Local manufacturers up to taking on importers.
BFR Digital
BFR Digital manufactures fibre-optic transmission equipment, UTP or differential video transmission, surge protection and power supplies for the CCTV market that is sold through a number of distributors. The company’s target market is spread throughout South Africa, sub Saharan Africa and the United Arab Emirates.
Dion Pretorius, sales manager for BFR, said that the company does not see the need to compete with imported products. “We provide quality, service and maintenance with a personalised touch. Customers need a supplier they can rely on, and this is where some overseas suppliers to South Africa come up short.”
Pretorius said that due to the fact that the skills shortage shows no signs of abating, the company has equipped itself to provide in-house training and skills transfer. “Technology is growing at a faster rate than the syllabus offered by technikons and colleges,” said Pretorius.
“We believe in coming up with innovative new ideas. We previously concentrated our focus on only 20% of the market (fibre-optics, UTP transmission etc.). We then took a step back and looked at what the 80% of the market was using and tailored our products accordingly, hence the development of our 1 mile box. Our 1 mile box offers the flexibility of video transmission over 1600 m of CAT5 or 1800 m of RG59,” Pretorius concluded.
Cathexis Technologies
For two decades, surveillance solutions company Cathexis Technologies has provided the local and overseas market with surveillance solutions including hardware, such as analogue video capture cards, input and output controllers, matrix products and other peripherals required to provide complete solutions to the market. The company also develops all the software around these products.
“We have a range of solutions from small low camera count sites to very large corporate clients with anything up to 3000 cameras managed from a centralised platform. Strangely, our biggest market is the UK, accounting for 50% of all sales, while South Africa makes up 30% and the remaining 20% is throughout Europe, the USA and sub Saharan Africa,” said director Gus Brecher.
The biggest technology driver for the company has been the migration from analogue to IP. “In addition, we are finding that people are demanding more from their surveillance systems than just pure video and one of the issues they bring up is the ability of products to integrate into third party systems.
“We have developed all our products to not only integrate into other supplier’s equipment, but also to be backwards compatible. This is critical if you consider that customers with large CCTV installations may have thousands of cameras, the move from analogue to IP would be extremely expensive. Our backwards compatibility allows them to upgrade painlessly and cost effectively.”
Brecher does not believe that Cathexis has a problem with the endemic skills shortage. “We believe in concentrating on our core business and also enabling other South African companies to be sustainable. We therefore outsource our PCB manufacture, which also ensures we do not have labour problems.”
Centurion Systems
Access automation equipment solutions specialists Centurion Systems manufacture all their gate motors, traffic barriers, remote controls, access control systems and other accessories to ISO 9001 (2008) quality standards. “It does not stop there though,” said MD Pat Dickens, “as we invest heavily in R&D, with 15 fully qualified engineers, constantly improving on our current line and finding new and innovative products.
“Before going to market, all of our products undergo thorough quality inspection from optical scanning to check the solder joints and placement of components on our PCBs, to rigorous testing of the finished mechanical operators using computer driven dynamometers,” he added.
Centurion’s sales and marketing director, Richard Rohman said that automation in their production plant is a big factor in the company’s sustainability. “We have an almost fully automated SMT facility installed for the large population of electronic controllers we manufacture. We have employed robotics on some of our numerically controlled machine tools to substantially increase the throughput of components used in our gate motors and traffic barriers. In addition, we have very sophisticated test equipment which allows us to test for 100% product compliance and quality.”
Rohman admits that the company is sourcing an increasing number of components and assemblies used in the manufacturing process from more costs effective producers such as China. However, through their diligent supplier qualification process, they ensure that the quality of these parts compares favourably with locally sourced ones. This move has been driven by the underlying economics of manufacturing costs and labour issues.
“However, we believe in nurturing our employees through a Productivity SA initiative referred to as the Workplace Challenge. The Workplace Challenge’s core process of goal alignment entails improving morale through commonality of goal setting as well as improving the culture and attitudes within the company to impact on control and quality. Another process referred to as Five S process involves cleanliness and creating an organised environment within the workplace. There are two other processes which are Teamwork and Leadership.
“Our customer base is predominantly situated within easy reach of our facilities with the majority of sales taking place in South Africa. That said, we are pushing to expand into Africa with an office in Lagos opening shortly. Logistics in exportation are complicated so, although we export to over 50 countries around the world, volumes outside of Africa are relatively small,” said Rohman.
Impro Technologies
Impro Technologies is a manufacturer of access control and product identification systems for use in hotels, universities and office parks. The company has launched the Multi-Discipline Biometric Time & Attendance (MBTA) reader, which has a screen, keypad and multidiscipline reader which can read a whole range of 13,56 and 125 kHz tags.
“Apart from the inside technology, which we source from Spain, we manufacture the casing and PDA touch screen here. We believe that our strengths lie in our longevity in the market (27 years), our time to market, customer service and the total customer experience we offer,” said the company’s Dylan Liebenberg.
The company has purchased new machinery, including a second pick-and-place machine for placing microchips onto daughter boards, in order to increase the automation of its production processes. “Although we do have relatively high levels of automation, we still require the services of labourers to put the products together and we also do all testing of products manually using infrared test equipment to ensure that the boards are placed correctly,” said Darren Lategan.
Inhep Digital Security
Inhep Digital Security (IDS) has a defined export strategy for its alarm panels and detectors. “Although our market is still primarily local, export is the fastest-growing part of the business and we do have customers in the SADC regions, east and west Africa, Asia, Europe and Australasia and we are proactively approaching the export market,” said MD, Bryan Watson. Regional language and technical requirements constitute a significant barrier to exports, and overcoming these has been key to Inhep’s growing export success.
“Installers are brand conscious and we spend a lot of time and effort ensuring that they remain loyal to the IDS brand by providing them with high-quality, tried and tested products,” said head of marketing and sales, Giles Calenborne. “Because of the end purpose of our products – preventing theft and risk of life – we cannot afford to compromise on quality.”
Watson said that ongoing above-inflation wage settlements have affected the cost efficiencies of manufacture in South Africa and IDS would not be averse to moving their manufacturing offshore if this continued to be an issue.
Nemtek
The Nemtek group manufactures a full range of high security electric fencing products and now offers animal fencing energiser systems for equine, pet, farm animals and game with a full range of accessories.
Nemtek boasts a customer base throughout South Africa, Africa, Europe, Asia and the UK. “South African business has become inventive through necessity because of our local environment,” said MD, Nick Manioudakis.
Manioudakis said that the company has subscribed to the lean manufacturing practice and designs around manufacturing. “While our products are standard in design, we believe we are inventive and we have built a degree of customised flexibility into each product’s design. We place emphasis on quality control and we innovate new products constantly to not only shut out competition from overseas sources, but to also move into their markets.”
Manioudakis believes that the financial crisis has slowed down the brain drain with skilled people being more cautious and therefore remaining with companies longer than they might previously have done so. “We have found that we do have to pay really competitive salaries to the people on higher levels in terms of knowledge, experience and expertise. However, this allows us to turn things around faster and be more proactive. We place emphasis on getting feedback from all of our employees and we move people around within the company to prevent stagnation.
“We have considered moving parts or duplicating sections of our manufacturing base offshore, but two prevalent issues come to the fore. Firstly, it is logistically difficult to operate effectively from a distance and, secondly, the cultural differences are difficult to deal with. If we were guaranteed an easy penetration into those regions with our products then it would make the decision a lot easier to justify,” said Manioudakis.
“For a company to be successful it should not only rely on the innovative products it makes but also on its staff. The ethos of the company and attitude of the Nemtek people adds to our success,” he concluded.
Turnstar
Turnstar designs and manufactures turnstiles, revolving doors, man-trap cubicles, vehicle barriers, high security hydraulic bollards and rising kerbs and physical access control systems. According to assistant director Craig Sacks, the company exports 30% of its products to sub Saharan Africa, the Middle East, the UK, Scandinavia, Europe, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand. “The biggest growing market for us is in Cameroon and the DRC, with an annual growth rate of 20% due to the expansion of their economies.”
Sacks points out that the company’s customer base is varied and includes mines, stadia, factories, warehouses, office reception areas, office parks, universities and health clubs.
Turnstar believes that to produce quality products companies need to invest in high-end manufacturing equipment. “We have invested in a CNC lathe, CNC milling machine, a robotic welder, a powder coating plant, mandrel tube bender and a pyramid roller, all housed in a 3500 m² factory. We will also be taking delivery of a laser cutter in the next few months, in order to further increase the automation of our manufacturing processes.”
Sacks is upbeat about the purported threat from low-cost product importers. “We specialise in products that are not easy to manufacture and import due to the level of technical expertise required and the high cost of shipping. In addition, products similar to those we manufacture would be too costly to import and we are able to provide products with short lead times.”
A problem faced by many companies, both locally and globally, is skills shortage. “We struggle to find suitably qualified machine operators. This is in great part due to the closure of many of the training schools and the lack of basic education in the workforce. We nurture the people in our workforce by constantly offering training programmes and looking for various ways to increase each individual’s skills set,” said Sacks.
Sacks said the company built its reputation on providing short lead times, building strong and enduring customer relationships and providing reliable, durable and guaranteed products which are a fit-and-forget solution.”
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