SMEC South Africa wins Technical Excellence award at SAICE 2018

Infrastructure and engineering consultancy SMEC’s South Africa arm has bagged two prizes at the 2018 edition of the annual SAICE Durban Branch Awards. The entire team won the award for the Technical Excellence category, while Regional Manager for KwaZulu Natal at SMEC – Manicum Kresen – won Technologist of the Year.

Headquartered In Australia, SMEC is a subsidiary of Singapore-based urban planning giant Surbana Jurong, and serves as an international consulting firm in the domain of large-scale infrastructure and engineering – offering services such as design, construction supervision, and project management.

The firm is particularly active in the South African market, and its South African outlet has fared particularly well in the SAICE Durban Branch Awards 2018. SAICE is a community for civil engineering firms across South Africa which aims to promote dialogue within the sector to advance initiatives in development and sustainability.

SAICE awards seek to recognise and applaud excellence in the civil engineering segment, offering separate awards for Technical Excellence Projects, Community-based Projects, and International Projects. The award for the first of these categories went to SMEC this year, for its work on the Mount Edgecombe Interchange and Upgrade Project (MEIUP).

The project involved the redesign of an existing diamond-shaped interchange layout, wherein SMEC converted it into a free flowing four-level interchange. Specifically, the firm oversaw the construction of nine new bridges with two free flowing ramp viaducts – constructed using the Incremental Launch Method.

Alongside being recognised for this project, SMEC’s Regional Manager for the KwaZulu Natal area in South Africa, Manicum Kresen, was named Technologist of the Year – an accolade that applauds leadership that has inspired growth at a personal and professional level. Durban is an alumnus from the Durban University of Technology, and has nearly two decades of professional experience.

His nomination – filed by one of his protégés – read, “Kresen has displayed a unique aptitude to identify and develop people to reach goals quicker and larger than what they could have done without his mentoring, inspiration and support. He has mentored and supervised many Pr Tech and Pr Eng candidates into top class professionals, but perhaps the true testament to his contribution is his selfless availability as a personal and professional coach and mentor to young talent.”