Mechanical Technology may 2015

Mechanical Technology — May 2015

⎪

Local manufacturing and beneficiation

⎪

localisation drive

Above:

WEG Transformers Africa’s controls

assembly area.

Above left:

WEG Transformers Africa (WTA)

now offers transformers from 100 kVA up to

20 MVA and, to further reduce dependence

on imports, the company is implementing a

plan to locally manufacture transformers of

up to 40 MVA.

Right:

Kobus Smit attending to the wiring

of a containerised generator set for the Zest

WEG Genset Division.

Right below:

The container yard at Shaw

Controls, which is now a specialist local

manufacturer of MCCs, switchgear and con-

tainerised electrical distribution solutions.

line fault of a switching fault, the utility

can drive a mobile substations to the

location and replace the entire substa-

tion with a mobile unit until repairs are

completed,” Meiring suggests.

“The original IP came from WEG,

Brazil, but a specialist spent six months

in South Africa customising the design

to suit the harsh local conditions and

Eskom’s stringent specifications. So

today we have a local product that is

100% locally manufactured,” he adds.

The most recent acquisition was

made to extend the Group’s access to

locally manufactured transformers. “We

have also recently established WEG

Transformers Africa (WTA), following the

2013 acquisition of Hawker Siddeley

Transformers. While we have been able

to supply large imported transformers

for several years, because the cost of

shipping smaller units constitutes a

significant percentage of the total cost,

we could not compete on units smaller

than 20 MVA.

“WTA has now added the full trans-

former range to our offering, from

100 kVA up to 20 MVA – and to further

reduce our dependence on imports, we

are busy implementing a plan to lo-

cally manufacture transformers of up to

40 MVA,” Meiring reveals.

From a technological perspective,

the relationship with WEG Brazil has

enabled the entire Wadeville-based WTA

transformer factory, which was originally

established 1954, to be completely mod-

ernised to manufacture the latest designs

from its global parent.

“We are currently on a major drive

involving all three of our manufactur-

ing entities: Shaw Controls, WTA and

Genset Division, which are going through

internationalisation programmes to align

their product quality and manufacturing

processes with the best practices of

the global WEG Group,” says Meiring.

“Ultimately, for international orders,

WEG wishes to be able to choose the

most cost-effective factory to use, based

on transport logistics, exchange rates

and local input costs. So we may end

up manufacturing equipment for supply

into Australia, for example,” he explains.

Addressing our labour challenges, the

Zest WEG Group is striving towards more

innovative solutions to overcome labour

issues. “At the starting point, we believe,

is communication. We want to be more

inclusive about our business successes

and failures. By keeping our staff better

informed, we hope to make them feel

more involved and more secure.

“Training is also a big issue and the

internationalisation programme offers

opportunities to up skill our staff to cope

with the innovative new materials and

machine tools – and the empowerment of

people is fundamentally linked to skills,”

he confirms.

Responding to B-BBEE. Meiring adds

that the Group is very close to finalising an

employee trust called Zest Empowerment

that will pass 25% + 1 share of the lo-

cal business to previously disadvantaged

employees in the company.

From a business perspective, Meiring

sees growing opportunities in the power

sector across Africa. “We are the only

supplier that can communicate tenders,

data sheet and specifications sets in

the three dominant common languages,

English, French and Portuguese,” he

points out, adding that the Group is

already earning 30% of its turnover from

African projects outside of South Africa

and has targeted 40% in the short term.

“We are positioned to be involved

in every aspect of technology that sits

between power generation and power

utilisation, which puts us in a strong posi-

tion to participate in the transformation

of Africa’s power infrastructure,” Meiring

concludes.