MESA Africa (Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association) has aligned with the Africa Automation Fair for the first time this year, to help drive the next level of industry automation in South Africa.
MESA Africa is part of MESA International, a worldwide not-for-profit community of manufacturing companies, information technology hardware and software suppliers, system integrators, consulting service providers, analysts, editors, academics and students working to improve manufacturing and business through optimised IT and best practice management.
MESA Africa vice chairman Gerhard Greeff says MESA’s focus sits on the layer above pure industrial and plant automation, extending to the systems that connect, optimise and analyse all aspects of the manufacturing business such as production, inventory, maintenance and quality operations. “We have aligned with Africa Automation Fair 2019 because of its focus on Industry 4.0, which encompasses more of the base technologies and models we believe to be crucial for manufacturers today, and into the future,” he says.
Greeff says South African industry and manufacturers are generally on par with those in Europe and the US in that some are at the “bleeding edge” and some lag. “There is a great deal of automation in place in African manufacturing plants, but you may find that while the plant is automated, the manufacturer is still managing the books on Excel spreadsheets, or there is an enterprise resource management or business management system in place, but the factory is being operated manually. In many, you’ll find that they are unable to track and analyse the factors that impact on production throughput and product quality. In next generation industry automation, all stakeholders, departments and processes are connected and automated to optimise operations across the entire production ecosystem.”
Greeff notes that unlike certain other first-world countries, South Africa does not have smart factory/ Industry 4.0 initiatives driven and funded by government, in which stakeholders collaborate and share best practice to progress industry as a whole.
To advance South Africa’s Industry 4.0 agenda, Greeff believes industry stakeholders should begin actively sharing knowledge and upskilling their workforces now. MESA, which works to educate and share knowledge on operations excellence, will participate in Africa Automation Fair to showcase its membership benefits and the information resources it has available to the sector.
Contact Jane Collett, MESA Africa, admin@mesa-africa.org
