Over the past two months we have seen two major conferences where manufacturing, job losses and the shortage of skills in all sectors of the economy have been debated. But if we break it down, the one thing impacting most on South Africa’s economy is deindustrialisation. In the 1980s, manufacturing’s contribution to GDP was 27%. […]
On 29 June 2017, EE Publishers’ Chris Yelland interviewed Ralf Leinen, head of Digital Factory, Process Industries and Drives, Siemens South Africa. They discussed automation in the South African manufacturing and mining sectors and touched on the education system required to produce talent for the automation and digitalisation industry. Leinen comes from Germany and […]
With the aim of increasing digitalisation in the machine tools manufacturing industry, Siemens took part in the recent Machine Tools Expo at the Expo Centre, Nasrec, in May 2017. The company invited its partners in machine tools to exhibit at its 200 m2 exhibition stand to showcase the products, services and support offered through […]
ABB South Africa opened a new transformer factory near its Longmeadow headquarters, east of Johannesburg, recently. The 2450 m2 factory will produce specially designed traction transformers for Bombardier which has been awarded a contract to supply new locomotives to Transnet for its freight trains. The company’s group CEO, Ulrich Spiesshofer, and Lionel October, the director-general […]
Competition in today’s market has become fiercer than ever. Getting the product to market faster while preserving or increasing quality and decreasing the cost to do so has always been the goal of the successful producer. The market has become increasingly global, government regulations and reporting requirements have increased, and the consumer has become […]
South Africa’s manufacturing industry has shown steep declines over the last few years, driven by global economic pressure and depressed commodity prices which have negatively affected the mining sector. Mining requirements drove a significant percentage of historical manufacturing. The Deloitte Global Manufacturing Competitiveness survey now ranks South Africa 27th in the world, down three […]
Siemens recently conducted a study in order to determine a digitalisation benchmark across South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia; as well as in African transport, manufacturing and energy industries. Speaking at a media breakfast recently, Sabine Dall’Omo, the CEO of the company’s South African operation, said the four countries were selected as some of […]
The future for manufacturing in the KwaZulu-Natal region is said to be looking especially bright, with a number of substantial recently completed projects and newly announced projects seeing a large cash injection from well-known companies. In mid-April, the second phase of the upgrade and expansion to Sumitomo Rubber South Africa’s Dunlop tyre manufacturing facility […]
The emergence of the industrial internet of things (IIoT) megatrend has created both hope and confusion among for the operation of industrial plants. Much of the early hype is focused on the impact of technological advancements on existing automation platforms. John Conway, VP for Strategy and Partnerships at Schneider Electric writes in a White Paper […]
Siemens and GlaxoSmithKline have entered a global strategic partnership whereby Siemens will become a strategic partner of GSK in manufacturing automation, and thus the preferred automation supplier for GSK production and R&D sites worldwide, including vaccines. This new agreement further develops the long standing successful relationship between both companies, and helps GSK to refresh […]
