Head of Department's welcome
Welcome to Electrical and Electronic Services. My name is Danie Stoop
EES provide services to almost every person using the Potchefstroom facilities of the NWU without everyone actually realising it.
Our services accompany you – student, staff or visitor – from the moment that that you pass through one of the main entrances.Our services continue when you gain access to your building by means of access control, when you are sitting in the lecture hall listening to a live, an on-line- or recorded lecture, do your work in a laboratory, live in a residence or make use of one the cafeterias or dining halls, listen to PukFm or solder components on a printed circuit board, which was manufactured by us.
Your safety is enhanced by CCTV, burglar alarms and fire alarms that we provide and service. Even by simply reporting a failed light, you make use of our electrical maintenance services. We also take monthly care of the electrical and utilities bill for the Potchefstroom-based NWU facilities.
Since February 2014 we are hosts to the OneStop Call centre which deals with emergency repairs in academic facilities.
We lease selected electrical and electronic services where a short-term need exists.
EES work in a very dynamic field where new technology evolves daily, and sometimes vanishes just as fast! In such a changing world it is particularly important to ensure stable, working systems that can provide a service for a number of years, typically more than one decade. EES has been successfully performing this role for many years.
We pride ourselves in handling maintenance on a planned as well as responsive basis and projects from concepts through installation and after care – practically cradle to grave.
We are a dynamic team who really want to fulfil the electrical and electronic needs of the people around us in the best interests of the University.
Feel free to contact us at 018 299 4111 with your needs.
Our Focus
At EES our focus is to be of service to the university in such a way that the total life cycle cost of electrical and electronic systems is kept as economic as possible and that the activities that we are involved in are in the best interest of and support the universities strategies.
Brief History
The Physics Building was completed in 1954 and Prof. Pieter Stoker started out there with research involving measurements in Antarctica at the SANAE base.
There were no electronic instruments available that could measure what Stoker needed to measure and that could also survive the extreme conditions in Antarctica. Stoker asked for three technicians to be appointed to develop equipment. They were Ernst (Blikkies) Blignaut, Leon Ehlers and Wim Verhagen.
In 1971 these three people from the Department of Physics were transferred to the newly founded Department of Electronic Services (ELS), with Mr Wim Verhagen as head. He was later succeeded by Dr Cobus van der Walt and others.
Mr Danie Stoop took up the position as Head of ELS in October 2000. In due course the need arose for Electronic Services (ELS) to also install diverse systems like access control and alarm systems, and thus ELS gradually undertook more and more operational tasks and less development of electronic systems.
During November 2013, ELS also took on the responsibility for campus electrical maintenance, which was decentralized from the Institutional office called Physical Infrastructure and Planning.
On 1 Jan 2014, personnel and equipment were transferred along with the appropriate budgets for this task as well as the contract for Phambile2000, the electrical maintenance contractor. This brought the total count of EES to 27 plus the contractor’s personnel.
The name of the department was coincidentally changed to Electrical and Electronic Services (EES).
On 1 Feb 2014, the 1Stop Call centre, an emergency call centremerel aimed primarily at assisting academic staff, opened its doors at EES. The role EES plays, is to merely facilitate the call center.