albert Sedlmaier, Carl Jackson, Mike Bull, Terry Banach, Ram Natarajan, Prof. M Kiuchi.

There have been a few changes to the members of the Committee in 2009. John Metcalfe and John Powell have retired and Don Bugden succeeded by Terry Banach for the US board. We welcome Professor M. Kiuchi, who represents the Asia Pacific board.

In 2009 we held our biennial technical conference in the ancient city of Istanbul where the focus was “Manufacturing for quality, productivity and profit”. We had a full day of excellent technical presentations. A special addition, on this occasion, was the inclusion of a commercial section in which experts presented industry and commercial global overviews. These presentations were very well received and will feature much more in future conferences.

The Prof. Hugh Sansome Trophy for best speaker at an ITA conference since Tube 2008 is to be presented to Winfried Heinemann, of AWS Schaefer, Germany, for his Istanbul paper entitled “New generation of induction bending machines”. Two ‘shield’ awards will go to H-J.Braun of Reika GmbH & Co, Germany for his paper on “The latest generation straightening machines” and R. Shahandeh from Urmia University, Iran, for his paper on “Buckling behaviour of subsea pipelines”.

This year we have two technical conferences planned beginning with a joint ITA/TPA event, “Pipe and Tube, Pittsburgh”, from 3-5 October followed by an ITA/CCRSA conference in Beijing, from 6-7 November. In 2011 we hope to arrange a joint symposium with the Japan Society for Technology of Plasticity (JSTP) in Japan and our biennial European conference in November at a venue yet to be confirmed.

I would like to thank all those members of the ITA who have made technical presentations at our recent conferences and encourage others to join this elite group. It is vital to the continuing success of the ITA that we keep abreast of new technologies, new production techniques, and new materials. I would like encourage everyone to get involved. Furthermore, our conferences are a very good opportunity for that vital ingredient of successful networking.

Stephen Loynes
TMC Chairman
April 2010