EMEA-Oct-2012

ACHIEVING BUSINESS EXCELLENCE ONLINE

EMEA EDITION October 2012

comair:

Putting the ease in tease

magyar telekom:

From green to red

randgold resources:

Community service

steaming

ahead

How global cleaning technology market leader K채rcher is achieving record sales and pursuing a strategy of expansion

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Editor’s letter

GROWTH!

G

rowth is the theme this month, with global cleaning technology leader Kärcher pursuing a strategy of expansion, despite the downturn in the global economy and family owned engineering company Progetti Europa & Global (PEG) planning its next phase of expansion in the oil and gas industry.

The market leader in Australia in high pressure grinding rolls for the mining industry, Polysius has invested $20 million in a Service Centre including a highly automated, state-of-theart workshop, while in South Africa managing director Ryan Carpenter talks about Drytech’s reputation for solving tough industrial drying problems.

Basil Read’s project director explains the challenges involved in the construction of an international airport on the island of St Helena, and the opportunities it will bring for economic development on the island. We also have new research from Barclays highlighting the benefits of exporting and economic strategist Martin Marmolejo solves the Eurozone debt crisis!

M.Ashcroft Martin Ashcroft Editor-in-chief mashcroft@bus-ex.com

CONTRIBUTORS Ofer Guetta

An IBMer for 18 years, with a wealth of IT experience, Ofer is currently social collaboration sales leader for IBM Collaborations Solutions.

Martin Marmolejo

A global investment strategist based in Mexico City, Martin is founder of MMA Global Investment Management and author of Globalization.

Richard Telofski

A competitive strategy and intelligence analyst, Richard Telofski currently practices at The Kahuna Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, USA.

Simon Orme

Managing director of Emros Partners, dedicated to helping technology companies develop and implement their growth strategies.

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FEATURES

18

10

10 COMMENT: EXPORTING

EXPORT TO GROW

Businesses that export grow by almost a third in just two years, according to new research from Barclays.

12 comment: social business

16

Return on investment

Companies need to rethink return on investment to evaluate the benefits of social business, says IBM’s Ofer Guetta.

16 EVENTS

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

Precious Metals ‘12 Conference in South Africa, Energy from Biomass Symposium in Venice, among others.

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contents 18 Economics

The world debt bomb

24

The subprime and European debt crisis is the greatest threat/opportunity for mankind in a century, says Martin Marmolejo.

24 STRATEGY

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

Certain characteristics demonstrate ‘executive promise’ and the ability to take on an executive role—but at what price? asks Simon Orme.

30 SUPPLY CHAIN

READY FOR TAKE-OFF?

30 38 BUSYNESS

BUSYNESS IS NOT BUSINESS . . . BUT IT WORKS

With competition heating up in aerospace and defence manufacturing, businesses are having to rethink how they go to market.

38

A lighthearted look at our obsession with busyness from our competitive strategy analyst Richard Telofski.

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business showcase

44

44 KÄRCHER

STEAMING AHEAD In spite of the economic slowdown, global cleaning technology market leader Kärcher is achieving record sales and pursuing a strategy of expansion.

54 COMAIR

PUTTING THE EASE IN TEASE Running an airline is a deadly serious business, but this South African operator likes to make passengers laugh, too.

54

76 AMERICAN EXPRESS TRAVEL SERVICES SOUTH AFRICA AFRICA EXPRESS

Developing its continent-wide American Express franchise network to meet the unique requirements of Africa’s rapidly growing oil and gas industries.

84 MAGYAR TELEKOM FROM RED TO GREEN

Magyar Telekom has been making rapid progress towards sustainability, recently earning an A+ rating from the Global Reporting Initiative.

96 MAKEDONSKI TELEKOM CONNECTING THE DOTS

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CEO Daniel Szasz talks about how the company is contributing to the development of Macedonia’s telecommunications industry.

contents

108

108 BASIL READ

THE SKY’S THE LIMIT An exclusive interview with the project director about the challenges and benefits of the St Helena airport project.

120 GOLD FIELDS SA

120

SHARING THE VALUE

Aiming to be the global leader in sustainable gold mining, progressing from compliance to social economic development (SED).

134 EAST ASIA MINERALS GOLDEN ISLANDS

Overcoming obstacles to gold mining in challenging locations using sound management, local knowledge and determination.

156

142 ETI KROM

A STAINLESS SUCCESS RECORD One of Turkey’s most important home-grown mining companies is currently building its own coal-fired electricity generation plant.

156 RANDGOLD RESOURCES COMMUNITY SERVICE

Charles Wells talks about the company’s approach to sustainability and the initiatives it has in place to leave behind a positive legacy.

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business showcase

170 SWAKOP URANIUM

PLANNING NAMIBIA’S LARGEST MINE Swakop Uranium is developing Namibia’s largest uranium deposit, but also protecting the sensitive desert environment.

170

178 XSTRATA TECHNOLOGY

186

A SLOW GRIND

Mineral Processing Manager Greg Rasmussen talks about the introduction of new mining technology to the industry.

186 DRYTECH INTERNATIONAL A DRY HUMOUR

This South African engineering company is going global with its expertise for solving tough industrial drying problems.

194 PROGETTI EUROPA & GLOBAL (PEG) STRAIGHT AND TRUE

An engineering company that has made a name for itself in the Middle Eastern oil business by playing it straight.

200 THYSSENKRUPP POLYSIUS ON THE MOVE

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Leading the market in high pressure grinding rolls for the mining industry in Australia.

contents

208 HALL LONGMORE IN FOR THE LONG HAUL

Hall Longmore’s 85 year history has seen its steel pipes become the preferred choice with pipeline designers and end users.

218 DIGBY WELLS ENVIRONMENTAL

CONSCIENTIOUS CONSULTANTS

218 226

Digby Wells’ commitment to a comprehensive environmental and social service sees it working for many of Africa’s leading mine houses.

226 RASGAS

FULLY COMMITTED Ras Laffan-based RasGas has helped Qatar achieve the largest LNG production capacity in the world.

234 FREIGHT MARK SERVICES MAKING TRADE HAPPEN

234

A relatively small company is playing a big part in facilitating trade in a country with a troubled past that is gradually getting back on its feet.

242 BIDVEST LAUNDRY GROUP BIDDING TO BE THE BEST

Delivering first-class garment rental and laundry services to industries across Southern Africa.

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Export to grow by: barclays

B

usinesses generate an average growth of 30 per cent after exporting for just two years, according to new research from Barclays.

Carried out among 1,500 small businesses in the UK, the research reveals the rapid benefits of exporting, with 29 per cent experiencing a positive impact on their bottom line within just six months of expanding into international markets.

Eight in ten (82 per cent) businesses experienced a positive impact on their

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bottom line after two years of exporting.

The research comes as Barclays recently launched a unique proposition, Business Abroad, which provides the tools and know-how that businesses need to start trading internationally with confidence.

Increasing the number of businesses that export is vital to the recovery of the UK economy and to boosting job creation. Nearly a third (31%) of businesses that currently sell overseas have recruited an extra 15 people each on average as a direct result of exporting.

This includes many smaller SMEs employing a few extra members of staff, and a small number of fast growing SMEs taking on much larger numbers.

Given the positive impact on the bottom line of a business, it’s perhaps not surprising that 31 per cent of those who currently export are planning on branching into new markets in the next year and a further 24 per cent in the next two years. And, with continuing uncertainty in the eurozone, businesses are looking for export opportunities further afield.

comment: Exporting Nine out of the top ten countries listed as targets by businesses exporting for three years or more are outside of Europe, with Hong Kong, India, China and Australia topping the list.

Beyond business growth, almost nine in ten (87 per cent) businesses claim there are other benefits to exporting, including having greater confidence in the longevity of the business (44 per cent), increased productivity (37 per cent), stronger innovation (28 per cent) and a longer lifespan for their products and services (27 per cent).

“Winning business overseas is a vitally important way for SMEs to prosper and help the economy grow out of recession,” said Steve Cooper, vice chairman of Barclays Business Banking.

“Our new research shows that in the challenging domestic market, exporting provides attractive new revenue grow th for businesses of up to a third, boosting the bottom line and supporting job creation.”

In addition to launching Barclays Business Abroad, Barclays has also joined

82% Businesses seeing a positive impact on their bottom line after two years of exporting up with UK Trade and Investment to help small businesses trade internationally – from securing their first international customer to setting up an overseas operation.

Lord Green, Minister for Trade and Investment, said: “Boosting the UK’s export performance and supporting the growth of small and medium sized enterprises are key parts of our plan for growth that will help us secure a stronger, more balanced and resilient economy. The Government wants to see a further

100,000 British businesses exporting by 2020 and is committed to helping businesses of all sizes take their products and services to new markets overseas.”

Barclays customer Sharda Glass was established in 2006 and now exports its architectural glass to the USA, Europe and Middle East. Neil Sharda, director and owner said, “I started exporting five years ago and have seen an incredible impact on my bottom line.

I first started exporting to Dubai and Qatar, and then a year ago won the contract to supply the new World Trade Centre in New York.

As a result of my move into exporting, I’ve been able to move into new, larger premises. I travel abroad regularly and I believe building good relationships with clients is the key to continuing and growing my business abroad.”

Barclays Business Abroad is a one stop shop to help businesses start trading overseas. It offers free access to expert guidance, advice, workshops and tools, as well as discounts on international products and services. To find out more call 0845 301 6308 or visit www.barclays.co.uk/barclaysabroad

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Return on investment by: Ofer Guetta

comment: Social business

H

ow do you quantify return on investment (ROI) of a social business?

By its very nature, social technologies are more free-forming, making their potential exponential, yet unpredictable.

A successful social business can benefit both externally and internally.

Internal ROI can often be rea lised a lmost immediately. When you add the application of analytics to social business initiatives, where actionable insights from social networking can arise anytime, anywhere and be put to work in realtime, businesses have a recipe for success.

Internal or “soft” benefits such as greater employee collaboration, streamlined communication or improved product development, are clearly beneficial for an organisation. Yet these benefits cannot be quantified as easily as heightened customer satisfaction and skyrocketing sales. Focusing solely on forms of new revenue or sales resulting from social engagements

mea ns orga nisations are overlooking some of the main components of social business ROI. More attention must be paid to shifting the nature of work and structure of businesses a nd the impactf ul results organisations enjoy by making such transformational changes.

Companies that are seeing real business value from social capabilities are

10% Reduction in travel costs at Newly Weds Foods doing more than launching an ad-hoc Twitter campaign or throwing up a corporate Facebook page. They are embedding social tools into business processes, enabling the business as a whole to become more strategic, engaged, transparent and nimble.

Social tools combined with a culture of collaboration enable a more effective workforce – across all departments within an

organisation. By enabling employees to locate experts quickly and collaborate across geographically d i s t r i bu t e d tea ms, employee productivity and engagement is higher.

This, in turn, leads to benefits such as reduced travel expenses or speedy development of new products or sales approaches.

UK-based Newly Weds Foods, a global leader in food ingredient technology, is using social business technologies to share information, exchange ideas and discover regionspecif ic recipes. By collaborating in the cloud, Newly Weds Foods has reduced travel and meeting costs by 10 percent.

L o w e ’s Home Improvement uncovered a new way of selling paint based on an employee’s idea that was generated via an internal social collaboration solution. As a result of the new sales approach, the company realised a million dollars in additional revenue.

At the crux of every business is the need to attract new customers and retain existing ones. Imagine a call

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“Social tools combined with a culture of collaboration enable a more effective workforce�

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centre for a large national bank where all customer inquiries are funnelled through one general number. Social enterprise tools enable customer service representatives to work more efficiently and provide higherquality service as there is more immediate access to content and expertise within the organisation. By streamlining this process, there is a better customer experience, deepening customer loyalty and boosting future sales.

As knowledge and idea sharing increase, the rate of innovation is accelerated, an important asset to businesses now more than ever. Moving from idea sharing sessions with a handful of C-level executives behind closed doors, to collaborative and transparent brainstorming

across a company, leads to shortened product development cycles and improved revenue streams.

For example, Cemex, a Mexico-based building materials manufacturer, implemented an enterprisegrade social networking and web experience software solution in 2010 to help connect 47,000 employees in 50 countries. Within the first month of implementation, 5,000 users signed on with 20,000 users signed on after the first year.

By creating communities and microblogs, Cemex has the ability to crowdsource new product and business ideas. The company began innovation challenges to engage employees and enable them to come up with new, innovative ideas for the company. During one of these challenges, an

comment: Social business

Collaborating in the cloud saves travel and meeting costs

employee came up with the idea for ready-mix cement which has now become one of Cemex’s most profitable products. By allowing employees at any level to bring ideas to the table, businesses create a flat, collaborative environment leading to ideas that are more profitable.

The days of turning your back on social tools are gone. Companies that have adopted social practices and tools early on to create a more collaborative work environment are gaining

competitive advantage in their market and becoming more profitable.

It is important to remember that we are still in the early years of social business and like any innovation, we need to track what we’re doing and continue to evolve the

technologies and practices before we can truly have a barometer to measure ROI. As social businesses evolve, we’ll continue to see numerous studies around the ROI of social and just how transformative this cultural and technological shift can be.

Ofer Guetta

Ofer Guetta is social collaboration sales leader, IBM. For more information about IBM’s Social Business, please see. www.youtube.com/user/IBMSocialBusinessUK

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EVENTS Precious Metals ‘12 Conference 12 - 13 November 2012 Cape Town, South Africa The 4th International Symposium on Precious Metals is organised by Minerals Engineering International in consultation with Dr Mike Adams. Precious Metals ‘12 will deal with all aspects of the processing of gold, silver and PGM ores, such as flotation, bio and hydrometallurgy and environmental issues.

The keynote lecture Metallurgical Challenges Facing the Gold Mining Industry will be given by Dr. Rob Dunne, group executive, metallurgical innovation for Newmont Mining Corporation. Robert has worked for a number of mining companies and has lectured at the Western Australian School of Mines and at Mintek.

The keynote lecture Processing of South African Platinum Ores will be presented

by Keith Liddell, who has extensive experience in the financing, development and operation of resource projects and has worked in the platinum industry since 1981, starting at Mintek as group leader, precious metals. www.min-eng.com/preciousmetals12

IRAM 2012 Conference 28 - 30 November 2012 Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Malaysia The first IRAM conference will be held at Monash University Sunway Campus, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It will bring together experts from the academic, scientific and industrial communities to address new challenges, present their latest research findings, ideas, developments and perspective of the future directions in the field.

Keynote speeches will include Innovation in the Era of Graphical System Design, given

by Mr. Chandran Nair, managing director, National Instruments, Singapore.

Nilesh J. Vasa, professor of the Department of Engineering Design at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras will also speak on recent advances in laser assisted surface treatment of thin films for photovoltaic applications. www.iram2012.org

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Dates for your diary 2012 2nd International Conference on Petroleum and Sustainable Development (ICPSD 2012) 27 - 28 October 2012, Hong Kong The ICPSD conference provides a forum for laying the foundations of a new principled approach to petroleum and sustainable development. The meeting aims to attract participants with different backgrounds, to foster cross-pollination between different research fields, and to expose and discuss innovative theories, frameworks, methodologies, tools, and applications.

The ICPSD 2012 is co-sponsored

by Asia-Pacific Chemical, Biological & Environmental Engineering Society (APCBEES), and supported by scholars from universities all around the world. Submitted conference papers will be reviewed by technical committees of the Conference.

Founded in 2007, APCBEES is an independent, non-profit research and development organization with a mission to foster and conduct collaborative interdisciplinary research in state-of-theart methodologies and technologies within its areas of expertise. www.icpsd.org

Venice 2012: Fourth International Symposium on Energy from Biomass and Waste Conference 12 -15 November 2012 San Servolo, Venice, Italy The Venice 2012 Symposium will focus on the advances made in the application of technologies for energy recovery from biomass and waste and to encourage discussion in these fields. The previous edition of the Symposium, held in 2010, was attended by nearly 600 scientists and operators from approximately 60 different countries.

The fourth edition of the Symposium will last four days and will include oral sessions, a poster session, a small exhibition by companies working in the field and technical tours.

The Symposium is organized by the International Waste Working Group (IWWG) with the scientific support of the Universities of Queensland, Padua, Hokkaido, Rostock, Singapore and Trento. The IWWG is a registered notfor-profit organisation aiming to provide an intellectual platform to encourage and support integrated and sustainable waste management and to promote practical scientific development in the field. www.venicesymposium.it

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The world debt The subprime and European debt crisis is the greatest threat/opportunity for mankind in a century written by: Martin Marmolejo

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Economics

debt bomb

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W

i t h virtually no exceptions, every debt crisis is a prime example of major errors and omissions in fiscal policy management.

That was the case in the European subprime crisis, as well as in Japan. Although the monetary side has room for improvement, the major potential in most economies lies in the fiscal side of public management.

The persistent imbalance that generated the huge debt overload in Japan, the US and Europe has to do with improper funding of the social safety net.

During the boom years after WWII, social benefits increased dramatically.

These benefits became more widespread because they were funded with the new wealth generated by a healthy growth in productivity as well as in the overall economy – so the balance was maintained.

In recent decades, however, retirement, health, and unemployment benefits have been consistently and progressively moving up, while the subpar rate of

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growth of the underlying economies has not been able to fully provide the funding needed for those entitlements.

That income shortfall has consistently been financed with new debt – as opposed to what should have been new wealth creation. This produced the current huge debt overhang. So far, no major political system has had the courage and determination to face its citizens with the sad truth, opting instead for “kicking the can down the road”.

Thus, most economies in developed nations have ended up asphyxiated by the total debt overload.

The only sensible, lasting solution for this paramount challenge should be crystal clear. Reverse that pernicious trend by doing exactly the opposite of what created it in the first place— an outright reduction in social benefits to their populations. That reversion process has to be gradual, yet consistent. Given the short and medium-term social pain created by this reversal process, the social and political resistance for

The poor rate of growth has not been

n able to fund social spending

Economics

“The income shortfall has consistently been financed with new debt instead of new wealth creation” such a change is strong, but there is no other way out of this huge debt mess; this is an axiomatic truth. We must learn to look at it as a shortterm pain for long-term sustainable gain.

That leads us into both the greatest contemporary threat and opportunity in a generation: the need for a profound restructuring of the socio-political system.

It is evident that the built-in incentives in the current systems do not sufficiently reward good deeds nor sufficiently penalize major mistakes and omissions; otherwise, this horrible fiscal imbalance and the resulting debt mess would not have occurred. The world’s present socioeconomic and political system has to evolve continuously to be able to successfully cope with current needs and threats.

If this profound virtuous change does not take place,

the ongoing world economic stagnation will continue.

Throughout history there have been numerous examples of countries that have successfully overcome deep financial imbalances – including huge debt overloads. However, in the current global situation, the fact that many of the world’s leading countries are simultaneously immersed in debt, has never presented itself before. Although the solution to this global debt bomb continues to be the same, this fact poses a particular degree of difficulty.

All over the world, to a high degree, nations are controlled by a relatively small number of people behind the main political parties. The typical dynamics and inertia behind those political elites is mostly non-virtuous (essentially revolving around

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“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter much which party is in power: all of them are essentially helpless”

Mariano Rajoy

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keeping power or regaining it). Furthermore, to a high degree, even that relatively small number of people are victims of the same system they “control” (the degree of control they exert upon the most important variables is negligible, given the numerous concessions granted along the way through the years). The influence of citizens is basically confined to voting parties in or out of office.

The sad truth, however, is at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter much which party is in power: all of them are essentially helpless. For a quick corroboration of this, take a look at Spain. In January 2012, the Spanish population, fed up with the escalating economic crisis, voted the Socialist party out of office and replaced Prime Minister Rodriguez Zapatero with Mariano Rajoy of the Conservative

Economics party. A major change at work? Not at all. And this has nothing to do with the best intentions of either of the two PMs. The Spanish political system, as well as most in the world, is worn out, exhausted, helpless.

Reality is far more powerful than the limited capabilities that the political elites actually have. The need for a profound re-energizing of our current political systems is imperative. We cannot keep confronting increasingly global situations with local legislations.

Behind all this global human drama lies an unquestionable fact: the best (and only) way out of this debt mess is with high long-term, self-sustainable economic growth for the world as a whole. Only in that scenario, the major pieces of the economic puzzle will tend to fall into their right place, effectively defusing the world debt bomb. Debt has to be repaid and extinguished, not simply transferred to the future. Granted, no one ever expects it to go down to zero, yet, a noticeable and consistent reduction

in the debt/GDP ratio is imperative.

The contempora r y economic and political system has not experienced any major upgrade since the foundation of the United States. It is time for a drastic, virtuous change. How to go about it?

There are no easy answers.

The extremely complex situations within and among developed nations do not lend themselves well for major constructive change in the near term. There are many loose bolts that have to be tightened to open the way for what is required.

Thus, it seems that from that angle, it may take a long time (maybe decades) for that virtuous evolution to materialize, if at all.

The urgency of the matter is unquestionable.

With those ideas in mind, an original and provocative approach is offered in

my book Globalization. In essence, it consists in jumpstarting and fast-tracking economic growth in failed nations. The initiative is called the Turbo-charged Global Project (TGP) and is based on applying, in a systematic manner, the major factors at work in formerly very poor nations that have recently transformed themselves from rags to riches in just a few decades.

Those countries are the most powerful, uncontroversial testimony that a profound virtuous tra nsformation f rom rags to riches can be accomplished anywhere, anytime, provided that the TGP system is appropriately implemented. Through a reverse/eng ineered analysis, those factors have been de-codified and the proposed TGP system has emerged.

Martin Marmolejo is a global investment strategist based in Mexico City. He is author of Globalization, which offers an in-depth look at how our current global mindset can be a positive force in transforming societies and lives. www.understandglobalization.com

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Strategy

Be careful

what you wish for Certain characteristics demonstrate ‘executive promise’ and the ability to take on an executive role—but at what price? written by: Simon Orme

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T

he subject of executive pay ha s cau sed quite a stir in the UK media over the last few months.

As employees grapple with austerity measures and pay freezes, news of multimillion-pound bonuses has been quite hard for the general public to swallow. Just a few weeks ago, global advertising giant WPP suffered a major revolt with almost 60 per cent of investors voting against the £6.8 million proposed pay package for chief executive Martin Sorrell.

Why is it that executives are paid so much? What sets the ‘executive’ leader apart from the rest? How can shareholders be guaranteed that executives will deliver against their promise?

Displaying executive promise In my eyes, an executive demonstrates both tactical and strategic capabilities, of which strategic is more important. Many people in managerial positions limit their vision to operational issues and regard strategic

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ones as being beyond their remit. The ability to act strategically as well as tactically is a key differentiator.

Strategic thinking is the ability to identify actions that will make a significant contribution to the success of the company. Take, for example, the impact Steve Jobs had on Apple, helping the company to innovate and shape the market. He could see future trends before anyone else and he had real vision.

Executive potential and capacity is characterised by people who are able to bring good ideas to the table.

I am not suggesting that people should constantly try to challenge the status quo, or make changes for the sake of change. But I do encourage taking a questioning attitude and approaching business with an open mind and no preconceptions.

With this in mind, I have recognised the following dimensions which can help develop the strategic thinking needed to become an executive: • Innovation—is there a

“The abili strategical as tactical differen

Executive potential is characterised b who are able to bring good ideas to th

ity to act lly as well lly is a key ntiator”

by people he table

Strategy better way to be doing this?

• Exploitation—how could we use this more efficiently?

• Delegation—who else could do this?

• Extrapolation—where else could we use this?

• Collaboration—who else could we do this with?

• Evaluation—how could I make this more productive/ valuable?

Delivering strategic thinking Strategic thinking is not just a brain dump.

What is required is a serious assessment of the sit u at ion/opp or t u n it y, coupled with a practical way of implementing the suggestion with an analysis of the benefits and costs of the proposed actions. There is no use in taking ideas and complaints to company executives without an attempt to offer solutions or a means to take advantage of an opportunity.

As CEO, I used to run into this problem quite often and I learnt that to save my own time I would deflect a problem back to people, asking them what they thought we should do

about it and asking them to go away and come back with a structured contribution. I found that this would either detract people from coming to me with problems or ideas that would take a lot of my time to investigate, but it also meant that the standard of contributions that did come my way were much higher.

If you are at a management level looking to move up, demonstrating this kind of behaviour and avoiding present ing problems without assessing methods to resolve them will get you noticed as someone that could take a more strategic role as described above.

Executive ethics and behaviour Executive roles come with power and as such are subject to the trappings of responsibility that this entails. Executives are exposed and need to be careful of their behaviour and the decisions they make, as the buck well and truly stops with them.

Just take, for example, the recent Leveson enquiry into the behaviour of News

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International. Although it has not been proven that Rupert Murdoch has been directly involved in any instances of phone hacking, this has not shielded him from condemnation in the report by the UK’s Culture Media and Sport Select Committee into News International which claimed that “Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company”. The revelations

have seriously damaged the corporation, which is now dividing its broadcasting and publishing arms into two separate organisations to prevent contagion across the brands (although News International has claimed the move is unrelated to the UK investigation).

Added to this, Barclays has come under huge pressure following the discovery that it has been ma nipulating Libor— the rate at which banks

lend to one another. The bank has been fined £290 million for the rate rigging scandal, which sent share prices plummeting by over 17 per cent at one stage. CEO Bob Diamond, who caused controversy last year after taking a £2 .7 m i l l ion c a sh bonus despite the poor performa nce of the bank, has been put under incredible pressure and as a result he has now resigned.

Executives need to

There are various implicit requirements and obligations that go with being an executive

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Strategy

“Executive potential and capacity is characterised by people who are able to bring good ideas to the table” accept there are various implicit requirements and obligations that go with the job. The willingness to respect them is the second dimension to executive promise—the right of the employer to expect the

executive to behave in a certain way. Personally I believe every employer has every right to expect the following behavioural cha racteristics to be displayed by the executive team: • Application—devotion to the needs and objectives of the company • Integrity—ethical and proper conduct in all business matters • Honesty—true and honest business reporting and business dealings • Loyalty—to the company and colleagues • Consistency—in behaviour and employee relations • Respect—for the company and its leadership.

This may look like a parable of virtues and it possibly is, but I have found that companies that pay attention to them are much more effective and

productive than those where these concepts are not applied. They are also more pleasant to work in!

Have you got what it takes?

I would conclude that the rewards for moving up the executive chain of command are vast. Higher pay, personal glory and a genuine opportunity to shape an industry will always be appealing to those who strive for excellence. However, to reap the rewards you need to demonstrate qualities of executive promise.

St r a t e g ic t h i n k i ng , integrity and delivery will all help you reach your goal.

Simon Orme is the managing director of Emros Partners. www.emrospartners.com

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Ready for take-off?

With competition heating up in the aerospace and defence manufacturing sector, businesses are having to completely rethink the ways in which they go to market written by: Arsenin Rodriguez

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supply chain

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“MY SHELL CARD ALLOWS ME TO CONTROL MY FLEET 24/7.”

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32 | BE EMEA

supply chain

Manufacturers are combining cost containment with growth opportunities

T

he aerospace and defence sector is t y pica lly very resilient to economic downturns. Long product development and production programmes, and an often predictable order pipeline, help the industry maintain a more stable business when compared with other discrete manufacturing sectors.

But a number of factors, includ ing increa sed variability in civil aviation orders, budget cuts in government defence spending, the rise of new

competitors from emerging markets, and new regulations governing materials and energy efficiency, are threatening the resilience of the sector. A combination of these challenges is leading aerospace and defence companies to rethink their business strategies in the light of better business efficiency, rationalisation, and performance.

As seen in a recent IDC Manufacturing Insights survey, many aerospace and defence companies are responding to these market pressures by pursuing a ‘shrink-to-grow’

strategy aimed at excelling on a few profitable core act iv it ies, t herefore improving their time-tomarket and exploiting grow th opportunities more proactively. To do this, manufacturers in the aerospace and defence industry are implementing a well-balanced strategy that combines cost containment with growth opportunities.

Part of this transition involves a change in direction from products to services. At the same time, competition is heating up— with emerging newcomers rivalling well-established

BE EMEA | 33

traditional players. While demand is pretty stable, governments and civil airlines are cutting budgets and becoming more stringent in terms of fulfilment needs.

In this context, aerospace and defence organisations need to completely rethink the way they go to market.

The first and most important process they need to improve is their ability to understand where the market is going by improving their demand planning and forecasting. This is

particularly important for aftermarket services and spare parts.

More than 80 per cent of aerospace respondents in the survey want to sustain growth by selling more added-value services on products. Attempting to create a competitive edge, aerospace and defence firms have sought to provide their clients with repair, maintenance and overhaul services. The end goal is to create a more engaged relationship and improve

The Rolls-Royce Adour powers the Sepecat Jaguar

34 | BE EMEA

customer fulfilment.

Aftermarket services, and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) activities, are becoming the areas on which aerospace and defence manufacturers will focus to sustain more growth and gain profits. The most critical challenge is learning how to profitably manage the fast-paced business environment required by MRO and aftermarket services. Guaranteeing components/spare parts availability on demand,

supply chain

“Attempting to create a competitive edge, aerospace and defence firms have sought to provide their clients with repair, maintenance and overhaul services� managing a network of distribution centres, forecasting sparse demand items, implementing postponement initiatives and delivering constant global customer service levels all represent new capabilities at which this industry has

to rapidly become excellent.

The ability to optimise and manage inventories properly is vital.

However, produc t innovation still remains key. In aerospace winning products are those that offer maximum reliability, low cost of ownership and performance. Nearly 70 per cent of aerospace and defence organisations plan to invest in product innovation over the next three years, with greener environmentally friendly products another key driver.

The aerospace and defence sector is one of the most heavily regulated in the world, and companies see compliance mandates as a primary driver for environmental initiatives.

While in many other sectors, regulations are often seen as a burden, for aerospace and defence they provide business

opportunities instead (such as forcing airlines to revamp their fleets).

The resulting supply chain complexity from this regulation and product/ service innovation has led more than 90 per cent of aerospace and defence

80% Aerospace respondents to survey wishing to sell more added-value services manufacturers to focus cost containment initiatives primarily outside the four walls of their enterprise. Their key strateg y is primarily focused on reducing the number of suppliers and shortening and optimising the supply chain.

BE EMEA | 35

“The fast decision-making required by the modern aerospace sector requires strong integration with partners along the value chain�

Internally, aerospace and defence manufacturers understand the inadequacy of their current IT systems.

They need to overcome the current system fragmentation and encourage a more collaborative environment with greater visibility and intelligence

36 | BE EMEA

of information, internal to the enterprise and external along the value chain.

The IDC Manufacturing Insights survey found that in nearly 70 per cent of cases, information needed to take important decisions on product or service innovation is stored in too many different

IT systems. In addition, the research showed that the fast decision-making required by the modern aerospace sector requires strong integration with partners along the value chain, which organisations responding to the survey do not think they have.

In particular, nearly

supply chain

A key strategy is to reduce the number of suppliers and optimise the supply chain

60 per cent of aerospace respondents believe that their ERP in place does not support the business well in enabling faster decision making. They believe that implementing collaborative or social networking-style features on their ER P w ill impact future business achievements. In fact, 85 per cent of aerospace respondents said they need these new features to help speed up business processes and rapidly adapt processes to change.

Aerospace organisations recognise the importance of modernising traditional IT, leverag ing what IDC calls the “four IT forces�: cloud computing, social business, mobility, and big data analytics.

Indeed, the vast majority of respondents believe that the four IT forces

will change the way they work in the near future.

IDC M a nu f ac t u r i ng Insights expects aerospace organisations to make foundational investments in these technologies to improve the value of their IT systems and in particular their ERP over the next three years.

Based in The Netherlands, Arsenin Rodriguez is director of Business Consulting Extended Solutions, EMEA, at Infor. He has extensive experience in the aerospace and defence sectors. www.infor.com

BE EMEA | 37

38 | BE EMEA

Busyness

Busyness is not business . . . but it works A lighthearted look at our obsession with busyness from our competitive strategy analyst written by: Richard Telofski

BE EMEA | 39

B

usy is as busy does.

You’re in business. I’m in business.

And you’re busy. I’m busy, as well. We’re all busy. How do I know? Just ask someone in business the question, “Do you have some time for blah, blah, blah?” and what is the answer you will likely receive?

“Sorry, I’m busy.”

You know that will be the response even before you pose your question. And why do you know that?

Because we’re all busy. It’s like knowing that the sun will rise tomorrow morning.

I hear it and read about it a lot. People constantly tell each other that they’re busy, especially in business.

In business, unless you’re busy, even if that attribute is self-declared, you don’t have value. And in business if you don’t have value . . . well,

you know what’s likely to happen. Lack of promotion, demotion, a mediocre raise in salary, no raise in salary, or, at the worst, the dreaded “pink slip,” and I’m not referring to a piece of exotic merchandise found at Victoria’s Secret.

No, in business we must be busy. We must have value and that value must be made known to others. We must demonstrate that value through our jobs, which of course is not always easy.

So when the demonstrative method isn’t effective, we must move to the declarative method. We have the option of declaring ourselves as busy. Who’s going to dispute that? Think about it.

If someone does choose to dispute our claim that we are busy in business, well then they run the risk of being viewed as not being busy themselves. If the disputer is viewed as having enough

“The Parkinson Principle: Work expands to fill the time available for its completion” 40 | BE EMEA

time to dispute whether or not someone else is not busy, then you know what might happen. That disputer runs the risk of receiving a pink slip without the fun of a trip to Victoria’s Secret, especially given the state of our current economy. The declarative method seems to be, therefore, a selfsustaining process.

So, we’re all busy, if by no other method than our own declaration of such. We must do this. It is a matter of survival in our modern economy.

To declare ourselves as anything else is simply business career suicide.

Not only do claims of busyness help preserve our business careers, but those claims perform double-duty by providing our egos with a sense of self-worth. If we’re busy at work, and we and others know it, particularly with our calendars so full that our hard disks overheat in an effort to keep up with our relentless ego-building, then we feel like we have a purpose. (The achievement of purpose is paramount.

We can always acquire more disk space.)

Work = Purpose. Purpose

Busyness

We must demonstrate our value through our jobs

= Work. Certainly these are concepts that hark back to the Protestant work ethic and ones that supported the beginnings of our modern economy. Yet, when I think about these equations and that work ethic I’m struck by an irony, one pointed out by writer Tim Kreider in his essay on busyness. The Puritans created the notion that work would earn your way into heaven, yet the Book of Genesis makes it quite clear that because Eve was non-compliant, the need to work was rendered

Keeping busy gives us a sense of purpose

42 | BE EMEA

as a punishment upon humankind and not as a route to a reward.

So, the idea of punishment notwithstanding, we’re busy, and despite the fact that some folks may look at work as a punishment, busyness makes us feel better.

But I’m not quite sure what it is that we’re busy doing in business all day.

Maybe we’ve simply become victims of the Parkinson Principle, which is represented by that adage that goes something like: “Work expands to fill

the time available for its completion.” A lot of people think that this saying is the Peter Principle. But Peter’s principle is something different than Parkinson’s.

Perhaps the confusion between the two principles is caused by a lack of time to understand the difference between them, a lack of time caused by busyness in business.

No matter what causes the confusion between the two principle labels, the fact remains that as business technology improves, the

Busyness

“The conversion of busyness into business is a strange process, yet somehow it manages to make the world go around” people who are keeping busy in business are made more productive. We’ve seen this happen at several points in business history. And as productivity increases, as workers produce more in the same period of time, and as the length of the work week is held constant, then the

amount of “unbusy” time increases. So to prevent business career suicide and to keep the ego fed, those now more productive workers expand their work to fill the time available for its completion and thus fall victim to Parkinson’s principle. They fill their “unbusy” time with work and convert the potentially career-lethal and egodeflating commodity of slack time into busy time.

Busyness therefore then gets converted into business. Much of the time no one really even notices the transition. But careers are saved and egos are

fed. Everyone goes home reasonably happy.

But busyness is not business. Most of us realize that, even though we abet the confusion between the two on a daily basis. The conversion of busyness into business is a strange process, yet somehow it manages to make the world go around, to keep job creation going, to keep food on the table, and to keep psyches from splitting.

Perhaps we should consider ourselves lucky.

And perhaps we should consider all this when someone next asks us, “Are you busy?”

Richard Telofski is a competitive strategy and intelligence analyst. Formerly the president of one of the world’s first competitive intelligence consultancies, Richard currently practices at The Kahuna Institute where he studies the business effects of non-traditional competition. He blogs about “The War on Capitalism” at: www.Telofski.com

BE EMEA | 43

44 | BE EMEA

K채rcher

Steaming

ahead In spite of the world economic slowdown, global cleaning technology market leader K채rcher is achieving record sales and pursuing a strategy of expansion written by: Gay Sutton research by: Jon Bradley

BE EMEA | 45

Kärcher

C

Kärcher cleaned the colonnades on St. Peter’s Square in Rome

leaning some of the world’s most iconic historic monuments is not only a technological and physical challenge but also a great responsibility. Over the last few decades the world leader in cleaning technology, Kärcher, has worked in partnership with organisations around the globe on heritage structures such as Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, the Statue of Christ in Rio de Janeiro, the Colossi of Memnon in Egypt and St Peter’s Square in Rome.

In many of these cases, the company has assessed the challenges of the project and designed equipment specifically for the job. It is regularly asked to safely clean and restore precious architecture, removing everything from moss, mildew, dirt and sand to the effects of environmental pollution—a great demonstration of the creativity, adaptability and reliability of the company as an innovator of technology.

Kärcher, with its instantly recognisable bright yellow branding, is known worldwide for the design and manufacture of industrial and household cleaning technology, and yet when the company was first set up in Stuttgart in 1935 by the inventor and entrepreneur Alfred Kärcher, it was to pioneer new heating technology.

Alfred Kärcher was one of a group of engineering innovators that included Robert Bosch, Gottlieb Daimler and Count Zeppelin, who transformed the fortunes of the Wurttemberg region of Germany and created a thriving industrial centre in a region that possessed very little in the way

BE EMEA | 47

of natural resources. It was not until 1950 that Kärcher launched Europe’s first hot water high pressure industrial cleaner onto the market, and laid the foundations for the global cleaning business we know today.

Kärcher continues to be a family-owned company employing some 9,000 staff, managing 93 subsidiaries in 57 countries and a network of over 50,000 sales outlets and service centres in all countries around the world. Currently some 85 per cent of its turnover is generated outside of Germany, and that proportion is likely to rise as the company continues to expand its worldwide footprint.

With the rapidly changing world economic dynamics, Kärcher sees plenty of opportunities for introducing its products and services to new customers and is actively pursuing a strategy for growth.

The vision is to set up new sales subsidiaries in hitherto under-represented areas, and to take the product and after sales services directly to the customer.

This growth strategy has been effective.

In spite of the global slowdown of the last few years the company achieved a record turnover of €1.7 billion in 2011 and sold 8.25 million units—more than have been sold in any one year in the entire history of the

company. Much of this ongoing success can be attributed to the ethos of customer focused engineering and innovation that was originally laid down by the founder Alfred Kärcher.

“Everything at Kärcher revolves around the customer,” says Hartmut Jenner, chairman of the board of management.

“They provide the input as to which direction to take for innovation and corporate

“The customers provide the input as to which direction to take for innovation and corporate orientation” 48 | BE EMEA

Kärcher

Manufacturing of a scrubber drier at the Kärcher plant in Winnenden/Germany

orientation.” The Kärcher and technicians are product development engaged in developing new process focuses on solving products and continuously cleaning problems for its improving and updating customers, and this requires well established ones. Their Number of patents a high level of interaction record of achievement Kächer has taken out on with the customer. To speaks for itself. Over its new developments achieve this, the company lifetime the company has has nurtured a culture of taken out an astonishing 1,270 patents on new open and friendly dialogue with the customer, and has built strong developments, 424 of which are active relationships and communication routes today. Meanwhile, the R&D department is both directly and through the network of working on 49 new patent applications. subsidiaries, sales offices and after sales “We invest above average amounts in research and development,” says Jenner, service partners that span the world.

This business intelligence is then fed back “and also in further training and education to company headquarters in Winnenden, of our 9,000 employees all over the world.”

Stuttgart, where a team over 600 engineers This focus on raising the level of skills

1,270

BE EMEA | 49

across all divisions of the organisation is a key to maintaining quality and improving performance. In addition to the standard induction and skills training, the company has a policy of ensuring every member of staff receives a minimum of 2.6 days of specialist training every year.

People are placed very firmly at the heart of the organisation and this is

reflected in the Kärcher corporate culture.

Creativity, commitment, team working and a proactive exchange of information across the company are all actively promoted and highly valued.

Today’s product portfolio comprises over 3,000 devices including industrial and household carpet cleaners, pressure washers, wet and dry vacuums, steam

“People are placed very firmly at the heart of the organisation and this is reflected in the Kärcher corporate culture”

The RC 3000 RoboCleaner works automatically and is suitable for nearly all kinds of floor covering

50 | BE EMEA

K채rcher

DIY application of a wet and dry vacuum

cleaners, scrubber driers, spray extractors, window cleaning equipment and even a fully automatic robot vacuum cleaner.

These are supplemented by pumps for the home and garden, a comprehensive range of irrigation accessories and water treatment plant.

The company has a well defined environmental policy that reaches into every aspect of the business. Initiatives are in place to reduce power and water consumption in the administrative and production areas and this is achieved through a combination of intelligent procurement, process and plant improvement and changing staff habits.

The environmental focus is not purely internal to K채rcher. The R&D team is continuously working to optimise the products themselves, to improve their environmental performance and to conserve natural resources through the lifetime of the product. Simple improvements in the design of attachments or in machine efficiency, for example, can markedly reduce power and water consumption when the equipment is in use.

Units and cleaning agents are optimally coordinated to perform impressively under strenuous conditions and yet reduce the impact on the environment. Meanwhile, steam cleaning by its very nature makes

BE EMEA | 51

The compact MC 50 municipal sweeper is suitable for year-round use

Kärcher

3,000+ Number of devices in the Kärcher product portfolio it possible to clean surfaces effectively without the use of chemicals.

Over the years Kärcher has built an enviable reputation for quality, reliability and excellence, and is aware that any reputation is only as good as the latest product to leave the factory gate. The company therefore works very hard to protect its distinctive yellow brand through a policy of zero defects at all manufacturing plants. An extensive quality management system is in operation across all Kärcher factories and every piece of equipment, even on lines that produce up to 10,000 machines a day, is tested before being shipped to the customer.

Cleanliness is often a quality that goes unnoticed: it’s dirt that attracts attention, dulls the environment and creates a health hazard. But in homes around the globe, in heavy duty and often challenging industrial applications and indeed on many of the world’s most sensitive historical monuments, Kärcher is helping to achieve an ideal—an environment that is clean, safe and good to look at.

For more information about Kärcher visit: www.karcher.com

BE EMEA | 53

Putting the ease in tease

54 | BE EMEA

Comair Running an airline is normally a deadly serious business but this South African operator has made a name for itself by poking fun at just about everybody written by: Alan Swaby research by: Paul Bradley

BE EMEA | 55

The Comair operations centre

Comair

C

omair in South Africa could just well be the most unusual airline in the world.

Operations director Martin Louw doesn’t much care for the term Jekyll & Hyde but it’s hard to deny there is something of the schizophrenic about Comair.

It’s not the country’s oldest airline— that distinction rests with the national f lag carrier South African Airways— but it is certainly the longest surviving private commercial flyer. Started in 1945, at the cessation of WWII by a couple of ex-fighter pilots, it had a low key presence for years until the market was deregulated in 1994. “Governments of all shades,” says Louw, “have always been very protective of SAA as it is considered much more than simply an airline. It is a symbol of the country’s status. That meant for years Comair had to feed on the crumbs left over from SAA’s table.”

Some would argue that the scales are still heavily weighted in favour of the state airline. Since deregulation 12 airlines have been started and gone bust. In addition to Comair there is one other – 1time – but even that is struggling. While the private companies have had to rely purely on their own resources, SAA has a safety net in the form of funds from central government.

At least, though, since deregulation, Comair has been free to compete on routes it was banned from for many years.

The real turning point came in 1994 when the turbo prop f leet Comair had been obliged to stick with started to be

BE EMEA | 57

COMAIR Comair

ATM AND THE ENVIRONMENT In the aviation industry, it is glaringly obvious that there is only so much sky. Balancing the increasing demands of air traffic with this finite resource falls to Hennie Marais, executive of air traffic management for Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) “ATM is all about getting things done more efficiently and cost-effectively,” explains Hennie Marais. “The sky is only so big, and yet the need for air travel has increased over the decades as economies around the world have grown. Customers now have heightened expectations from the aviation industry, such as more flights between London and Johannesburg, for example. ATM tries to find better ways of doing things that not only increase capacity but also keep costs affordable. It’s about making the most efficient use of the airspace we have available.”

Given this long-term, strategic approach, Marais explains that everything that Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) does with regard to ATM is based on forecasts, taking into account economic growth (or decline), socioeconomic statistics and the resultant anticipated demand. For ATNS, the first draft operations plan for the 2010 FIFA World Cup was ready for evaluation in October 2008, and the planning for King Shaka International Airport took three years.

“During the planning, we take into account

aspects such as airport and airspace capacity, and the projected needs of customers.

But it’s a fine line, because while you have to create capacity about 12 to 24 months in advance, you cannot create too much capacity because this would incur unnecessary costs,” explains Marais.

It is often the small things that make the biggest difference. “Sometimes you can make an operation more efficient without spending a lot of money. Instead of building new runways or taxiways to reduce the amount of time airplanes remain in a holding stack, a small piece of added tarmac in exactly the right spot might allow airplanes to make a quicker turn. If this reduces the time of each airplane on the ground by 10 or 15 seconds, by the end of the day you have an extra hour, which means that 40 additional airplanes can be accommodated.”

Marais proudly recounts how, on 5 December 2011 during COP17, ATNS cut 35 minutes of flying time off an airplane flying from Dubai to Durban. “The airplane flew the same distance as always, but we implemented a totally efficient flight trajectory. The result was that we saved approximately 4,500kg of CO2 emissions and over a ton of fuel.”

Proof of efficiency? Exactly! www.atns.co.za

OCTOBER 2012| |592 BE EMEA

COMAIR Comair tempor incididunt ut labore Lorem with ipsum dolor replaced jet powered sit amet, consectetur et dolore magna aliqua. Ut aircraft.

On the strength adipisicing elit, Comair sed do enim ad minim veniam, of that move, quis nostrud exercitation entered discussions with eiusmod tempor incididunt ullamco laboris nisi ut ut labore et dolore magna British Airways to become aliquip ex ea commodo aliqua.

Ut enim ad minim the internal franchisee of consequat. Duis aute irure veniam, quis routes nostrud BA. Long haul in dolor in reprehenderit in exercitation ulla mco and out of South Africa voluptate velit esse cillum laboris nisi the ut aliquip ex remained province dolore eu fugiat nulla ea British commodo consequat. of Airways but pariatur. Excepteur sint Duis aute irure able dolor to in Coma ir was occaecat cupidatat non reprehenderit in voluptate operate on internal and This is a caption this is a caption Overview of Comair’s training centre proident, sunt in culpa qui velit esseroutes cillumwearing dolore regional eu colours fugiat nulla pariatur.

Excepteur sint is officia mollit id est laborum. its and for the first time, giving onlydeserunt one other left anim – a very small scale occaecat non proident, sunt in operation SAA somecupidatat competition. in Denmark.

To earn the right Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur culpa officia mollit anim id to “Thequi role of BAdeserunt franchisee,” says Louw, adipisicing sed do eiusmod act as BA’selit, representative we paytempor a small est laborum.

Lorem ipsum sit amet, incididunt fee ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. “was not uncommon at the dolor time but these franchise and the more successful we in expanding the passenger the consectetur adipisicing elit,we sed do eiusmod Ut enim ad minim veniam, quisbase, nostrud days, apart from Comair, believe there are

THE BOEING COMPANY MAXimizing today’s success for tomorrow Boeing’s 737 MAX provides another chapter for the world’s most successful commercial airplane. The single-aisle airplane accounts for roughly 64 percent of Africa’s airplane demand over the next 20 years. That’s why airplane manufacturers must get their future products right. That’s exactly what Boeing is doing by improving today’s Next-Generation 737 with tomorrow’s 737 MAX. As airlines look to update fleets with the most fuel efficient airplanes to mitigate rising costs in fuel, the 737 MAX becomes the perfect airplane of the future. As the name states, the newest member of the 737 family will maximize efficiency, reliability, and comfort – it’s the total package for single-

aisle airplanes. As with today’s 737, tomorrow’s 737 MAX gives airlines the lowest operating costs in the single-aisle segment with an 8 percent advantage over its competitor. The airplane’s fuel burn is expected to be 16 percent lower than the competitor’s current offering and 4 percent lower than their future offering.

For emissions, when compared to a fleet of 100 of today’s most fuel-efficient airplanes, this new model will emit 277,000 fewer tons of CO2 and save nearly 175 million pounds of fuel per year, that’s $85 million in cost savings!

Take this new efficiency coupled with the reliability and maintainability of today’s 737, include the new Boeing Sky Interior, and you truly have an unbeatable airplane.

OCTOBER 2012 | | 612 BE EMEA

first

Nouveau Monde DDB Toulouse / Pixteur - © ATR.

Environment

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Comair

Comair’s first brand new aircraft, a Boeing 737-800 in kulula.com livery

lower this fee becomes. Other than this, we “Having BA f lights at our disposal,” L o u w, “a l s o helps have a free hand. We take responsibility s a y s for all running costs but also take all with the other side of our business, giving profit.” us greater operational flexibility.”

The other side of the business he refers It’s a win-win situation. British Airways has a South African presence that would to is kulula.com—the Mr Hyde to British otherwise be prohibitively expensive to Airways’ Dr Jekyll. “The 1990s saw a maintain and a greater chance of picking mushrooming of low cost air travel,” says up long haul passengers Louw, “and our view was by virtue of having routes that we could either watch timed to connect with some other organisation fill that slot in South scheduled flights. Comair carries overseas passengers Africa or take the initiative internally and regionally ourselves.”

Airline industry who might otherwise have So in 2001, kulula was deregulated in launched onto the main travelled in some other way South Africa domestic routes linking to their final destination.

1994

BE EMEA | 63

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Comair

Johannesburg with Cape Last year, between the Tow n, Durban, Port traditional BA and the low Elizabeth and George in cost kulula, Comair had the Western Cape. It has revenue of R4.3 billion. to be remembered that at It operates two fleets of the time, the promise of Boeing 737s – 14 BA Welc An for African amazing e low cost travel under the and 10 for kulula An with a original advertising slogan total of 182 pilots and 420 “now everyone can fly” was cabin crew from a grand workforce of 1800. At its a truly novel proposition.

Until then, crossing peak, the schedule contains the hundreds of miles Operations control 130 flights a day. between Johannesburg Low cost competition for and anywhere else by air had been the the dominant SAA would no doubt have privilege of the middle classes. Now been sufficient to make kululaSafe, a success but reliable service into Afr ordinary people could swap the hours on the joint chief executive at the time decided a train or behind the wheel for a one to to make the brand utterly unforgettable byYour answe two hour flight. taking a most un-PC approach to marketing.

Providing quality ground handling services to m airlines operating 16 500 flights a month. BidAir S most experienced A380 handler in Africa!

BidAir Services BidAir Services is an integral member of the Bidvest Travel and Aviation Division of the Bidvest Group. Providing a full spectrum of ground handling services, BidAir Services is in the unique position of being the only wholly South African ground handling company operating in the South African market.

BidAir Services provides handling services to more than 20 international and domestic airlines at Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, East London and George airports and since March 2008 has handled in excess of 850,000 flights.

BidAir Services is proud of the fact that the first three airlines to operate scheduled A380 services to South Africa were all

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clients of ours. Having handled in excess of 1,200 A380 turnrounds we can quite proudly say that we are the most experienced handler of this aircraft type on the African continent.

Due to the acquisition of Comair’s inhouse ramp handling services provider our association with Comair pre-dates 2008 and we are honoured to play a significant role in the success achieved by the airline. Ramp and grooming services are provided to more than 5,500 Comair flights a month and we are justifiably proud of the sustained high levels of service given to the airline. marketing@bidair.co.za

BE EMEA | 65

Comair

Boeing 737-3/4/500 simulator

“At the front of house, we never take ourselves too seriously and we invite passengers to enjoy the joke with us” “Kulula,” explains Louw, “is the Zulu word for ‘easy.’ We aim to inject this same feeling of ease into the way we run the business. Behind the scenes, kulula is run exactly like any other airline. In our case, all pilots and 50 percent of the cabin crew are interchangeable. But at the front of house, we never take ourselves too seriously and we invite passengers to enjoy the joke with us.”

Rather than striving for corporate grandeur in the planes’ livery, kulula’s

fuselages are covered in cheeky captions indicating which are the doors and where the black box (which they point out is actually orange) is located. Passengers are shown that the big cheese is on the left of the cockpit and the other pilot with the PA system is on the right.

Working as part of kulula’s cabin crew gives free rein to all wanna-be comedians.

The safety instructions they are obliged to recite are sent up mercilessly. Passengers who can’t figure out how to use the seatbelts,

BE EMEA | 67

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Together for the long haul Proud business partners since 1968

Through our long-standing business relationship, we’re extremely proud to support Comair as they grow from strength to strength. Our unrivalled expertise means we’re capable of providing continued service excellence through our retirement fund solutions. We understand that the success of any business is largely a measure of its satisfied employees.

That’s why we believe in the Old Mutual Superfund: Evergreen, offering optimal benefits tailored to meet the unique needs of both business owners and employees, with a strong focus on equipping employees for financial empowerment through our Financial Wellbeing Programme. Let’s work together to take your business into the next century and beyond.

For more information on Old Mutual Superfund: Evergreen, contact us on +27 21 509 1098. www.oldmutual.co.za/evergreen

do great things

Licensed Financial Services Provider

WE HAVE OVER 165 YEARS OF WISDOM TO INVEST IN YOU Contact your Old Mutual Corporate Consultant on +27 21 509 1098 I www.oldmutual.co.za/evergreen

Through our long-standing business relationship, we’re extremely proud to support Comair as they grow from strength to strength. Our unrivalled expertise means we’re capable of providing continued service excellence through our retirement fund solutions. We understand that the success of any business is largely a measure of its satisfied employees.

Comair

That’s why we believe in the Old Mutual Superfund: Evergreen, offering optimal benefits tailored to meet the unique needs of both business owners and employees, with a strong focus on equipping employees for financial empowerment through our Financial Wellbeing Programme. Let’s work together to take your business into the next century and beyond.

For more information on Old Mutual Superfund: Evergreen, contact us on +27 21 509 1098. www.oldmutual.co.za/evergreen

Old Mutual Corporate

do great things

Licensed Financial Services Provider

Old Mutual helping South Africans achieve their retirement goals For over 40 years Old Mutual has partnered with Comair Limited to provide retirement fund solutions for Comair employees, thereby enabling them to take ownership of their retirement planning and finances, creating the futures they desire for themselves and their families.

Through Old Mutual’s Financial Wellbeing Programme (FWP), Comair employees are provided with ongoing and comprehensive financial health assessments, educational workshops, financial advice and support, helping them to make informed decisions regarding their financial futures. Modules include risk management, investment and retirement planning and more!

As part of FWP, Comair employees also have access to Member Support Services (MSS)—designed to help retirement fund members make good financial and investment decisions at certain life events, such as retirement and resignation.

By partnering with SMEs through to large corporate employers in South African industry, Old Mutual Corporate provides leading solutions to help South Africans achieve their financial goals. Our solutions include retirement investments, savings, risk management and retirement fund administration products and services as well as actuarial and consulting services. Through Old Mutual’s SuperFund, we cater for all businesses with Easy Benefit Plan, Orion and Evergreen umbrella funds.

For more information about Old Mutual Corporate and the Financial Wellbeing Programme, contact us on 021509 1098.

WE HAVE OVER 165 YEARS OF WISDOM TO INVEST IN YOU Contact your Old Mutual Corporate Consultant on +27 21 509 1098 I www.oldmutual.co.za/evergreen

JB Old Mutual Evergreen 276X203.indd 1

www.oldmutual.co.za/corporate

2012/09/19 1:51 PM

Capt Martin Louw, Director Operations of Comair Limited

for example, are told that perhaps they shouldn’t be out alone. The instructions relating to the use of oxygen masks include directions to stop screaming and pick a favourite child to look after.

Pilots also get in on the act. They might be heard to urge their plane to “whoa there big fella; whoa!!” There are often jokes about landing in the wrong place and even VIPs aren’t immune. Puppets of Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu have been enlisted to help advertise the airline while kulula took the Mickey out of the polygamous President Jacob Zuma by announcing a special offer for the 4th wife to travel free.

This kind of irreverent humour goes down well with South Africans but kulula knows it is a difficult act to manage

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AIRPORTS ARE VITAL TO ECONOMIC GROWTH Airports Company South Africa’s nine principal airports play a key role in the broader transport sector, so vital to the health of our economy.

Over the years, Airports Company South Africa has successfully transformed its airports into effective global competitors through infrastructure development and efficiencies, and award-winning passenger service levels.

This enables South Africa to link people efficiently with their business and leisure destinations, whilst at the same time facilitating trade around the globe. There is no doubt that our airport

Boeing

services underpin our efforts to drive economic development for all our people.

Today, some 51 airlines fly into South Africa, up from a mere 18 in 1993 when the company was formed. Passenger traffic has also grown from 12 million in 1993 to reach some 36 million passengers a year currently.

www.airports.co.za

Airbus

Lasham The established choice www.atclasham.co.uk sales@atclasham.co.uk

The best of both worlds for aviation engineering and technical support ATC Lasham is the UK’s leading independent maintenance provider for both Boeing and Airbus families of aircraft.

Specialising in narrow bodied aircraft, with 10 bays across our two sites, we’ve been the established choice for local customers and global brands alike since 1995.

ATC Lasham Limited Lasham Airfield Lasham GU34 5SP UK T: +44 (0)1256 825100 London Southend Airport Southend-0n-Sea SS2 6YU UK T: +44 (0)1702 541616

Comair and get right. “We do get Airports Company South Africa complaints from frequent Formed in 1993 to own and operate South Africa’s nine travellers,” admits Louw, principal airports, Airports Company South Africa inherited “that they have heard all aged and basic infrastructure. Over the years, airport the lines too many times. infrastructure has been upgraded, but it was the recent fiveSo our crew will probably year, R17 billion expansion and upgrading programme that turn down the humour on propelled our airports to world-class status. The programme included the building of the greenfield King Shaka early morning business International Airport, which serves the Durban region. flights but lay it on thick for In parallel with this investment was a strong focus on less frequently travelling customer service and this has resulted in numerous awards leisure passengers.” from Airports Council International and SKYTRAX for the Of course, all this talk quality of passenger service. Airports Company South of out of control planes Africa truly lives up to its vision of being a world-leading and bumpy landings can airport business. www.airports.co.za only work if the airline has absolute faith in the professionalism of its crew and the airworthiness of its aircraft. Here, Comair draws no distinction between the two brands. “Our safety record speaks for itself,” says Louw.

Comair is a pilot oriented airline. It was started by pilots and even Captain Louw prefers swapping his administrative duties for the flight deck. All Comair’s pilots are trained in-house and in fact, the company runs quite a profitable side business offering its instructors and four flight simulators to more than 30 airlines throughout Africa and the East.

67 Number of years Comair has been trading Inside Comair’s operations centre

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LANSERIA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT awarded an open tender by the British Government to operate the St Helena international airport from 2015 for a period of 10 years.

The high standard of Lanseria International Airport’s emergency service department has resulted in the department launching a service to provide training for emergency staff from various airports in South Africa and other parts of Africa. For the last three years Lanseria International Airport’s fire department has won a national fire fighting competition against teams from municipalities with staff complements of more than 1200 people.

One of the challenges being addressed by Lanseria International Airport is the provision of infrastructure to meet both current and anticipated growth in demand.

The ability to rapidly handle arriving and departing aircraft and passengers is one of the core values entrenched in the business model applied by management at Lanseria International Airport.

“We focus on the stringent application of management controls,” says Lanseria International Airport manager Gavin Sayce.

“Safety and security is of paramount importance and for that reason we adhere meticulously to tried and tested international operational safety and security principles. We focus on training, on certification and on rigorously regulating access to operational areas.”

Lanseria International Airport’s ability to maintain international standards can be gauged by the airport’s success in being

E: info@lanseria.co.za www.lanseria.co.za

W E M A K E T R AV E L A PL E A S U R E! www.lanseria.co.za

• Superb access and location - only 30 minutes from Sandton Midrand and Centurion • Completed new four-lane highway to Lanseria • Ample, secure parking close to terminal building • Terminal with a modern restaurant, café and shops • Business lounge for airline passengers - coffee, magazines & newspapapers on us

• Fast and efficient boarding • No toll roads to Lanseria Airport • Choice of airlines • The preferred international VIP hub for South Africa • Experience travel like you’ve always wanted to

Comair

Boeing 737-3/4/500 and Boeing 737-200 simulators

“With fuel accounting for 40 percent of our costs, it is cheaper now for us to buy brand new, more fuel efficient planes” For every one of Comair’s 67 years of trading, it has made a profit although the past 12 months have been as difficult as they have ever been. The recession and global difficulties, together with vastly increased charges, have produced a perfect storm. A breakdown of a typical BA fare to Cape Town reveals the extent of fees and taxes that the airlines have to pay. An R1258 flight, for

example, has an R490 flight component and R768 of charges. “We’ve been hit with a 70 percent increase in airport fees,” says Louw, “and even air traffic control has increased its charges by 35 percent. Such way above inflation charges hit us much harder than the government owned SAA.” To counter these and ever increasing fuel costs, Comair is investing heavily

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Comair’s training centre

Comair

20% Cost saving per passenger with a Boeing 737-800 in new aircraft. “For many years,” says Louw, “company policy was to lease preused aircraft. But with fuel accounting for 40 percent of our costs, it is cheaper now for us to buy brand new, more fuel efficient planes than struggle on with the old. The new Boeing 737-800 gives us 20 percent cost saving per passenger. So we’ve ordered eight new replacements – four we’ll get this year and a further four over the next couple of years.”

The final link in the efficiency chain has been to replace a mix of computer programs with Sabre – a single IT package to handle everything from reservations to operational matters. BA will continue with its own portal but the two can communicate and it is possible to book a BA flight on the Kulula website.

It seems as though the government has no interest in whether or not private airlines survive but with investments on the scale that Comair has made, it’s clear that they intend to give SAA a run for its money for many years to come.

For more information about Comair visit: www.comair.co.za

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American Express Travel Services South Africa

AFRICA EXPRESS

American Express Travel Services South Africa is developing its continent-wide American Express franchise network to meet the unique requirements of Africa’s rapidly growing oil and gas industries written by: john 0’hanlon research by: Jeff Abbott

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American Express Travel Services South Africa forms part of the Tourvest Travel Services division

American Express Travel Services South Africa

T

his is a company with big resources and a wide umbrella by virtue of its affiliation to Tourvest, Southern Africa’s largest tourism group.

American Express Travel Services South Africa forms part of the Tourvest Travel Services division which provides travel management services to many of South Africa’s top 100 companies. Corporate travel is a specialist activity within the organisation as a whole and American Express Travel Services does it well. However it recently took the decision to leverage its network of 23 franchisees across the continent to establish itself in the oil and gas (O&G) industries which are transforming many African economies and promising to bring prosperity to yet more.

Nigeria and Angola are the main established oil producing countries in subSaharan Africa while Chad, South Sudan, Uganda, Namibia and South Africa itself are aiming to increase or start production.

Recent large scale gas discoveries off the coast of Mozambique and Tanzania have attracted massive overseas investment. “We have recently taken the decision to establish a dedicated team within the American Express Travel Services business in South Africa to focus exclusively on this industry,” says Clive Jones, Chief Operating Officer. “The needs of the corporations bringing in expatriates, and of those individuals, are so complex and special that they need to be delivered through a separate infrastructure with a different value proposition from our normal corporate travel management process.”

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The travel services division does a great deal of work for the mining sector, but being land based, that is a lot easier to manage than O&G clients. The latter tends to work offshore, or in remote places and their travel needs are different, he explains. “These companies depend on expatriates with skills that are scarce in the local markets. Many bookings are not generated in the country in which you are delivering the service.”

This is an industry that employs specialist engineers from Canada, Russia, India or Singapore. They are typically paid from the moment they board the plane in their country of origin until they return, so the client companies like to be assured they will spend as little time as possible sitting in transit lounges. There will generally be an outgoing passenger going on leave for every incoming one, and they can’t leave till their replacement arrives. Travel is therefore a highly business critical activity for the exploration, drilling, support services and supplier companies as well as for the main contractor.

But the routes, from say Russia to a rig lying off the coast of Angola, are complicated.

And the fare structure is equally complex – American Express Travel Services staff have had to be trained to understand the concept of ‘marine and offshore’ fares

offered by airlines to accredited seafarers.

These rates are available only to appointed travel management companies. Generally, the traveller should be travelling to or from a cruise ship, private yacht, commercial vessel, port, or offshore rig. Every airline imposes its own eligibility conditions for the use of these fares and some airlines permit travel by land based staff employed in the shipping industry.

“Our vision is to cater for every conceivable need the local and international traveller might have” 80 | BE EMEA

American Express Travel Services South Africa

Managing travel services for the oil & gas sector is a complex business

The opportunity is not needed. It is also sensitive to the different cultural simply to provide a service needs that might crop up to the O&G companies, – dietary requirements for says Jones. “They go home example. “We know the to spend time with their Number of Tourvest families or they might travel right questions to ask!” employees in Africa or elsewhere using The job gets even more demanding when things their allowances. We can go wrong for the client. come in at that point and manage their itinerary, accommodation and If someone is injured on a rig and needs leisure time. It takes the kind of specialised to be repatriated, delay is not an option. travel consulting backup that we can give The job is, he says, a combination of the them, as well as an understanding of the routine, complicated as it may be, and the combination of routes and the air fares that unexpected. There is never a dull moment. apply to them.”

American Express Travel Services The Cape Town based team is is already carrying out this demanding multilingual and able to send out service for some of the largest oilfield documentation in any language likely to be service companies in the world. Nigeria is

4000

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“We can manage their itinerary, accommodation and leisure time. It takes the kind of specialised travel consulting backup that we can give them� the only franchise market where Tourvest owns a significant part of the business. The remaining franchisees in Africa are entirely locally owned.

This local knowledge is something that a service provider, even an American Express Travel Services office, operating outside of Africa could never hope to

82 | BE EMEA

deliver. Tourvest is a level 3 BEE (black economic empowerment) company, and while that does not give it official status in other countries, it does give it a unique understanding of the emphasis African governments place on using local resources.

By working with American Express Travel Services South Africa or one of its locally

American Express Travel Services South Africa

Tourvest has become the leading travel group in Africa

owned franchisees the client company stands to improve its scorecard.

Tourvest operates businesses which range from travel management companies through to souvenir shops and foreign exchange bureaux, under some 67 sectorleading brands, employing more than 4 000 people. While based in South Africa, it is a global business, with operations in East and West Africa, the United Kingdom and the Caribbean, as well as having principals, associates and clients throughout the world.

Tourvest’s expansion has been impressive since its establishment in 1997. “In 15 years we have become the

leading travel group on the continent,” says Jones, “with the vision of catering for every conceivable need the local and international traveller might have: from the duty free on their flight, providing foreign exchange, selling gifts at our airport shops, putting them up at our hotels, feeding them in our restaurants, entertaining them at our game lodges and safaris and managing all their travel from arrival to departure.”

For more information about American Express Travel Services South Africa visit: www.americanexpresstravel.co.za

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Magyar Telekom

FROM RED TO GREEN Since Hungary emerged from Soviet control, Magyar Telekom has been making rapid progress towards sustainability, recently earning an A+ rating from the Global Reporting Initiative written by: Jeff Daniel research by: David Brogan

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Magyar Telekom

A

Germany’s “T” brand is popular in Hungary

fter more than four decades of Soviet control, the late 1980s saw a whole swathe of Eastern Bloc countries again become the masters of their own destiny. In Hungary, the transition occurred in 1989 and within just a few months, the country’s infrastructure was being modernised.

The road to where the communications network is today began when Hungarian Post was split into three and the telephone service hived off as the separate state owned company Matáv Hungarian Telecommunications. In 1993, the service went private and a consortium of two telecommunications companies, Deutsche Telekom and Ameritech International acquired a controlling interest and Magyar Telekom was born. Under the guidance of Deutsche Telecom, the German’s “T” brand was promoted to a Hungarian populace itching to catch up with the rest of the industrialised world.

With such a backlog of technological catching up to do, you’d hardly be surprised if observing the niceties wasn’t so high on the agenda. And yet, barely into the first years of operation, Magyar Telekom had already put special emphasis on environmental protection.

Under the guidance of Katalin Szomolányi, head of the Corporate Sustainability Centre at Magyar Telekom, the business gained the distinction in 2007 of being awarded Hungary’s first A+ rating, signifying it operates in full compliance with the third

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innovative!

Sometimes, the most remarkable innovations are the ones we don’t see…

Availability, control and security of electrical energy, installing and commissioning UPS systems: each day we provide innovative solutions to our customers.

For nearly a hundred years we’ve built up considerable expertise in implementing them in your operating environments so that the only thing you can see is the creativity of your projects… and the quality of our services !

UPS from 600 VA to 5400 kVA

www.socomec.com SOCOMEC UPS ∙ Via Sila, 1/3, 36033, Isola Vicentina (VI) ∙ Italy ∙ Tel. +39 0444 598 611 ∙ info.ups.emea@socomec.com

PUB 883013

The power of innovation is in your hands.

Magyar Telekom generation g uidelines top management team, they of the Global Reporting have to commit themselves to implementing it.”

Initiative (GRI G3).

“The company has had a Since 2002, Magyar Telekom has been issuing Group-level Environment regular environmental Protection Policy since repor t s d e s c r i bi n g 2003,” she says, “and it s env ironmenta l sustainability has been performance, a practice on the agenda since 2004, meaning that in addition to that then formed the basis Sometimes, the most remarkable innovations are environmental considerations, social and the of the sustainability report. ones we don’tsubsequent see…

Availability, special control and security of electrical energy,implication installing and The of the higher level of economic dimensions also receive commissioning UPS systems: each day we provide innovative that comes with A+ rating is attention. Our sustainability strategy has compliance solutions to our customers.

For nearly a hundred years we’ve built up considerable expertise in been in place since 2005 and notimplementing onlythem does it greater transparency and more opportunity in your operating environments so that the only thing you can see isof the creativity projects… and the qualityjudged. of have to be approved by each member theof your for being our services !

SOCOMEC Group

UPS from 600 VA to 5400 kVA

www.socomec.com

SOCOMEC Group is an independent manufacturer specialising in the distribution, control and quality of power supplies serving low-voltage electrical networks in industry and service sectors such as telecoms.

Created in 1922, the group has three business areas: trip and low voltage protection systems, UPS systems and solar power.

With 25 subsidiaries throughout the world and nine industrial sites, SOCOMEC combines technological innovation and technical knowledge with high-quality pre and post-sales services.

SOCOMEC UPS division provides UPS systems, inverters, load transfer modules, and rectifier/chargers, and applies innovative ideas to develop a complete range that offers a unique characteristic—3-level topology.

When applied to uninterruptible power systems with double conversion online

technology this makes it possible to achieve maximum energy efficiency, equivalent to 96 per cent (verified by Bureau Veritas and TÜV SÜD), while guaranteeing total load protection at all times and in all conditions.

This is the background to the GREEN POWER UPS family, currently the only one to cover a power range from 10 to 400 kW. SOCOMEC UPS’ green commitment continues with a kinetic alternative to batteries for storing energy—the flywheel.

It provides outstanding reliability, long service life (> 20 years), high efficiency and is environmentally friendly. SOCOMEC also has a wide range of software solutions for monitoring UPS and shutting down servers, both virtual and physical.

SOCOMEC UPS ∙ Via Sila, 1/3, 36033, Isola Vicentina (VI) ∙ Italy ∙ Tel. +39 0444 598 611 ∙ info.ups.emea@socomec.com

pub_883013_203x276.indd 1

PUB 883013

The power of innovation is in your hands.

11/09/12 10:07

E info.ups.emea@socomec.com www.socomec.com

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order a taxi without phone call- use smartphone application

+36 1/777-7777 +36 20/777-7777 +36 30/777-7777

www.radiotaxi.hu

offer@radiotaxi.co.hu

Show the world what your company has to offer with our tailored packages

Seen www.bus-ex.com

Magyar Telekom In order to encourage the same level of commitment We are not only the biggest taxi company in Budapest but and performa nce also the most modern, due to technological developments within its supply chain, carried out with our telecommunication partners Bull Mag yar Telekom has Hungary and Magyar Telekom. init iated a n a nnua l The unique taxi dispatcher programme enables electronic award to suppliers who and online payment and facilitates billing. Each vehicle is equipped with a POS terminal, enabling the acceptance of demonstrate leadership in electronic taxi cards as well as American Express, VISA and their own sustainability MasterCard. We have developed new applications for iPhone, endeavours. “It’s known Android and Windows phone operating systems together as the Delfin (dolphin) with EvoPro for our customers’ convenience. Customers can Award,” says Szomolányi, now order a taxi using just their smartphone application. “and is an acronym for the www.radiotaxi.hu Hungarian name of the initiative, which translates into English as: Prize for a Committed, Sustainable, and Innovative Generation.”

From its position as leader of the telecommunication industry, Magyar Telekom is setting examples which it wants others to follow in the harmonisation of business, social and environmental interests and in the process, reward suppliers for their help in achieving its sustainability goals. Applications can be made in one or more of four categories: innovations that have already been completed and which promote positive change in social and environmental effects; the promotion of equal opportunities

RT 5 Taxi Holding Ltd

2,000,000 KM Air and road travel distance saved by audio and video-conferencing Katalin Szomolányi

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Szigma-X is specialised in general construction design, construction management and the resolution of special engineering problems

THE LAMINATED-GLUED MONOPOL WOODEN TOWER OF

SZIGMA-X LTD.

Szigma-X Tervezõ és Tanácsadó Kft. www.szigmax.hu www.ecopol.hu

Magyar Telekom and anti-discriminatory practices; investments and developments aimed at climate protection; and training and education raising awareness about sustainability.

As an example of sustainability projects, aimed at benefitting society as a whole, Szomolányi describes the Digital Bridge initiative. “Certain sectors of society,” she says, “are at risk of being left behind in the technical era.

This is not just a function of age or affluence but also location. Digital Bridge is directed towards isolated settlements of less than 3000 inhabitants, teaching people personally how the internet can be tailored for their own personal needs and interests for them to have a more fulfilling way of life. The really rewarding aspect of this programme is that Magyar Telekom’s employees participate on a voluntary basis

Szigma-X Design and Consulting Ltd Szigma-X Design and Consulting Ltd (founded in 1989) specialises in general construction design, construction management and the resolution of specific engineering problems.

Its key focus areas include the design, construction, expansion and safety testing of antenna towers and other telecommunication support structures. More than 1,600 antenna towers have been completed on the basis of our design work. We have designed more than 50 types of tower structures, including lattice, monopole, unique, camouflage, laminatedglued timber, steel mobile, and carbon mobile.

Since our inception, we have worked in the Hungarian telecommunication field. Our towers became the type-towers of Hungarian Telekom as well as Vodafone. Based on our unique patented method, we also reinforce existing weak towers using crossbars and fixing ropes.

Our new, outstanding product is Ecopol, a

laminated-glued timber tower family, which can be used for electric poles, advertising, lighting, or windmills. The 30 metre high prototypes are already operating as base stations. Our experienced team is now ready for the challenge of producing a 40 metre high wooden pole which blends into the surrounding landscape.

2010 was a successful year for Ecopol, when the Hungarian patented tower was granted design protection. Moreover, it won the Dolphin Award, nominated and awarded

by Hungarian Telekom in the category of ‘Innovation Came True’. The project gained recognition for setting an example in the field of sustainable growth by fulfilling all three pillars of sustainability in the environmental, economic and social dimensions. www.szigmax.hu www.ecopol.hu

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and since 2004 there have been more than 150 events involving thousands of people.”

Since 2008 Magyar Telekom has been holding an annual focus event, in conjunction with a number of NGOs, under the banner ‘Sustainability Day.’ The event has a complex agenda, serving multiple purposes. Interactive panels featuring group discussions on current issues regarding the environment, society and economy are led by prominent and well respected representatives of their related fields. Last year the environmental focus was on water, while poverty and responsible communication were the social and economic issues. The event also discussed how the role of volunteerism could be promoted.

The Sustainability Day, despite the fact that it is organized by a large corporation, differs in format and appearance from traditional branded events with the emphasis very much remaining on the topic and substance. The event is becoming more and more successful as years go by with participation doubling each year along with extensive increases in media coverage. From an initial attendance of 300 in 2008, the number of delegates grew to 3000 last year.

In a more commercially oriented programme, specifically aimed at doing business in a greener way—and with very measurable results—Magyar Telekom is encouraging the use of technology to remove the need for travel. In 2009 it installed TelePresence video-conferencing facilities at strategic sites within Hungary and at its international affiliates in Macedonia and Montenegro, as well as the majority owner

“We want Magyar Telekom to be recognised as the leading advocate of sustainability and to be admired for our championing actions” 94 | BE EMEA

Magyar Telekom

A Digital Bridge event

Deutsche Telekom. In the set itself some ambitious targets for spreading the first year alone, the group message, understanding saved 476,410 kilometres a nd applicat ion of of flights by using this service. In the subsequent sustainability, throughout Number of Digital Bridge year it saved 1,368,361 km all levels of t he events since 2004 organisation and within of international flights and 164 tons of carbon dioxide. the wider community. “We At the same time, audio want Magyar Telekom,” and video-conferencing facilities with says Szomolányi, “to be recognised by document sharing abilities were installed the public as the leading advocate of on all workstations enabling small groups sustainability and to be admired for our of three or four staff to communicate championing actions.” without the need for travel. All in all, Magyar estimates that it saved almost For more information about 2,000,000 km of air or road travel that Magyar Telekom visit: year alone. www.telekom.hu In coming years, Magyar Telekom has

150

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Connecting

the dots

Chief executive officer Daniel Szasz talks about how the company is contributing to the development of Macedonia’s telecommunications industry

written by: Will Daynes research by: David Brogan

96 | BE EMEA

Makedonski Telekom

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Makedonski Telekom promotes personal and social networking

Makedonski Telekom

I

n the years since gaining independence from the former Yugoslavia, Macedonia has undergone considerable economic reform. In fact, its development of an open economy saw the country ranked as the fourth ‘best reformatory state’ out of 178 countries rated by the World Bank in 2009.

The economic development of the country has seen the rise of various industry sectors, not least the telecommunications sector. At the end of 2010, Macedonia was estimated to be home to more than 413,000 fixed line telephone customers and a staggering 2,150,000 mobile phone subscribers.

Providing innovative solutions with high quality and efficiency Makedonski Telekom plays a defining role in modernising and improving the telecommunications market within the country. A leading national provider of electronic communications, the company offers its customers a range of cuttingedge services and entertainment content.

Through the development of industryleading products and services, Makedonski Telekom promotes personal and social networking between the people of Macedonia. It is this networking that is fast influencing the construction of the country’s information society.

Prior to 1 January 1997, and operating under the name PTT Macedonia, the predecessor of the company originally provided telecommunication, postal, banking and other services. In accordance with a decision taken by the country’s government in 1996, however, PTT Macedonia was subsequently divided into

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ONE OF THE MOST PROFOUND SHIFTS IN YOUR BUSINESS IN DECADES HAS ARRIVED. AND IT LOOKS LIKE THIS. At first glance, she’s an employee working on a tablet. But she also represents a growing number of people who are working their way— on their favorite devices. It’s good news for companies, considering the significant savings and productivity gains associated with this new way of working. And it’s great for your team members, who can collaborate better than ever, from anywhere—accessing virtual desktops on their laptops or meeting face-to-face via Cisco Jabber™ on their tablets. Now, collaboration is enhanced. Employees are untethered.

Security is built in. And at the center of it all is the Cisco® Intelligent Network.

Use your favorite device to learn more at cisco.com/go/yourway.

©2012 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Makedonski Telekom

Makedonski Telekom implements next generation network with Cisco Technology “Three fundamental trends are shaping the world of service providers today: mobility, video and cloud,” says Peter Hajdu, general manager Cisco South East Europe.

For the past 14 years, Makedonski Telekom has been working with Cisco, the worldwide leader in networking technologies, to build a state-of-the-art telecommunication infrastructure for Macedonia and to get prepared for these new trends. A key milestone was the implementation of an endto-end Internet Protocol Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) to expand IP-based and broadband services and to create a platform for video, mobile, and for managed and cloud-based services.

Cisco technology helped enable Makedonski Telekom to design and build a highly reliable countrywide service delivery network to support the introduction of new, interactive applications such as Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (2003), Voice-over-IP (2005), Point to Point Metro Ethernet (2005), Ethernet in the first mile over copper (2006), Internet Protocol-based TV (2008), Video on Demand (2008), and Fiber-to-the-Home (2009). At the same time, Makedonski Telekom was able to improve the quality of all existing IP services, for example IP/MPLS Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and high speed internet access.

The proven reliability of Cisco networking solutions helps Makedonski Telekom to fulfil its aim of having a core network with 99.999% availability—a milestone for every top service provider worldwide.

Most recently, by deploying the Cisco® Carrier Routing System (CRS) family, Makedonski Telekom is preparing its network for an increase in high-speed broadband demand and the launch of advanced IP-based video services.

The Cisco IP NGN architecture enables Makedonski Telekom to expand its broadband subscriber base and evolve service offerings from the current triple play and quad play to “any play” services.

The close integration of services with T-Mobile and implementation of fixed-mobile convergence will enable customers to fully enjoy the power of mobility and borderless networks. www.cisco.com/go/yourway

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two legal entities, thus dividing postal and telecommunication activities.

It was in 2001 that the company formally became part of the international Deutsche Telekom group. Seven years later the current era of Makedonski Telekom began with its adoption of the globally recognised ‘T’ brand.

Since 2001, and thanks in part to a brand new custom structure that has allowed it to remain in-step with the latest achievements

in electronic communications, Makedonski Telekom has strived to meet the demands and needs of its customers. One way it has done so is by always using the best practices of the Deutsche Telekom group in order to maximise user benefits.

“One of the biggest challenges that the company has had to overcome since it became part of Deutsche Telekom,” explains chief executive officer, Daniel Szasz, “has

“The company has been able to retain a local emphasis, while still enjoying the backing and support of a global telecoms powerhouse”

T-Home employees

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Makedonski Telekom

Customers waiting for the new iPhone

been the task of blending long-serving employees its traditional, local values and its next generation with the international workforce. A programme branding and reputation of heavy investment and that exist throughout the a comprehensive training Named Best Employer in Deutsche Telekom Group. structure have combined to a Triple S Group survey help bring these two groups By successfully overcoming these issues, the company together under a shared has been able to retain a local business philosophy. emphasis, while still enjoying the backing and Makedonski Telekom’s commitment towards the wellbeing and success of its support of a global telecoms powerhouse.�

Making the transition from being a employees has been rightfully recognised more traditional, state-run, fixed telecoms in recent times, most notably by the Triple company dealing with landlines to S Group’s anonymous survey of the best becoming a competitive mobile operations employers in Macedonia. The results of the provider has also not been without its survey, whose participants include employees difficulties. One particular challenge has from the cream of the crop of Macedonian been its need to integrate together its business, identified the company as the

2011

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Best Employer for 2011, in the category of companies with over 500 employees.

In order to achieve its aims of being recognised universally as a highly esteemed service company, Makedonski Telekom has developed a new company strategy incorporating three main messages, “SustainTransform-Innovate”. This strategy is very much aligned with that of Deutsche Telekom, which is “Fix-Transform-Innovate”.

Customers and their demands, as well as market movements, are the main drivers of the changes that have been made

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to the company’s strategy. In a market that is continuously evolving and highly competitive, both private and business customers are increasingly seeking an allin-one service that provides them with constant access to information via various different devices and platforms.

“The company is continually looking for opportunities to modernise, invest and diversify to provide new income streams as traditional fixed streams become less relevant,” Szasz continues. At the forefront of the industry today are themes including

Makedonski Telekom

Local tariff & product campaign, making the biggest cake for the sweetest promo offer

IPTV technologies, implementing 3G networks and platforms. The evolution of Macedonia’s communication network and the introduction of new services is clearly the primary focus of the company. Of critical

importance is the implementation of the “fiber to the home” project. This involves the construction of a significantly faster telecommunications network, providing speeds of up to 100 Mbps to every home.

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T Day - The Rebranding of Makedonski Telekom

Makedonski Telekom

100 mbps Target speed to every home Makedonski Telekom is a company that is seen as leading the way in the region in terms of the many technological advances being worked on at present. Furthermore, through a mix of local implementation, strong relationships with maintenance service providers and the know-how and support Deutsche Telekom is able to offer, the company has built itself a long, proven track record of handling vital telecommunications projects.

Future prospects for the company revolve around exploring the opportunity to expand into other sectors of the industry.

These include media advertising, e-payment and mobile payment services and the launching, and hosting, of cloud computing solutions. “Wherever business may take it,” Szasz concludes, “Makedonski Telekom’s immediate focus will remain primarily on the local market. Nevertheless, while there are no direct plans to expand regionally at this time, market conditions strongly hint that even-greater opportunities for cooperation with other European telecoms providers lie ahead.”

For more information about Makedonski Telekom visit: www.telekom.mk

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The sky’s the limit

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Basil Read Jimmy Johnston, project director for the St Helena airport project, discusses the work being undertaken to deliver the island its own international airport and the benefits this will create written by: Will Daynes research by: Jeff Abbott

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Temporary fuel farm in Rupert’s Bay

Basil Read

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ninhabited upon its initial discovery by the Portuguese in 1502, and to this day home to little more than 4000 people, the British overseas territory of St Helena remains one of the most isolated inhabited places on earth. Named after Saint Helena of Constantinople, the island is perhaps most famous for being the home of Napoleon Bonaparte during the final years of his life.

Located some 1900 kilometres from the African continent, the island’s only lifeline to the wider world since 1989 has been the RMS St Helena, the only ship to regularly pay a visit to its shores. It wasn’t until 2011 that the UK government announced its plan to invest over £200 million into the building of an international airport on the island. This news was then followed by the confirmation that Basil Read had been awarded the contract to bring this massive, complex project to life.

As is common place when it comes to remote parts of the developing world, St Helena has watched as large numbers of its population have left the island to seek opportunities further afield. These same people have then had to experience the logistical difficulties presented in getting to the island when they wish to return.

It is hoped that the construction of an airport will open up a whole new world of opportunities for St Helena and its people.

“The airport project has been on the cards for a number of years,” says Jimmy Johnston, project director, “with the goal being to make the island more self-sufficient

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NAMIBIAN PORTS AUTHORITY Namibia and Namport have a special relationship with the island of St. Helena dating back to 1977 when the Royal Mail Ship service replaced the Union-Castle line and again when the current RMS St Helena came into service in 1990.

Namibia has many isolated areas in this vast country and we share the same feeling with the Saints as they rely on the regular call of the RMS St Helena. As the service has also become more limited over the past few years by only calling from Cape Town, Namport has missed the regular call of this unique multipurpose vessel.

When the news came that an airport would finally be built on the island, with Namport as an important staging area for its construction, it presented an opportunity

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to repay the Saints for their loyal patronage over the past three decades. Despite space limitations that the Port currently experiences due to rapid expansion, Namport has availed the Basil Read Consortium with prime land and facilities to ensure that construction continues unabated.

The construction challenges that Basil Read faces on the island itself and the pioneering methods of off-loading at the island provide a case study in improvisation. Namport hopes that we can continue to play a small role in the coming years as this exciting project comes to fruition. www.namport.com.na

Basil Read

Basil Read ship in Rupert’s Bay

and open it up to greater well placed as Basil Read to levels of tourism. This will serve the island hasn’t had to overcome some of the in turn boost the economy of St Helena and reduce its considerable challenges that dependence on the UK.” its location poses. With no Population of St. Helena Basil Leonard Read harbour, the company first started the Basil Read had to create its own jetty company in 1952 as a humble before then overcoming the business that has grown significantly since fact that with no natural beaches it would its formation to become a powerful brand not be possible to approach the island with known throughout the construction, normal landing craft.

“A site investigation team first arrived on engineering and mining sectors across southern Africa. Not only is the company the island in 2007 and it became immediately best placed geographically to serve St apparent that getting around the unique Helena, it also possesses all of the necessary logistical features of St Helena was going design, construction and engineering to be absolutely vital to the whole project,” capabilities to service such an undertaking. Johnston explains. Soon after the award of That is not to say that a company as the contract in 2011, Basil Read set about

4,000

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Servicing the International Freight Community Meihuizen International was established 30 years ago, and provides integrated logistic solutions across a wide field of diverse activities.

The company is owner managed, and as such offers a hands-on service, with personal responsibility for operational details.

Our solutions are focused on service excellence, an open door policy, flexibility to suit specific industry needs and an international network of established agents. This enables us to provide customised solutions and the best of personal service.

Telephone: +27 21 440 5400 Info@meihuizen.co.za www.meihuizen.co.za

Our Services Include: • Shipping • Forwarding • Customs Clearing • Air Freight / Sea Freight • Road/Rail Transport • Container Groupage • Ships Agency • Antarctic Logistics & Procurement • Project Cargo

Basil Read identifying a vessel that Meihuizen International would suit its requirements, Arising out of our lengthy association with the island of St namely the handling of Helena, we approached Basil Read to offer our services in break bulk, ability to carry respect of the St Helena Airport Project, and were privileged a million litres of fuel per to be nominated as their logistics service provider. We trip and the ability to handle have worked side by side with them over the last year, and container shipments. An offer have found them to be an extremely professional and most agreeable client, which bodes well for our relationship was then made to charter a during the contract period. In consequence we would be vessel and in the time since honoured to be retained by them for any future logistics the company has adapted business. We wish Basil Read much success with the it by adding additional fuel Airport Project and all their future endeavours. carrying capabilities and an www.meihuizen.co.za on-board crane capable of lifting 40 tonne loads.

Working in such a unique part of the world also raises a number of social and environmental issues. With the airport project bringing about big changes for the island and its people it has been of vital importance to have a strong degree of communication and mutual understanding between Basil Read and the local population.

Furthermore, St Helena boasts a unique collection of flora and fauna. This, together First docking of any ship on St Helena with its cultural heritage, has been taken closely into Babcock International Group account throughout the As the exclusive distributor for Volvo Construction design and construction Equipment in South Africa,Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, phases of the project.

Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Lesotho, Babcock “The establishment phase International Group offers a full after market support of the project is now nearing capability including maintenance, repair and overhaul utilising a network of comprehensively equipped dealers, completion,” Johnston branches, workshops and service centres. Babcock continues, “with all the back the Volvo brand with experienced staff to support logistics and supply chains customers quickly and efficiently – wherever they are. in place and all transport Our market-leading reputation is based on one key fact: routes designated. Now the Babcock is a partner that can be trusted to deliver.t. company can commence www.volvoce.com | www.babcock.co.za with the construction

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Haul road at the top of Rupert’s Valley

phase.” The first task at hand is a programme of major earth works that will involve the drill blasting and filling of approximately eight million cubic metres of rock. This will be the focus of the company over the next two years, after which it will commence the building of a 1950 metre concrete runway, a terminal building and an air traffic control tower, and the installation of airport ground lighting and navigational aids.

One of the central pillars of the island achieving economic self-dependency will be its ability to attract tourists to St Helena. The potential benefit of bringing in higher volumes of visitors is something that has not been lost on either the local or the UK governments.

Together the two are moving forward to put into place programmes that will enable the island to easily welcome and accommodate a projected 20,000 tourists per year.

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Basil Read

Working at night on the haul road

Various developers are in the process of planning where to build hotels on the island, while at the same time great efforts and resources are being put into improving the entire infrastructure of St Helena. What the government wants is for those people visiting the island to be able to get around and enjoy the usual luxuries they would experience when on holiday, all against the unique, picturesque backdrop that St Helena creates.

Outside of the tourist sector, the very location of the island, halfway across the Atlantic, provides it with the opportunity to act as a stopping point for business air traffic from South America. Opening up the air space around the island could also prove invaluable to business flights making

Dry gut - position for main fill

the journey from southern Africa to Europe as it would reduce the potential for delays that occur when flying through another country’s airspace.

“The potential for St Helena to achieve significant economic growth and dependency is there for all to see and is clearly linked to the building of its international airport,” Johnston concludes. “It is now the job of DFID, the St Helena government, local businesses and companies like Basil Read to ensure that this potential is realised.”

For more information about Basil Read visit: www.basilread.co.za

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Gold Fields aims to be the global leader in sustainable gold mining. That does not mean staying in business for ever; but rather leaving behind a viable economy, a clean environment and a thriving community written by: John O’Hanlon research by: Vince Kielty

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Gold Fields SA

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Thembelihle Park, Northern Cape

Gold Fields SA

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ohannesburg owes its existence to the Witwatersrand gold rush of the 1880s but in those days, mining was governed only by self-interest. The huge short-term capital it generated guaranteed a legislative and regulatory fair wind and in southern Africa little attention was paid to the impact of incoming speculators on the people who had lived there for millennia.

Elements of this attitude have persisted into modern times, and gold mining— indeed any kind of mining—is still often associated with environmental pollution, negative social legacy and an opportunistic business model that maximises profit but pays no more than lip service to cleaning things up once the mine is spent.

Well, that is changing, and the efforts being made by one of the world’s largest gold mining companies, Gold Fields, promise to be a benchmark for sustainable mining in the future. Gold Fields is headquartered in Sandton and listed on both the Johannesburg and New York Stock Exchanges. It operates four mines in South Africa, further mines in Australia, Ghana and Peru, and has committed itself to becoming the global leader in sustainable gold mining.

From compliant to sustainable This is not just a declaration: it is a journey.

More than a century of poor mining practice, pollution from abandoned tailings, denuded landscapes and unthought-out population displacement can’t be swept away just by saying that we are going to comply now, just so that we can talk ourselves into gaining a

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licence to mine. Companies must be audited more closely than that, says Phillip Jacobs, Gold Fields’ VP of Sustainable Development for the South Africa region. The image problem is not of Gold Fields’ making; like most of the majors it has complied rigorously with regulations and legislation since it was formed in 1998. As with its peers, if not the entire industry, safety was a priority and remains so. “If we can’t mine safely we won’t mine!” says Jacobs.

But he admits that responsible mining was more of a compliance issue in those days. These days, compliance is a starting point. Thinking at Gold Fields has moved progressively from compliance—not breaking the law—through corporate social investment (CSI) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) to sustainable business in the fullest sense. Today it is busy promoting the final step to creating shared value.

Shared value will drive the next wave of innovation and productivity growth in the global economy, according to the Harvard Business Review, where the concept was first defined in 2010. “It will also reshape capitalism and its relationship to society.

Perhaps most important of all, learning how to create shared value is our best chance to

legitimise business again.” Clearly this is an important goal for the mining industry, and the benefits of shared value flow both ways, Jacobs points out. It is not window dressing—there should always a business case for projects.

While there is no standard definition of shared value Gold Fields does measure both its wider economic impact and the amounts dedicated to social economic development

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Gold Fields SA

Tarkwa gold mine, Ghana

(SED) spending. In calendar accom modat ion a nd 2011, the most recent full procurement. But that is just financial year, the company our point of departure.” spent around US$55 million The Sust a inable Development (S D) on SED of which around d epa r t m ent Ja c o b s 80 per cent was spent in heads pulls together South Africa.

Gold Fields’ all the corporate plans So what precisely does social development for sa fet y, hea lt h, sustainable development spending in 2011 community development mean to him, and who does it and environmental best involve? “Most of our social practice. “There is a thin development initiatives are integrated with the social and labour plans line between our employees and the (SLPs) that we have to submit to get a mining community—and in many cases no line at licence. That is a useful way to pull together all, as they live in the community.” It could different elements of the business including hardly be otherwise in a company that health and safety, human resources and our employs up to 40,000 people, to which must economic development, environmental, be added the considerable secondary impact

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on the communities near to the mine sites, and in the ‘labour-sending areas’. “Many of our workers migrate from the Eastern Cape or KZN as well as Mozambique and Lesotho to work in the mines. So when we promote community projects we don’t just focus on the ‘host’ communities but also the sending communities.”

Gold Fields’ journey has moved the whole organisation from departmentalised

and piecemeal thinking on SD to an integrated approach, says Jacobs. “Instead of just doing ad-hoc projects we have started looking for meaningful, sustainable projects that will make a difference.” The vision for SD is twofold: on the one hand to avoid leaving any residual liabilities, on the other to leave behind an economy that is independent once the mine closes—as it must eventually. The gold resources at the

“When we promote community projects we don’t just focus on the ‘host’ communities but also the sending communities”

Thembelihle Park

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Gold Fields SA

Gold Fields CEO Nicholas J Holland opens Themblihle Park

Kloof Driefontein Complex (KDC), South Africa’s largest mine, could last for around 50 years, but like all mining operations are governed by world demand for gold.

So whatever happens, legacies such as ghost towns, communities left without alternative employment, acid pollution and the like must have no part in it.

To prepare the community to sustain itself, the first thing is to understand how that community works, he says.

“Our ethnographic assessments give us a picture of the community as we collect data on education levels, skills available, literacy, unemployment and the like.” In every case the local municipality will have an Integrated Development Plan (IDP) that identifies wealth creation projects, so

Gold Fields will align its own information gathering process with the IDP as far as possible, improving it where necessary and adding projects it believes will be beneficial to that community.

It’s a constant learning process. One of the earliest projects established in 2003 was a rose propagation farm and marketing enterprise near KDC. Gold Fields and the government-run Industrial Development Corporation have invested a total of R160 million (US$22 million) in the Living Gold rose farm over the past few years. To date, this alternative livelihood project has provided jobs and training for over 600 people in the skills of growing, harvesting, sorting and packaging roses for export.

Though the venture has been a commercial

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success, one of the most valuable lessons was that the value to the community is not related to the size of the investment.

“We have projects where we have spent R10,000 and the impact is proportionately as significant,” he says.

Projects for people A good example is the Alien Vegetation Project at KDC, which aims to create jobs and conserve local biodiversity through the clearing of alien vegetation and the production of charcoal. The project’s 45 participants have produced 500 tonnes

of timber since it started in November 2010.

South Africa is trying to eradicate exotic species like eucalyptus and wattles that are both invasive and thirsty.

Studies showed that an eradication programme could cost R5 million in the first year alone, with follow-on costs to stop the pest vegetation coming back. “Instead we identified people in the community, typically unemployed people, bringing them together in a small business Timber produced at KDC enterprise. We trained them by the Alien Vegetation up to a level where they had Project certificates they could take

Employee housing project in Glenharvie

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500

tonnes

Gold Fields SA

“Instead of just doing ad-hoc projects we have started looking for meaningful, sustainable projects that will make a difference” and use elsewhere if required, got them the equipment they needed and supported them through a pilot stage, which expanded to the point that now we have a whole community eradicating alien vegetation. We have even negotiated an offtake agreement for them with a company that will buy the timber.

In that way we successfully addressed an environmental issue, an economic issue and

a social issue all in one go and at low cost.”

Another project more closely aligned with traditional agriculture, while feeding directly into the tree replacement programme, is still in its pilot phase. The company has created an ‘Agri-Hub’ with the threefold mission of assessing small scale agricultural projects for feasibility and getting them off the ground; training; and production. “The idea is simple,” explains Jacobs. “We started with wormeries where we compost the kitchen waste from our living accommodation. The wormery produces liquid fertiliser and compost.

That is used in our tunnels where we produce the seedlings.”

The vegetable seedlings are initially given to the community that lives around the KDC mine to plant gardens. To give an idea of the project’s scale, the last time Jacobs checked, about 40,000 plants were growing. The project will be extended to the company’s mines at KDC West, South Deep and possibly Beatrix. From the initial CSI opportunity to provide seedlings to establish food security within a community, Gold Fields has gone a step further, training participants how to plant their seedlings, how to fertilise and how to water them. Some of the plants are used for food, others sold

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“We successfully addressed an environmental issue, an economic issue and a social issue all in one go and at low cost” and the money used to buy more seedlings.

As well as cabbages and spinach, the tunnels are propagating saplings, all indigenous South African trees, to replace the invaders as they are removed. A similar project, still at the planning stage but scheduled to be launched before the end of 2012, will address bee keeping and honey production. “Again, the principle is to align environmental benefits with socio-economic

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needs. Beehives can be housed anywhere— each community member could have a few hives and the bees assist pollination in gardens where we are growing trees and rehabilitating the area.”

Spirit of enterprise While these initiatives encourage selfsufficiency, the ultimate aim is to leave behind a local economy that works, and

Gold Fields SA

Environmental inititiave at Beatrix mine

for that you need individuals who will invest their money, skills and vision in their community. You need entrepreneurs.

These men and women emerge naturally in the project and slowly take over until it is self-sustaining. There are signs that this process is happening in the agri-projects we have looked at, but Gold Fields is also keen to encourage sustainable business like the Futyana Bakery, based at the KDC mine.

It is run by an ex-Gold Fields employee, employs 22 local people and supplies the mine with more than 2,000 loaves of bread every working day. Gold Fields supplied loan finance to the enterprise, as well as indefinite rent-free accommodation in an old hostel building. A group of women produce a range of safety attire and equipment at another

enterprise that was established to serve as a hub for independent community businesses.

Gold Fields has now started a ‘localisation project’ to support entrepreneurship. It started by creating a database of all existing enterprises in the community and the skills available. The data will be available to the local business community and the municipality. Gold Fields itself will be able to use it to build a supplier community that can supply not only foodstuffs, along the model of the Futyana Bakery, but also craftsmen like plumbers or welders that it may require as well as mining related services like safety clothing, electrical or engineering services. “We will assist them with mentorship to get them to the quality level we need,” Jacobs promises.

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Driefontein headgear, South Africa

Gold Fields SA The next phase will be to create business development centres in all the mine and sending communities to act as a repository for the local database and an incubator for growing businesses. Professionals from the mine’s training facilities will provide basic training in numeracy and literacy. “Once they have passed that stage they can have the opportunity to obtain portable skills in disciplines like animal husbandry, carpentry, metalwork, auto repair and the like.”

The company’s procurement policy will help to provide the market. For example if there are houses to be built, instead of getting contractors to tender, the database will be used to source the building skills needed from the local community. The business development centre could help them form a business to do the work; it could provide them with meeting rooms and act as their communications hub, so they will be able to offer their services to other local businesses or municipalities.

Though the will has always been there, the progress from a mindset of compliance to one of shared value has not been without pain. But Jacobs says it has been worth every step. “For a mining company to be successful today, cosmetic changes are not enough: it must change its moral fibre, it’s very genetic makeup. We have done that, I believe.”

For more information about Gold Fields SA visit: www.goldfields.co.za

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Drill hole at the Sangihe site

East Asia Minerals

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oth of EAS’s current projects are But it was touch and go. A year ago in Indonesia, at opposite ends the company was spending $2.5 million of the crescent-shaped nation. a month, an unsustainable burn rate: the Miwah is at the western extreme, share price had dropped from $8.00 to in the province of North Sumatra, $0.40. With the full support of his board to the south of Banda Aceh, while Sangihe is Rochette cut staff levels from 85 to around on the northernmost of a string of islands in 15 and stopped all drilling activities. “I did North Sulawesi to the east, almost into the not understand where we were going with Philippines. Like every gold project in the the drilling programme and I didn’t think world, each has its unique challenges from the company did either.” By December of the point of view of geology and physical 2011 he was able to raise $13 million in a access, but overcoming these is not just private placement, had cut the burn rate to a challenge for science and engineering: $400,000 a month and had retrieved the Indonesia’s regulations and laws governing viability of the company and the confidence mining are changing, but of the shareholders. they are still complex.

He also set about The Mining Law of 2009 disposing of some phosphate amended the old Contract and uranium assets the of Work (CoW) system with company held in Mongolia, a new area-based licensing keeping only a minimum system involving local and of staff at the Vancouver provincial authorities as headquarters and the Raised in a private offices in Ulaanbaatar and well as central government. placement in 2011 Its aim was to help overseas Jakarta – people who could companies to invest in contribute directly to the Indonesia, but balancing commercial and goal of getting the Indonesian gold projects up and running. national interests is a complex task.

With all efforts now focused on Sangihe, It’s just a year since EAS Chairman Ed Rochette stepped into the job of CEO. Above which is the more advanced of the two, EAS all a negotiator and transaction lawyer has made great strides over recent months. his job was to cut through the morass of “We can see a clear path to production permitting and regulatory roadblocks that at Sangihe within the next two to three had stalled these projects and started to years because we have no significant worry the markets. The transformation permitting issues to worry about there. has been dramatic and now the company’s We have restarted the drilling program shareholders are stakeholders in a venture and site development work there. We that he confidently expects will be producing are getting great support from the local Bupati as well as the central government and selling gold within three years.

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Mining Department.” The Bupati is head of the local regency, the Indonesian local authority within the province, in this case North Sulawesi – for a mining project to proceed these days it is vital to maintain support at all levels. The company’s goal is to have drills turning at Sangihe by the end of November 2012, he adds.

Rochette is the first to admit that he is no geologist, nor is he a mining engineer, and that an essential part of his job has been to put together a competent team. Three recent appointments have given the company a backbone second to none. The first of these was the July appointment of Dave Anthony as chief operations officer who has over 30 years’ experience as a mining engineer, including a recent appointment as COO with Barrick Gold in Africa. “Dave is a fantastic addition to the management team,” says Rochette, “and we have also just hired Frank Rocca, an excellent geologist with a significant amount of time spent in senior leadership roles in Australia and Africa.” Rocca is also a Barrick Africa veteran: within days of his appointment on September 24 he found himself at the Sanighe project and supervising the revived drilling operation there.

With the agreement of Dr Fadel

Mohammad, a well known and trusted figure in Indonesian government and business circles, to act as its strategic advisor the company gained a key supporter. “Travelling round with Fadel is like travelling with a rock star, so his support is a big asset when we are dealing with local officials!” Until last year Dr Fadel was the popular governor of nearby Gorontalo Province where he introduced some enlightened agricultural reforms,

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East Asia Minerals

Local ship transporting relief supplies to earthquake victims across Sangihe Harbour

so to have him onside, I took pains to be very added to Ed Rochette’s forthcoming and specific close acquaintance with about the problems that Indonesia spanning 20 faced us, like some forestry years, makes for a team issues that were holding that not only understands back the Miwah project. the business of mining While full disclosure may Length of licence but also the environmental hurt your share price in the at Sangihe short term, at the end of the and economic aspirations of day it really helps you if you the local people.

Wit h a st rong have been frank about all management team now in place, the second the issues.� It also works as a blueprint for of three identified goals has been achieved. what remains to be dealt with, he says. “The first goal was to get financial stability The third goal was to sort out the so the company could survive to another problems at Miwah, which is situated in day. There had been some dissatisfaction a designated forestry area. Indonesia is among the investor community, but when sensitive about its record on deforestation, I did the private placement last December which makes it complicated to obtain

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permits to drill, let alone operate a full scale mine. Unlike Sangihe, which is licensed under the older CoW system for some 27 years, Miwah is subject to shorter term IUPs, or mining business licences. However tests so far carried out suggest that Miwah is potentially a world class gold resource, so a compromise that would allow its development is in

all interests. He is currently negotiating ‘borrow use’ agreements that will allow the low impact drilling needed to define the reserve once and for all.

Rochette thinks the cart was placed before the horse, though. “There’s no point tackling the forestry issue until tenure has been secured. The IUPs have to be renewed this year and that’s my priority right

“I’m not done yet but I think we have made giant strides from where we were a year ago”

Truck loaded with bags of cement destined as part of relief for local earth quake victims

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East Asia Minerals

EAS management team at ceremony for donation of supplies for earthquake victims. (Left to right) Mike McAllister-Manager IR, Dave Anthony-Chief Operating Officer, Edward Rochette-Chairman & CEO

now. Then we can go back and deal with the question of safeguarding the forest.”

The new government recently installed in Banda Aceh, capital of Aceh Province where Miwah is located, is proving very supportive of the project and EAS’s efforts to secure the necessary permits from the Ministry of Forests.

With Sangihe on a fast track to first gold and already thought able to yield almost a million ounces of gold, Miwah three times larger and looking a lot smoother than it did a year ago, 90 percent of the journey has been completed. The main board has been completely changed, a highly competent management team has been put in place, the financials stabilised and

reassuring progress is being made in the tricky area of permitting.

“I’m not done yet but I think we have made giant strides from where we were a year ago,” says Rochette. Almost exactly a year after he took the reins, on October 12 he will be reporting this story to the board in Vancouver and then setting out for Toronto, New York and San Francisco to meet the shareholders and explain to them straight from the shoulder what problems remain and how he intends to tackle them.

For more information about East Asia Minerals visit: www.eaminerals.com

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Eti Krom

One of Turkey’s most important home-grown mining companies is weathering the decline in demand for chromium ore and continuing to supply its customers year-round written by: Alan Swaby research by: Abi Abagun BE EMEA | 143

KEF mines and beneficiation plant

Eti Krom

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here’s an interesting tale relating to the discovery of chromium ore in Turkey. Apparently, in the 1930s, a German company was mining and smelting copper in the Elazig region of the country and local inhabitants were making some extra cash by collecting wood in the hills that the Germans then converted into charcoal. So the story goes, one such forager needed a rock to counterbalance the panniers straddling his donkey for the trek down the mountain. He didn’t need the rock to go back up, so left it lying around, only for it to be noticed by a sharp-eyed German engineer who recognised what he was looking at. In true Cinderella fashion, the local worker was found, the source of the ore identified and the Germans switched their attention from copper to chrome—at that time, a particularly strategic ore with many geopolitical implications.

“It probably meant,” says Dr. Alp Malazgirt, recently appointed chief executive officer of Yildirim Holding, “that the Germans had not focused on chromium mining until it became a strategically important metal. I’m not a trained geologist but on an inspection tour of new leases we have acquired near Adana’s Aladag region, it is possible to see many such lumps of chrome ore and I am sure it was even in greater abundance at Elazig back then.”

After the Second World War, the Turkish state continued to run Eti Krom, as the mine and processing plant was known, but never very profitably. At the start of 2000, the country began a wholesale privatisation

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Eti Krom

Turkish HC FeCr (high carbon ferrochrome)

programme and in 2004, when the mine from slag. In total, the Eti Krom operation was losing over $100 million a year, the numbers around 80 chrome ore mines with brothers Yildirim took over the mine. 20 of them currently active. Proven reserves “Today,” says Malazgirt, “Eti Krom is the top 100 million tonnes, with current annual flagship of all Yildirim operations. It’s the production capacity of about 1 million tons largest and richest chromite source in the of chromium ore. Ferrochrome production country and generates much of the over $1 capacity is 150,000 tonnes and the smelting billion in revenue for the group.” operation takes place in four furnaces, two The mine itself is located on a 200-hectare open and two new semi-closed arc furnaces site 55 kilometres from Elazig. The main near Elazig, all of which have been updated activities there can be and modernised in the past summarised as open pit five years. and underground mining Turkey has no shortage of chromium mines but of chromium ore, a chrome what sets Eti Krom apart beneficiation along with is the high quality of the a briquetting facility, ore. There’s a very high production of high carbon The brothers Yildirim ferrochrome, and the ratio of 2.7:1 chrome to iron took over the mine recovery of ferrochrome but even more desirable

2004

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ATLAS COPCO IMALAT MAKINALARI A.S. Atlas Copco Turkey operates in Istanbul as a customer & service center with its more than 200 dedicated personnel to help Turkish industry to have the most efficient and reliable solutions. With the experience exceeding 75 years, we are able to offer a comprehensive total compressed air solutions to different compressed air requirements.

driven compressors, was and still is a success for the company. It is no surprise that Atlas Copco was the first air compressor producer certified as “oil free” by TÜV ISO 8573-1.

Innovation does not stop there, we launched variable speed drive compressors in 1994 to save our customers’ energy up to 35% compared to fixed speed compressors.

Atlas Copco way of doing business is based on sustainable productivity. To support this way, we constantly improve our equipment and offer fit to purpose solutions. With its highly efficient components, Atlas Copco compressors are leading the way in terms of energy efficiency.

With these technological advances, we help our customers every day to sustain their profitability and productivity.

Innovation is in our genes, when Atlas Copco first introduced screw compressors to the industry it was 1954. In 1967 Atlas Copco launched Z series. Oil free and electrically

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Nowhere is this more evident in the Eti Krom A.S. where Atlas Copco Turkey provided technical expertise to reach the most efficient solution. After detailed analysis, Atlas Copco offered 3 Oil Free, Variable Speed Drive (VSD) oil free compressors where demand is precisely matched by supply and any extra supply avoided with state of the art VSD technology. Moreover, with its highly efficient desiccant dryers Eti Krom shall not waste any of its compressed air as a purge air. Whole system is controlled with an Atlas Copco patented modulating system which controls the units and have them work in their optimum conditions. With this modulation system, our customers can save up to 30% of their precious energy. In total; Eti Krom “expects to save about 68.500 euro per annum”

If your industrial process requires a completely oil-free air supply, Atlas Copco now offers a compressor range that is certified 100% oil-free. Our Z-range of oil-free screw compressors is the first in the market to receive an ISO 8573-1 ‘Class 0’ rating from the German certification authority TÜV. TÜV testing detected no oil contaminants whatsoever in the compressed air supply. So when you need to avoid all risk of oil contamination – rely on Atlas Copco oil-free air compressors. Want to know more? Visit www.classzero.com

Eti Krom

Committed to your superior productivity.

www.atlascopco.com

according to Kadir Salman, Mechanical departments manager. These technical advances were not the only reasons why Eti Krom chose Atlas Copco over its competitors.

From the day one Atlas Copco were in the site with its sale engineer and diligence that Atlas Copco demonstrated were not matched by its competitors. Moreover, previous experience with Atlas Copco’s reliability and customer centricity also affected Eti Krom’s decision to continue with Atlas Copco. Atlas Copco were”

positive , constructive and reliable” says Mr. Salman. This is how we place our customers first, this is how we explore and excel .

With a combination of technical expertise and putting our customer first, Atlas Copco Turkey is ready to asssist you for your compressed air needs. This is how we put our customers first.

This is the Atlas Copco way. www.atlascopco.com

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is the low silicon content. “Silicon can be removed readily,” explains Malazgirt, “but at a higher cost as neutralising the silicon needs more carbon and therefore more coal.

The phosphorous content of our ore is also low which means it is ideally suited for the very high grades of stainless steel.”

These characteristics have helped Eti Krom weather the decline in demand and the suppression of prices seen since 2008. At the time, chromium ore was fetching around $750 per tonne; now the price is either side of $270. Nevertheless, through a combination of operational hedging and optimising its mining and manufacturing units, Eti Krom has remained viable. Productivity and process improvements have led to increased flexibility and a low cost operation. Eti Krom has used its financial strength and steady cash flow to make capacity-increasing investments with zero leverage.

Eti Krom remains an important partner to its customers as it is the only Turkish chrome ore supplier that can produce chrome ore all around the year, without any suspension, even through the tough winter season. By stockpiling product in 18 strategically located warehouses, it can rapidly supply customers worldwide with the ferrochrome they need.

When it comes to ferrochrome, the market for standard grades is now dominated by the Chinese, who have taken over from South Africa as the world’s greatest producers just recently. “South Africa has 70 per cent of all known chrome ore,” says Malazgirt, “but that hasn’t stopped China investing hugely in its own ferrochrome production. Of course the power shortages in South Africa haven’t helped, as the smelting process is

“Silicon can be removed readily, but neutralising the silicon needs more carbon and therefore more coal” 150 | BE EMEA

Eti Krom

Entrance to underground mining

extremely energy-hungry.” process. What we don’t need Electricity supply is just for our own purposes will be as critical for Eti Krom fed back into the grid.” but more under control.

In a relatively short period The grid supply is reliable of time, the Yildirim brothers but is gradually being have created a group with a supplemented with Eti very wide range of interests Krom’s own generated Tonnes of proven (10 sectors in all), many of reserves electricity. “Yildirim has which provide synergy for been importing coal since the mining and fertilizer 1995,” says Malazgirt, “and operations. Yildirim has its we have a very experienced team which own fleet of 18 ships, of which 9 are tankers knows how to get the best out of its partners. and the rest are dry bulk carriers, so has the Next year we shall build a new electricity means of shipping product to customers or generation plant near at Elazig using coal importing those commodities it needs. In imported from South Africa, Colombia, the case of coal, ore is shipped in wagons or Russia—the best source of coal for the down to the Mediterranean ports for export high temperatures needed in the smelting and then coming back, the wagons will

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haul imported coal for the future 200 MW power generation plant. Hence, the synergy will be accomplished by combining all, or most of the steps in the ferrochrome operational supply chain.

Despite these interlocking divisions, Yildirim has yet to take any interest in manufacturing, although it comes as a great pleasure to Malazgirt to note the extent to which Turkey is developing its ability to be self-sufficient. “When the crushing and beneficiation plant was originally built at

Elazig,” he says, “all the technology had to be imported. Now we are seeing that much of what a plant like ours needs can be produced within the country.”

Such improvement in manufacturing capabilities will be good news for the government also. Considering the number of new mining developments that have been seen over the past decades, the mining sector still only accounts for one per cent of the country’s GDP. By 2023, the target is for mining to generate five per cent of the

“Much of what a plant like ours needs can now be produced within the country”

Open pit chromite mining

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Eti Krom

Chrome hauling operations at ETI KROM’s Elazig facilities

country’s wealth. In other words, there will be plenty of work for local suppliers. But for this target to be met, Malazgirt is warning that the country’s bureaucracy needs to become as efficient as its manufacturing.

“Getting approval for anything is a slow process,” says Malazgirt. “We have licenses for 20 other sites all over Turkey that are waiting for development and which could be creating new jobs and export revenue. Most of the concern is for environmental protection of the countryside, which is admirable, but the process needs to be streamlined.”

Eti Krom already has good credentials in trying to create a sustainable operation.

We’ve already seen that by tapping into Yildirim’s logistics network, coal is being imported and finished products exported

with the maximum degree of efficiency— thereby minimising its carbon footprint.

As electricity is the largest single cost associated with smelting, becoming selfsufficient is high on Eti Krom’s to-do list.

In addition to the coal power generation plant underway, the operation is also trying to recycle some of the energy found in the hot gases produced during smelting.

A system is currently being built which will collect 600°C waste gases from the smelter, filter them and cool them down to 400°C and then use them to power the boilers. This way it is hoped that 5.5MW of electricity will be produced in a clean, closed circuit.

A by-product of any smelting operation is the impurity carrying slag that forms on

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Eti Krom the top of the molten metal. In the case at Eti Krom, the chrome content is already very low—at no more than four per cent.

Nevertheless, slag is being recycled in order to re-claim as much of the chromium as possible. When the last drop of value has been wrung from the slag, it can still be processed for secondary purposes. Rather than disposing of it as waste, Eti Krom is investigating ways in which the slag can be put to good use, for example, as a wearresistant additive to concrete.

Although there is no shortage of job opportunities in the mining industry in Elazig province, Eti Krom remains the most important employer, with currently around 1,000 people on the payroll. It’s the largest source of tax for the city and the whole of the province and its long history makes it an important part of the countryside’s social fabric.

“Eti Krom has been part of Elazig life for as long as most people can remember,” says Malazgirt, “something that Yildirim is keen to maintain. As well as supporting local institutions such as schools, the group has a major project underway to convert one of the most important historical buildings in the city into a museum, celebrating the region’s mining heritage.”

What a pity the lump of chrome ore that started it all off can’t be available as the principal exhibit.

View of the KEF concentration plant

For more information about Eti Krom visit: www.eng.etikrom.com

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Community service

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Randgold Resources Charles Wells, general manager of sustainability, talks about the company’s approach and the initiatives it has in place to leave behind a positive legacy written by: Will Daynes research by: Robert Hodgson & Jeff Abbott

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perating in the prospective gold belts of Mali, the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Burkina Faso and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Randgold Resources’ approach to sustainability is applied to all stages of a mine’s life. At the core of this approach is the company’s objective to be welcome in the communities in which it operates by not only the local inhabitants but also government bodies, NGOs and those civil and public groups that are active within the region.

As recent events across South Africa have proven, the repercussions of companies failing to work well and in harmony with the local community can be severe and widespread. “What Randgold Resources strives to do at every opportunity,” explained Charles Wells, general manager of sustainability, “is to ensure that it is making a difference on the ground.”

This statement of intent resonates throughout the company. In place are a series of formal policy documents that cover a wide spectrum of areas, from the environment and health and safety to basic human rights. Although actions are more important than words at Randgold Resources, having these policies in place means that even in the event of a change in management, the company will always be bound to the principles it holds dear.

The development of the local communities around its mines has been one of the greatest successes in the company’s history.

By embracing the need for a combination of hard work, significant investment and

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Randgold practices a non-discrimination policy, striving to recruit and retain the best people and draw on talent from the populations of the countries in which it operates

Randgold Resources

senet SENET is one of the leading engineering and construction companies in its field of mineral processing. For the last 2 decades it has provided engineering, procurement, project management, and construction services to the mining, mineral processing, infrastructure and materials handling industries. SENET’s experience encompasses every stage of the project life-cycle, from scoping studies through to detailed design, construction and commissioning, training and structured handovers.

SENET is a diverse South African based, Design, Engineering and Project Management Company, founded in 1989, SENET’s pro-active management approach, combined with its modest overhead structure gives it the ability to efficiently execute medium and large size projects.

SENET has successfully designed and supplied processing plants and materials handling systems across the world and particularly in Africa.

SENET has provided pragmatic, customized engineering solutions to the mining and materials handling industries for the past two decades. We have achieved this by adhering to trusted rules, methods and designs whilst being mindful of industry trends, technology developments and the dynamic environment in which we operate.

Our relationships with our clients all share the same foundation principles – trust, honesty and professionalism.

SENET have extensive project and construction experience in remote countries throughout Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Central and South America. The experience gained in these regions has benefitted in the development of SENET’s understanding related to cross border logistics, freighting and construction requirements in countries with limited infrastructure and differing cultural values.

SENET’s approach to projects is simple yet flexible; and our success is based on two founding principles. The first is our recognition of proven processes and experience, which has been built-up over several decades of operating throughout Africa. Secondly, through the development and maintaining of client relations on the basis of trust, respect and honestly. These values also form the foundation of SENET’s business approach.

E. senet@senet.co.za www.senet.co.za

Randgold Resources

Randgold has formed alliances with non-government organisations to maximise its numerous sustainable development projects

patience, Randgold Resources can today The benefits connected to this approach proudly claim to be one of largest employers inevitably extend to a business perspective. of local workers and local contractors and It helps ensure that the company forms partnerships with people that fully suppliers on the continent.

“While any company can fund the building understand the country in which they are of a school or clinic, the importance of which operating, whether in the context of local can never be understated, it takes a certain regulations or simply how local supply kind of business to be able to maximise routes operate and converge. employment from host communities, impart The health and wellbeing of its people and lasting skills onto workers of the environment are also and generate substantial of great importance to the business opportunities for company. Active malaria, local suppliers,” Wells said.

HIV and AIDS programmes “It is this approach to the operate around its mines, concept of sustainability that while locally funded clinics Rise in group production really separates Randgold work to track the rate of such volumes over the Resources from other diseases on a continuous last 12 months basis. Meanwhile, the organisations of its kind.”

58%

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Randgold Resources company strives to ensure and water use efficiency. each and every member Such actions not only benefit of its security personnel is the environment, they also trained to understand and produce significant cost benefits for the company. uphold international human With the majority of its rights principles. This has power being derived from since been extended with the provision of similar diesel it goes without saying training to members of the that reducing consumption DRC police force operating levels also allows it to reduce around its Kibali project. costs.

Although the areas in Randgold has upgraded roads The last year has seen the company continue to which Randgold Resources operates are not classed as environmentally bring in a consistent revenue stream from sensitive locations, it has embraced the its Morila mine in Mali, while its Loulo and global drive to reduce greenhouse gas Gounkoto mines in the same country have emissions as well as improve water quality witnessed strong increases in production.

Softline Accpac Sage ERP X3 is a popular software package in the mining industry, but it was not originally designed for any specific sector. A complete web-based integrated management tool, the product has shown such promise that Deloitte’s consulting arm for the mining industry, Deloitte Mining Shared Services (DMSS) has chosen to partner with Sage and Softline Accpac to distribute the X3 system across Africa.

Now Sage MMD Africa is on the verge of launching a vertical ‘industry solution for mining’ version of Sage ERP X3. The new version adds mining-related features and configuration to the core product to enhance the performance of the software when used in a mining environment.

The enterprise asset management function has been supplemented to provide an equipment master file enabling all capital equipment items to be monitored in real time. The internal requisition feature has been enhanced to ensure that associated costs can be monitored properly at the relevant time, and the purchasing feature incorporates functionality enabling multiple requests for quotations simultaneously and efficiently. The new version also allows financial and operational budgets to be managed in a single real-time view, ensuring a single version of the truth and instant pinpointing of off-plan activities. www.sageerp.co.za

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ADVERT_CSTT_SEPT2012 Friday, September 21, 2012 7:45:21 PM

Afrilog_AdvertSEPT2012

MULTILOG_Advert_SEPT2012

Friday, September 21, 2012 7:46:11 PM

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Randgold Resources This has contributed to a 58 percent rise in group production volumes over the previous 12 months. It is results like these, coupled with the high price of gold, that have boosted the company’s share price.

“Even in the face of the well-publicised geo-political issues that have occurred in Mali in recent times, the company has been able to maintain its approach to business and actually build upon its past successes,” Wells said. “It is the ability to achieve such things that the market really responds to, particularly when it occurs against the backdrop of an increasingly challenging environment.”

Over in the DRC, the company’s Kibali

Randgold is committed to providing the safest possible working environment for its employees

mine is continuing to take great strides towards its target of producing gold by the end of 2013. A truly massive project in terms of both scale and future potential, Kibali, together with Randgold Resources’ other targets within Senegal, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, accounts for the company’s positive outlook for the immediate future.

CSTT-AO GROUP CSTT-AO Group, is a truly world class African logistics company which together with its subsidiaries (Afrilog/Multilog) operates throughout the African Continent.

With its Senegalese origins the Company established offices in Cote d’Ivoiré, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Senegal, South Africa, France and USA. The group provides a seamless intermediary service between supplier and the end user. We offer integrated supply chain solutions which entails, strategic purchase planning, order management, procurement, project logistics,

transportation and inventory management.

This has been achieved through the successful implementation, integration and roll out of SAP. We render services to predominantly mining and infrastructural development companies internationally but with focus on the African continent. Our ability to operate effectively on the continent is reflected in our long standing partnerships with our clients.

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Families selecting their homes to be built at the new model town of Kokiza

The company’s focus is

“The goal at the end of the day is to ensure that the company is able to leave a positive mark on the places in which it does business” When it comes to sustainability, the next course of action for the company involves taking the achievements it has made in recent years across Western Africa and incorporating them into its work within the DRC. “Clearly, the DRC presents a number of different challenges to those present in Mali or the Ivory Coast for example,” Wells pointed out, “therefore it is the job of Randgold Resources to adapt appropriately

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to the country and site specific conditions in order to guarantee the local communities around Kibali really do benefit from economic development.”

Perhaps the biggest sustainability challenge facing the company, one that if executed to plan could help bring long lasting benefits to the regions in which it operates, is the question of how it can leave behind a legacy that delivers economic

Randgold Resources

on developing local African skills

Kibali donates materials to rebuild the Siloe School at Durban

stimulus. While it recognises it would be near enough impossible to replicate what its mines contribute economically, moves have been made to establish an agricultural business programme within the various operations.

At this point in time those efforts are centred on the Morila mine, which is nearing the end of its life. “A great deal of infrastructure exists in place at Morila, a part of the world that has a long history of successful farming land readily accessible to the communities and, due to the mine, now has water and power available,” Wells said. “Rather than simply leaving behind a subsistence farming community, Randgold Resources wants to take that to the next level and help agricultural businesses prosper.”

These plans are also now being developed so as to allow them to be implemented around the company’s other assets when they reach the end of their own lives. “The goal at the end of the day is to ensure that the company is able to leave a positive mark on the places in which it does business by making sure a considerable level of economic activity and employment continues to provide for local communities even after it leaves,” Wells concluded. “It is the ability to leave behind that sort of legacy that represents sustainability in its truest form.”

For more information about Randgold Resources visit: www.randgoldresources.com

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Swakop Uranium is about to develop Namibia’s larg uranium deposit. CEO Norman Green talks about the challenges of the project and how the company i protecting the sensitive desert environment written by: gay sutton research by: Jeff Abbott

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Swakop Uranium

gest

is

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he Namib Desert, a mixture of stunning red sand dunes and mountainous rocky areas, extends along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia and South Africa, and at its deepest point in Namibia it extends over 150 kilometres inland. Beneath this environmentally precious landscape can be found a wealth of minerals, in particular uranium. There are already several active uranium mines in the vicinity of Swakopmund, Namibia, and

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these include the well-established Rössing and the Langer Heinrich mines. In just over three years’ time they will be joined by the Husab mine, an exciting new project that will bring Namibia’s largest uranium deposit into production.

Located around 70 km inland from Swakopmund, and just south of the Rössing uranium mine, the Husab ore body has been classified as the highest grade granitehosted uranium deposit in Namibia, and is one of the most significant discoveries

Swakop Uranium

The Namib Desert hosts a wealth of minerals, in particular uranium

in the world in recent years. Originally explored by Extract Resources of Australia, using its 100 percent Namibian subsidiary Swakop Uranium, it is now 100 per cent owned by Taurus Minerals Limited, an entity owned by China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corporation and the China-Africa Development Fund.

The Husab mine will be developed and operated by Swakop Uranium (SU), now a subsidiary of Taurus in Namibia. SU received notification of the go ahead intended in

October 2012 from its parent company in August this year, and construction will begin post go ahead to bring the mine into operation within 36 months.

“This is not a complex project, but it is big,” commented CEO Norman Green.

The ore body has an average grade of over 500 parts per million (ppm) of U3O8 (uranium oxide), which will yield around one pound of concentrate per tonne of ore extracted. “The mine will be designed to produce around 15 million

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CEO Norman Green

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pounds of uranium per annum. We will then be mining at a rate of 15 million tonnes of ore a year, and removing around 100 million tonnes of waste rock at an average stripping ratio of 6.2 in order to achieve that. All of this will require large scale extraction and a fleet of massive equipment.”

The definitive feasibility study, published in April 2011, delineated the ore body and defined a mine life of some 20 years.

However, Husab is surrounded by other prospective uranium areas that SU plans to continue exploring in the future. “So there is every chance that the mine life will be extended beyond this,” said Green.

Initially, orders will be placed for all longterm delivery items, including mining and metallurgical equipment, and for laying in permanent power and water as well as telecommunications and an access route.

As Husab is located 70 km inland, access is currently not easy. One of the first elements of construction will be a road linking the mine to the highway and then to Swakopmund and the port of Walvis Bay, through which materials and equipment will be imported and uranium concentrate exported to market.

Once fully operational, the mine will require a power supply of 110 MW. The Namibian power utility NamPower is scheduled to lay in a temporary connection to the national grid and then begin construction of a permanent distribution line terminating at a 220 kV substation.

Construction of the mine and processing plant are then scheduled to come to fruition

Swakop Uranium

Core samples

concurrently with the infrastructure, in a massive three year project employing some 4000 workers at peak. Once the mine comes onstream it will then require around 1200 mine operators, the majority of whom will be selected from the local Namibian population and trained for the job. “Sourcing the skilled operating staff is something of a challenge here, as Namibia has only a small population. However, the Government is very supportive. During the early years we will be able to bring in around 10 percent highly qualified expats.

Then as the Namibian workforce gains the necessary skills they will take over those positions,” said Green. The recruitment drive is likely to begin a few months after constructions starts so that training can take place and the workforce will be ready to begin stripping the overburden around 18 months into the project.

Husab’s location in the heart of the desert may make it a beautiful place to operate, but it presents several challenges. Firstly, water is an increasing issue in Namibia. In the past, many companies have relied on

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water from the aquifers. “We plan to bring desalinated seawater to the mine from sites on the coast, and we have several options,” Green said. The seawater desalination plant built for the uranium mining company Areva Resources is located 30 km north of Swakopmund and capable of modular expansion. Meanwhile, NamWater, the Namibian water supply utility, is also considering the construction of a seawater desalination plant north of Swakopmund.

“Piping the water to the mine will then be

part of a combined endeavour between NamWater, our mine and others in the area, but it will require a substantial investment.”

Secondly, Husab lies at the northern end of a national park, which has a variety of sensitive flora and fauna. “We have developed other projects in Namibia and we have received a number of accolades for our environmental work,” Green explained, “so we are experienced at operating in this environment. We are not only going to do what is required of

“We plan to bring desalinated seawater to the mine from sites on the coast”

Samples

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Swakop Uranium

Drill cores

us, but we are initiating some interesting environmental projects of our own.”

An example of this is the Welwitschia, a desert plant that is said to live for several thousand years and exists on very little water. “We’ve counted over 50,000 plants in the mining licence area, so this is not a rare or endangered plant, but it’s not very well understood. As we will have to remove some specimens during the construction phase, we’ve used the opportunity to commission some scientific research to increase our understanding of the plant.”

As well as furthering environmental understanding, the Husab mine is likely to be of significant benefit to Namibia. “We will be creating quite a bulge in the GDP,” Green said, “through direct and indirect

taxes and royalties.” The mine will not only provide employment for some 1200 people, but for every permanent job it is estimated that there will be another six jobs created elsewhere in the economy.

Already SU has created the Swakop Uranium Foundation, which is currently funded by parent company donations. Its objective is to promote education, welfare and health among the local communities and this will come into its own once the mine is up and running and it can be funded from turnover.

For more information about Swakop Uranium visit: www.swakopuranium.com

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Xstrata Technology

A SLOW

GRIND

Mineral Processing Manager Greg Rasmussen talks about the role of one of the leading exponents in new mining technology in the introduction of new ideas to the industry

written by: Alan Swaby research by: Robert Hodgson

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IsaMill in use at Anglo Platinum mine in Amandelbult, South Africa

Xstrata Technology

R

alph Waldo Emerson promised that if we built a better mousetrap, the world would beat a path to our door. It’s a common theme, though, within the mining industry, that customers aren’t so easily weaned away from the technology they know and love.

Xstrata Technology can trace its roots back for over 30 years and many of the new technologies it has developed have been wrought and tested at Xstrata-owned mining sites. Many of its brand names carry the ‘ISA’ prefix – testimony to their origin at Mt Isa, one of Australia’s most successful mines.

It’s now the job of Greg Rasmussen, Mineral Processing Manager for Xstrata Technology Canada to spread the message throughout North and South America from his office in Vancouver. “Xstrata is first and foremost a mining company,” he says. “The 70,000 strong workforce is divided between six operational divisions and 75 mining and smelting plants with interests in base and precious metals and coal. But through Xstrata Technology, we have no problem in marketing our processing advantages to what are essentially competitors. The technology is there to create greater productivity and efficiencies to serve society as a whole. And from a practical point of view, the more feedback and knowledge we can get from as wide a range of applications as possible, the more we are able to continuously improve the technologies.”

The Canadian office was opened four years ago at the same time as the office in

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Santiago, Chile. The 25 staff in both centers have years of operational experience and can talk to customers with an insider’s perspective. Discussions about process plant cover both brand new projects and upgrading of existing facilities. They encompass how old machinery can be replaced with newer smaller designs or how a parallel stream can be added to increase output with minimal disruption.

“The unfortunate reality,” says Rasmussen, “is that new mining projects are likely to be linked with lower grade ores that at one time wouldn’t have been considered. But the non-stop demand for minerals means we have to find ways to exploit these deposits which invariably involves ever more complex processes.

If this is to be done economically, it calls for more efficient technologies and

“We have no problem in marketing our processing advantages to what are essentially competitors”

IsaMill uses a ceramic medium which wears ten times slower than steel

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Xstrata Technology

Morenci Copper Mine, Arizona

cyclones as a means of techniques to minimize grading and separating environmental impacts.” material. “Cyclones are At the start of all very inefficient,” says processing circuits is the need to crush and mill the Rasmussen, “and often lead Xstrata’s global mined ore. Lower grades to material unnecessarily workforce often need finer grinding re-entering the grinding and it was, in fact, the process. The horizontal need to grind material down to less than design of IsaMill lends itself to a smaller 7 microns which led to the development footprint and less energy usage than of IsaMill. “Conventional mills use alternatives and enabled us to rapidly steel balls as a grinding material,” says scale up to larger 3MW and 8MW mills.

Rasmussen. “This can often lead to For the first time we were able to offer complications in the metallurgy. IsaMill the advantages of inert stirred milling to uses a ceramic medium as small as 1mm, high tonnage, mainstream grinding. The which wears ten times slower than steel Xstrata philosophy is to develop easy to and is metallurgically inert.” operate technology and in the case of IsaMill also does away with IsaMill, easy to maintain plant where a

70,000

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team of just two are able to complete a disc and liner change in eight hours.”

There are now 113 IsaMills installed worldwide, although the Americas are lagging well behind in this respect. “Four years ago,” recounts Rasmussen, “when we opened the office, we had only four IsaMills in North America. Now there are 22 due to be in operation by 2013 including the seven projects underway at the moment.”

In order to simplify the supply chain, only the most critical components are imported from Xstrata’s manufacturing plant in Germany. Ancillary equipment such as motors and gearboxes and as much of the steelwork and electrics as possible are sourced from suppliers close to the project location.

Another process originally developed for Xstrata but today widely used throughout the mining industry is the Jameson Cell flotation process, driven by fluid mechanics.

In the late 1980s, conventional column cells were failing to meet Xstrata’s needs and metallurgist Professor Jameson was called on to take a fresh look at flotation techniques. The first commercial installation was completed in 1989 and produced fine bubble generation without external equipment or spargers and intensive mixing

without mechanical agitation.

With their high throughput in small tanks, the cells provide fast response and easy process control for a wide range of product grades and recoveries. Since then it has been continuously improved and is now on version IV, said to combine the original advantages of small footprint and small bubble size but with more robustness and operator friendly use.

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Xstrata Technology

Anglo Platinum’s Amandelbult mine, South Africa

Part of the problem coarse grinding, they can all purveyors of new significantly underestimate technology encounter is the grinding needs below 100 understandable concern microns. In our tests we use that however good the story representative samples and IsaMills installed might sound, it could fail to provide accurate scale-up worldwide data on both power and live up to expectation once put into practice. Rasmussen product size distribution.” and his team address this So it seems that Ralph problem with proven one-to-one direct Waldo Emerson was wrong, but inventors scale-up from laboratory test-work. “In ball the world over have always known this. mill laboratory tests, for example,” he says, Innovation always needs to be accompanied “25mm balls in a small laboratory ball mill by patience and persistence. will have different trajectories and interact differently with the shell lifters and ore For more information about particles than in a large production ball mill.

Xstrata Technology visit: While techniques such as the Bond Work www.xstratatech.com Index and ‘scale up factors’ are useful for

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Drytech International

Having established a reputation for solving tough industrial drying problems, particularly in the minerals industry, Drytech is now taking that expertise globally written by: Gay Sutton research by: Marcus Lewis BE EMEA | 187

Ammonium metavanadate flash dryer and reduction kiln

Drytech International

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he higher the value of a process or design a new drying solution, product and the more specific once our team has worked on the problem or challenging the drying we then run the proposed process at our requirement then the more likely pilot plant to investigate, test and validate it. it is that the services of Drytech We will then develop the process flow sheet, will be required. Based in South Africa and and cost and produce the equipment that operating out of Denver, Johannesburg, will solve their problem,” said managing the company specialises in solving thermal director Ryan Carpenter. processing problems for industries as Developing customised and individual diverse as minerals and mining through to solutions requires a considerable degree of trust between Drytech and its clients, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and food.

There are no standard off the shelf as most of the work is experimental. This products rolling off a production line in trust has been developed and reinforced Denver. A highly trained team of engineers through years of successful and ground breaking achievements. develops and tests individual The first big success came solutions for each customer, in the early 1980s when adapting or combining a wide the company developed a range of drying technologies and calling on over 30 new flash drying system for years of experience from platinum sulphide ore for Proportion of Drytech past projects. As a result, mining company JCI – later business in the the team is continuously to become Anglo American minerals sector developing and improving Platinum. “The process in use prior to this had been on technologies as diverse as calciners, flash and fluid bed dryers through cumbersome, highly labour intensive and to rotary, spray, and vacuum dryers and very inefficient,” said founder and President fluidized bed combustors. Over those 30 Harry Traub. “The new process worked years some industry changing advancements very well, and launched the company have emerged from the Drytech labs, and into the minerals market.” The minerals the company has developed a reputation as sector continues to account for 80 percent a leader in concentrate drying, particularly of Drytech business while the remaining for the mining and minerals industry.

20 percent is derived from a variety of The Johannesburg facility includes industrial uses ranging from biomass and an extensively equipped pilot plant that chemicals to food. incorporates all the technologies Drytech “One of the reasons we are able to deliver offers, and is continuously being updated such highly customised products and build and reconfigured. “So when a client comes to a personal relationship with our clients is us and asks us to either optimise an existing that we have kept our engineering team

80%

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relatively small. This enables us to be a great deal more dynamic and flexible,” explained Carpenter, “and we don’t need a massive bureaucracy to macro manage projects.”

Instead of incessant meetings and a time and resource consuming paper trail of minutes and reports, there is a culture of close and continuous communication across the business and with the client, who

is not only informed of the progress of the engineering team and involved in decision making, but also remains in contact with the project leader who originally negotiated the contract.

“This continuity is a key contributor to the relationship of trust we build with the client,” Carpenter said. “For us, clients never become just another number. They

“Continuity is a key contributor to the relationship of trust we build with the client”

Silica sand – rotary dryer – Atlantis Foundries

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Drytech International

Chrome sands – rotary dryer - Xstrata

are part of the process of immediately to the location design and development, if any issues arise.

To date, the company has from beginning to end.”

The Drytech offering completed projects as far is characterised by a afield as Brazil, Venezuela, personal service that the US and Canada in the west, Australia and China extends significantly beyond Drytech experience design, manufacture and in the east, and Europe and in solving engineering installation, and this is Turkey to the north. The problems one of the company’s big strategy going forward is differentiators. For newly to increase the sales and designed equipment a comprehensive marketing campaign overseas and extend programme of hands-on training is the global footprint, thereby reducing the delivered on site by the Drytech engineers, reliance on the South African market and while familiarisation training is given for creating a buffer against the cyclical nature updated or optimised technology. Once of economic growth.

“Being based here in South Africa gives the technology is up and running, Drytech engineers are always on call, and will fly us something of a competitive advantage,

30 years

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Chrome sands – fluid bed – Samancor

Twin spr

“Clients never become just another number. They are part of the process of design and development from beginning to end” as our engineering labour costs are lower than in most Western countries,” Carpenter said. Not only are engineering and design carried out at the Denver site but many of the critical components are manufactured there, to ensure the company retains control over its vital intellectual property.

Much of the fabrication work is then outsourced to trusted companies in South Africa. “With international projects, we can

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look at using workshops in the country we supply into. Or if it’s more cost effective, we might do the fabrication here and then ship it overseas,” Carpenter said.

“This is how we are managing a new vanadium smelter project in Brazil,” Traub took up the story. In this instance, one of the primary concerns was the risk of IP piracy.

The company had to overcome significant hurdles to ensure manufacture in South

Drytech International

ray dryer – Platinum Concentrate

Platinum concentrate – flash dryer – Anglo American Platinum

Africa was cost effective for the client.

“Taxation on imports into Brazil is very high,” he continued. “However our client has been able to negotiate tax relief because the plant is a good growth opportunity in an under-developed state.”

As with so many companies in South Africa, Drytech has to work hard to maintain its pool of highly skilled and experienced engineers. “What we do is highly specialised,” Carpenter said, “and it’s just not possible to find engineers specialised in this discipline, particularly with the ‘brain drain’ this country is suffering from. So what we do is bring in talented new engineering graduates and provide extensive in-house training to bring them up to speed in drying technology.”

Drytech has developed its business model

around the quality of its engineers, their capability to innovate and communicate, and their long track record of technology development. “We are selling a concept: that we have the ability, the experience, the tools and the toolbox to develop new concepts and make them work,” Carpenter concluded. “To do that, we have to be consistent, reliable and absolutely honest.”

These traits are well developed and have been amply demonstrated during the company’s impressive 30 year history of solving engineering problems.

For more information about Drytech International visit: www.drytech.co.za

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Progetti Europa & Global (PEG)

Founder and president Paolo Trocca talks about how Progetti made a name for itself in the Middle Eastern oil business by playing it straight written by: Alan Swaby research by: Jon Bradley

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here is an oil and gas industry in days, almost all the work done for the oil and Italy – but not much of one. In gas sectors involves the engineering, supply 2008, the BP Statistical Energy and commissioning of specific modules and Survey estimated oil production in some cases their installation as well. there at an average of 121,000 “When units such as sulphur recovery barrels of crude oil per day or 0.15 percent units, ammine plants, etc, are included in the of the world’s total. scope of work we do not create something On the other hand, though, Italian new,” says Trocca. “In these cases we can engineering companies do have a real buy the basic design from the holders of the presence in the oil and gas world, where the technological intellectual property and build six legged dog logo of ENI is particularly the equipment according to the plans we well known throughout Northern Africa receive. Having said that, on our metering and even as far afield as the systems, although we do use US and China. On a more proprietary components, modest level is Progetti we have developed our Europa & Global (PEG), a own exclusive software which controls how these Rome based, family owned engineering company components work.” that has been doing R ather tha n new business in the Middle technology, what PEG does East and Northern Africa like to offer is old fashioned Contract to build a new for 40 years. professiona lism. “We pumping station at Al like to remain absolutely “There are two distinct Habaneya straight and always work sides to our company,” says founder and president Paolo to the highest standards,” Trocca. “We do a lot of front end engineering says Trocca, “doing our best to meet the design and PMC (project management agreed delivery dates.” consultancy) for infrastructure projects Another official pat on the back occurred but the majority of the time we are involved at the start of the year when PEG was with engineering and supply of GOSP (gas awarded the first EPC project issued by oil separation plants) for the upstream oil SCOP (State Company for Oil Projects) in and gas process.”

Iraq, since the 2003 war. The €72 million PEG’s first contribution to the oil business contract to build a new pumping station at was concerned with providing engineering Al Habaneya, not far to the west of Baghdad services, but when many years ago it was is also at the upper end of projects ever asked to design and build a complete oil tackled by PEG and due to be completed by metering package, the company took the the end of February 2014. opportunity and never looked back. These Interestingly, PEG has opted to take on

€72

Million

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Progetti Europa & Global (PEG)

Site survey during construction works

180 km Super-highway between the Tunisia/ Libya border and Egypt

Crude oil stripping column

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work involving fabrication without its own manufacturing facilities. In Trocca’s eyes, this gives the company the maximum operational flexibility possible while at the same time removing the need to made heavy investments in plant and equipment and the responsibility of keeping a factory fully occupied.

“We do like to subcontract fabrication to Italian companies,” he says, “but we don’t have any regular arrangements with particular businesses and in any case, fabrication in Italy is not always possible or practical. Sometimes, clients want to increase the local content of a contract and then we find suitable fabricators closer to the project site. At other times, the cost of transporting especially large modules outweighs the value of the equipment, so again it makes sense to manufacture near the site. This business model gives us great agility but it does place considerable responsibility on our inspection teams to make sure that things are done as they should be.”

Coming back to the different types of activities PEG runs, it’s not easy to compare the contribution to the company from the two sides of the business. Certainly, the oil and gas sector brings in the majority of revenue earned as it contains a considerable

Progetti Europa & Global (PEG)

Dehydration and desalting unit

element of materials and capital equipment, while the management and engineering services purely reflect manpower used.

The latter is useful, however, as it provides Italian based income, but as expenditure on infrastructure has been hit by austerity measures there, looking outward is much more rewarding.

Trocca is anticipating the time when three members of his family who are in their forties, will take over full control of how the business is run. “We know,” he says, “that to lift our company from the €40 million bracket, where we are at the moment, to an €80 million level, we shall have to broaden our horizons both geographically and in the scope of work we handle.”

No doubt PEG will be hoping for more contracts like the recently announced super-highway between the Tunisia/Libya border and Egypt – an 1800km three lane road across the top of North Africa for which

Progetti as part of an Italian consortium has won the PMC contract.

The company has already identified gas treatment as a growth sector as nuclear energy is scaled back and replaced by gas powered power plants. Trocca envisages that the same professionalism that built PEG’s reputation with state and private oil companies will serve it well in taking on tier 2 projects for key modules of the plant involved with gas production. “Thirty years ago, it was the relatively modest work we were doing on oil metering systems that got the business recognised and opened the door to bigger things and we will be working towards the same scenario again in the coming decades.”

For more information about Progetti Europa & Global (PEG) visit: www.progettieuropa.it

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ThyssenKrupp Polysius

On the

move

High pressure grinding rolls offer financial and environmental benefits to mine owners over more conventional crushing and grinding technology—and in Australia, one supplier is leading the market written by: Alan Swaby research by: Jeff Abbott

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TKPA SAG Mill at OZ Minerals Prominent Hilll

ThyssenKrupp Polysius

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a ke-up on a lternative technologies within the operational side of the mining industry can sometimes take a while to gather momentum; but when the financial and environmental benefits are made clear, the case for adoption becomes hard to resist.

ThyssenKrupp Polysius—a German company with a 150-year heritage of making cement and mineral processing equipment— is currently one of just a handful of companies anywhere in the world capable of designing and building turnkey processing plants; and its 2,500-strong workforce mans offices in all five continents. Whether the material in question is cement or the full spectrum of mined ores, Polysius is known for its products and engineering skills.

Polysius has had a presence in Australia for nigh-on 20 years. After joining the ThyssenKrupp group, it established a subsidiary in Melbourne which was later moved to Perth to be closer to its principal customers.

“There are two distinct sides to Polysius,” explains Stephan Kirsch, managing director of the Australian operation, “cement and minerals. Here in Australia, the market simply isn’t big enough to justify any more investment in cement plants but of course, there has been no shortage of activity in the mining sector.”

It’s here, then, where Polysius is pushing the benefits of HPGR—or high pressure grinding rolls—as an alternative to other forms of crushing and grinding. But while the Polysius empire was finding ready

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$20 Million Invested in Service Centre

TKPA CNC vertical lathe

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customers for its new technology in the cement world, finding takers in the minerals business was proving frustratingly slow. It wasn’t until 2000 that the breakthrough was made—first with a plant in Peru and then at the Boddington gold mine in Western Australia. By the time the Boddington contract was signed, Polysius had spent 15 years patiently promoting the technology.

“The costs involved with comminution [the process of reducing solid material in size by mechanical means],” says Kirsch, “come from the power drawn by the machinery itself and the cost of grinding media such as replacement balls for a ball mill or refurbishing rollers. With HPGR there are no balls, which immediately wipes off that component of overall cost; and the rollers themselves draw less electricity per tonne of ore processed than other conventional crushing and grinding technology.”

Just how much of a saving there is to be made depends very much on the circumstances but in round figures, Kirsch estimates that an average saving would be in the region of 20 per cent. Working with abrasive materials the rolls can last for between 6,000 and 10,000 hours without needing attention.

The principal of how HPGR works

ThyssenKrupp Polysius

TKPA service centre

was patented decades ago by a German university professor. Not surprisingly, then, the three manufacturers that went on to develop HPGR machines were all German.

The patent has long since expired and other manufacturers have had a go with the technology; but Polysius remains streets ahead of any copycat supplier and continue to dominate the market. Of the 20 HPGR units currently being used in Australian mines, Polysius has supplied 14 and remains the global leader in this segment.

HPGR has been widely applied in the cement industry since the mid-1980s and in

the minerals industry since the mid-1990s.

The machines work by crushing a bed of ore between two inwardly turning rollers— much like an old fashioned mangle, except the rollers are set horizontally rather than vertically. One roller is fixed and the other can move laterally under hydraulic power.

A bed of ore is fed from above and nipped between the rollers, exerting enormous pressure on the material which is transferred from particle to particle, fracturing the ore as it passes through the rollers.

When making their purchasing decision, mine managers need to consider both cap-ex

“The rollers draw less electricity per tonne of ore processed than other conventional crushing and grinding technology�

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and op-ex. In the first instance, an HPGR plant is generally in line with the cost of a conventional grinding plant, or it may carry a slight price premium. But on the op-ex, particularly over the life of the mine, HPGR is claimed to offer immediate savings. “The lower power consumption,” says Kirsch, “and the reduced wear and tear are both significantly lower than for conventional technologies. Add the cost and speed of

installation and then the ramping-up process to 100 per cent of working capacity, and the advantages become greater still.”

It is important to note too, that as approximately 14 per cent of the total energy consumption in Australia is related to communication processes, HPGR technology has the potential to reduce greenhouse gases on a large scale, thanks to its high efficiency and low operating costs.

“With the speed of installation and the ramping-up process to 100 per cent of working capacity, the advantages become greater still”

Flags and rock in front of TKPA office

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ThyssenKrupp Polysius

TKPA workshop and service team

To support its Australian customers, Polysius has invested $20 million in a Service Centre including a highly automated, stateof-the-art workshop—although ‘workshop’ might give the wrong impression. Not only can repairs and refurbishments be carried out but the facilities are so advanced that an HPGR plant can be constructed there.

Polysius’ investment is bucking an alarming trend in Australia, where manufacturing is in noticeable decline.

“The Australian dollar has grown so strong,” says Kirsch, “through the wealth of the mining sector, that not only has labour been sucked away from other sectors towards mining, or become incredibly expensive to hire, but skills are difficult to find and whatever is being made is

struggling to remain competitive.”

There is something of a pause in Australia at the moment. The number of new projects has slowed down and investors are looking for a period of returns so it may be some time before Polysius has the opportunity of pitching for the next HPGR plant. As luck would have it, due to advanced planning, the investment in its Service Centre has come at a good time and the ability to provide service to end users is tending to offset the reduction in new capital equipment being supplied.

For more information about ThyssenKrupp Polysius visit: www.polysius.com

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Hall Longmore

In for the long haul Renowned for its manufacturing of large bore welded steel pipe, Hall Longmore’s 85 year history has seen its steel pipes ranked among the best in the world and become the preferred choice with pipeline designers and end users written by: Will Daynes research by: Paul Bradley

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Hall Longmore is an industry leader in steel pipes

Hall Longmore

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he steel pipe manufactured by Hall Longmore can be found stretching across thousands of kilometres of Southern Africa, conveying water, petrochemicals and gas to major metropolitan cities and towns.

A wholly owned Murray & Roberts company, Hall Longmore first began manufacturing welded steel pipes in 1924.

This soon paved the way for the development of a major engineering enterprise that today exists as the largest operation of its kind in Africa, south of the Sahara, exporting to more than 30 countries globally.

As the owner of manufacturing facilities that offer modern, industry-leading equipment and process controls for the production of large-bore welded steel pipes, the company’s success is based on its proud legacy of delivering only the highest quality products and excellent service.

Applications range from the transportation of water, gas, petrochemical products and slurries to piling and structural steel fabrication. Electric resistance welding (ERW) and submerged arc welding (SAW) technologies are used to produce pipes from different grades of carbon, or special alloy steels, and can be supplied square ended, bevelled, belled or with specialised jointing methods depending on customer requirements.

Hall Longmore is an industry leader in the application of protective and anticorrosion coatings and linings to steel pipes, in accordance with international standards. Such external protective coatings

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Hall Longmore

Hall Longmore’s steel pipe can be found across thousands of kilometres of southern Africa

include fusion bonded customers’ representatives epoxy coatings, fusion and regular audits of bonded medium density procedures, controls and records are undertaken by polyethylene coating, threelayer coatings and liquid independent bodies.

Steel pipe supplied for epoxy coatings and linings.

Able to conform to the Transnet’s Durban to specifications of major Internal linings on the other Johannesburg New hand comprise traditional energy providers, this helps Multi-Products cement mortar or concrete ensure that the company’s Pipeline (NMPP) and solvent free epoxies. products are of the highest A prog ramme of quality available. In quality assurance in accordance with the addition, its mills are equipped with staterequirements of the American Petroleum of-the-art non-destructive testing and edge Institute and International Standards mining equipment in order to meet the Organisation (ISO 9001:2000), is stringent requirements of international entrenched in Hall Longmore’s process and oil and gas customers. management systems. Trained and qualified The company’s well equipped laboratories personnel perform tests in partnership with and sophisticated range of equipment

720km

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GROWING SEEDS OF EXCELLENCE We provide a complete range of pumps and spares to the Industry. As approved importers, we are not limited to the local market, but can source products from all over the world.

By designing custom built control solutions, we offer a value added service not only to the pumping industry, but to the entire industry.

T: +27 16 423 3212 / 3097 | F: +27 86 512 9613 | E: xilo@telkomsa.net

Hall Longmore are regularly put to use in Target Transport SA cc the inspection and testing Target Transport SA cc has a proud history as transport of materials, welding contractor for several well-known operators in the pipeline processes, dimensions, industry for close to 30 years. The company has been hydrostatic pressure and of involved in most major pipeline projects, conveying pipes for water, petrochemical, and gas pipelines such as: Mossgass, the quality of coatings and Richards Bay; NMPP Fuel Line; VRESAP, Vaal River; Sastech linings. Furthermore, for Temane Gas Line; Petronet; and eThekwini Water. both local and international Target Transport SA cc prides itself on its reputation for assignments, arrangements customer satisfaction and competitive rates. We have a can be made for independent proven track record for dependable service and are always quality surveillance to be prepared to go that extra mile. undertaken on behalf of tar@mweb.co.za any customer by authorities such as SABS, TÜV, Lloyd’s Technical Services, Société Génerale de Surveillance and Moody’s International.

Hall Longmore ranks among the most reputable ERW pipe producers internationally and satisfies specifications set by leading oil and gas companies. Its Wadeville manufacturing facility, from which the company produces some 120,000 tonnes of ERW welding per year, holds the The company’s pipes have assisted distinction of being the only facility of its countless developments kind in South Africa, and one of only 15 boasting such Xilo Technology (Pty) Ltd capabilities across the globe.

Providing pumps and spares is easy, right? But providing Using a high frequency complete solutions? We are a dynamic team that induction (HFI) heating specialises in designing integrated monitoring and control process, Hall Longmore solutions for industry. is able to manufacture Systems are designed to suit customer requirements. Having control over flow rates, product levels and pump performance pipes that range in means complete peace of mind. The system can be as simple nominal diameter from or as advanced as required, with data logging viewed in real 219 millimetres to 610 time from a control room, or stored for future use. millimetres. Edge milled We are proud to be associated with Hall Longmore, having had steel coil is then mechanically a longstanding relationship as a major supplier of its pumps. formed into pipe, after xilo@telkomsa.net which a high-frequency

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electrical current is applied to fuse pipe skelp to form a weld. Unlike during the arcwelding process, no filler material is added with the weld joint ultimately becoming a homogeneous part of the completed pipe.

To ensure completely smooth pipes are produced, welds are scarfed both internally and externally. Subsequently these welds are immediately confirmed and assured as the pipes in question pass through a multiprobe ultrasonic inspection system located after the welding and scarfing stations.

Following this assessment, weld joints are induction heated to normalise the metallic structure of the actual weld. This also works to improve the toughness of the steel in the region, while also significantly decreasing the effects of weld line corrosion.

Prior to hydrostatic testing the pipes are sized to their required tolerances before then being cut to length and having their ends bevelled. To complete the process the pipes are inspected and weighed, and can be varnished and marked prior to their final inspection and dispatch. In some cases pipes are at this point transferred to the company’s coating and lining plants for corrosion protection treatment.

Renowned both locally and internationally for its world class ability to fulfil the needs

of its customers and the industry as a whole, Hall Longmore boasts a proud history of delivering product solutions to all manner of locations. Internationally, projects that have benefitted substantially from its expertise and efficiency can be found in Australia, China, Colombia, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Closer to home, Hall Longmore has also been responsible for assisting in countless

“Hall Longmore’s Wadesville manufacturing facility holds the distinction of being the only facility of its kind in South Africa” 216 | BE EMEA

Hall Longmore

The Wadeville manufacturing facility is the only facility of its kind in South Africa

developments across Designed to transport petrol, diesel and jet fuel, Southern Africa. From water the NMPP replaces the pipelines and fuel lines to existing 40-year old 350 onshore and offshore oil, gas millimet re dia meter and petrochemical lines, the development of the region multi-products pipeline. has been indelibly linked to It is with such a track Annual ERW welding the work of the company. record under its belt produced at Wadesville that Hall Longmore is One project it has taken now looking towards the considerable pride in bringing to fruition was the manufacture future, with expansion plans due to be and supply of 720 kilometres of steel pipe based around its results over the coming for Transnet’s Durban to Johannesburg financial year.

New Multi-Products Pipeline (NMPP).

Manufactured from X65 steel with low For more information about sulphur content, the specification called Hall Longmore visit: for the pipes to be coated with a high www.hall-longmore.co.za performance, three-layer external coating.

120,000 tonnes

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CONSCIENTIOUS CONSULTANTS It is Digby Wells’ commitment to providing a comprehensive environmental and social service that today sees it working on behalf of many of Africa’s leading mine houses written by: Will Daynes research by: Liz Jennings

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Digby Wells Environmental

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Digby Wells Environmental aspires to be the premier environmental provider to the mining industry

Digby Wells Environmental

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riven by its desire to be the that staff take an active interest in premier environmental and delivering the highest quality services social services provider on a continuous basis. to the mining industry Over the past 17 years, Digby Wells has throughout Africa, Digby Wells not only built up a significant degree of Environmental is a South African company experience when it comes to providing that boasts experience in providing these services to South African clients, but also services to both regional and international to international partners. This experience, clients, with its focus trained predominantly which extends to the Americas, Europe, on the mineral resources and energy sectors. the CIS countries and Asia, has resulted in Formed in January 1995 by three partners, a wide range of projects being undertaken Digby Wells, Ken van Rooyen and Graham and successfully delivered to both countryTrusler, all of whom previously worked specific requirements and to international within the Environmental Management standards. These include the Equator Department of Rand Mines, the company Principles, and International Finance itself is named after the Corporation (IFC) and World former, an individual whose Bank Group Guidelines. name is fondly remembered The services Digby Wells for the significant, lasting provides can be grouped into contributions he made in five core areas, those being, South Africa within the environmental management Formation of Digby Wells field of environmental ser v ices, biophysica l ma nagement.

Today, env iron ment , socia l Graham Trusler is the chief executive officer environment, geographical information of Digby Wells & Associates and works to systems (GIS) and environmental legal ensure the company remains inspired by services. These services are provided over the vision it has held since day one. the entire life cycle of an operation, from Always striving to provide a early engagement prior to exploration, comprehensive, ‘one stop shop’ that its securing of exploration rights in the specific clients can rely on to satisfy all of their jurisdiction, services during the exploration individual needs with respect to the phase, pre-feasibility study, construction, biophysical and human environment, the operational phase, closure planning Digby Wells enjoys the benefits of a staff and implementation, as well as post complement of committed, dedicated, closure monitoring. As a business that is highly trained, specialised and skilled acutely aware of the constantly evolving employees. A large majority of these nature of the industry, Digby Wells’ service employees are also shareholders, offering is constantly being developed and which enables the company to ensure fine-tuned, with new services added as and

1995

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A Century of Innovative Solutions 1912

Innovative Performance

2012

Founded in 1912, Fraser Alexander provide innovative solutions to the Mining Industry in the disciplines of Tailings, Discard and Water management, Bulk Materials handling and Mineral Processing, encompassing asset and inventory management as well as Operation and Maintenance.

1 Marlin Road, Jet Park, Boksburg, P O Box 14700, Witfield 1467, South Africa Tel: +27(0)11 929 3600, Telefax: +27(0)11 397 3006 Email: fainfo@fraseralexander.co.za www.fraseralexander.co.za

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Digby Wells Environmental when client and industry Fraser Alexander requirements dictate.

Founded in 1912, the company is known across Africa to On 29 August 2012, be amongst the best solution providers to the mining prominent leaders in industry, specialising in the disciplines of tailings dam business, research and and discard dump management, including the construction government converged on of such facilities, water management, rehabilitation, bulk Cape Town in order to attend materials handling and mineral processing, as well as asset and inventory management and 24/7 operation the two-day International and maintenance.

Research Forum. It is here www.fraseralexander.co.za that the aforementioned figures arrived with the goal of promoting information exchange that it is hoped will contribute towards national economic development, while also showcasing the economic impacts of international research partnerships and enhancing networking opportunities across the board.

In order to achieve these objectives, numerous business professionals presented various themed topics including postharvest technologies, water management technologies, aerospace and satellite application technologies, pharmaceutical technologies, energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies and waste management technologies. Graham Trusler himself presented on the theme of water management, with a focus on South Africa’s water research needs.

As highlighted by Digby Wells’ South Africa’s water supply has many problems

“Rural areas are in increasing need of groundwater resources, and water quality and riverine ecological integrity are largely under threat” BE EMEA | 223

“Agriculture, manufacturing and urban water use efficiency will have to improve dramatically” presentation, there have been several incidents in recent times that have dominated the headlines when it comes to water in South Africa. These include the residents of Carolina taking the government to court over basic water rights, acid mine drainage becoming a threat to the country’s water resources, fracking operations threatening precious water resources and sewage spills threatening water supplies.

What the company’s presentation set out was a number of potential solutions to such

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issues and ways in which the industry could come together and utilise best practices to avoid a repeat of such instances.

The realities of South Africa’s water supplies are stark and clear. Most surface water runoff is already being captured and allocated, while there is very little scope for new dams. Rural areas are in increasing need of groundwater resources, water quality and riverine ecological integrity are largely under threat, and while the country does boast a strong legal system,

Digby Wells Environmental

Water supply needs careful management

implementation of regulations is generally considered to be poor.

The report also pinpointed several changes that can be expected to occur in the immediate future as it pertains to South Africa’s water use. In order to meet the needs of a growing population some agricultural water will need to be diverted for other uses, while new agricultural customers will have to be allocated a proportion of the current allocation. At the same time that the country will need to increase the use of water as an economic good in order to reduce poverty and inequality, it is also clear that agriculture, manufacturing and urban water use efficiency will have to improve, and do so dramatically.

The fundamental outcome of the

company’s presentation highlights the urgent need to educate, train and develop Africa’s water scientists to be able to meet the developmental challenges, which could, at some point in the not-too-distant future, affect the entire continent.

It is this forward-thinking, pro-active approach to environmental and social concerns that have seen Digby Wells experience considerable growth in recent times and will undoubtedly see it playing a leading role in the further development of South Africa and Africa as a whole.

For more information about Digby Wells Environmental visit: www.digbywells.com

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RasGas

Qatar now has the largest LNG production capacity in the world, and one company that has helped propel the country to this leading position is Ras Laffan-based RasGas written by: becky done research by: Robert Hodgson

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RasGas

E

stablished in 2001 by Qatar agreements with ship owners. The fleet, Petroleum and ExxonMobil, comprising conventional, Q-Flex and RasGas operates from the major Q-Max ships, delivers LNG to terminals LNG hub that is Ras Laffan City across the world. on Qatar’s north-east coast. One RasGas has added to its production of the foremost integrated LNG enterprises capacity by building two new facilities: the in the world, RasGas oversees and manages Barzan Gas Project, designed to supply two all operations associated with seven LNG billion standard cubic feet of sales gas per trains, two sales gas production facilities, day to the local Qatari market; and the Ras helium production facilities, shipping Laffan Helium Project, designed to produce contracts and commercial partnerships. 17.3 tonnes per day of pure helium.

RasGas is also managing construction of The Barzan Gas Project will play a the Barzan Gas Project which will support significant role in meeting Qatar’s rising Qatar’s rising domestic gas demand in line domestic gas demand. RasGas is managing with the Qatar National the construction of the Vision 2030. new plant and will operate In December 2010, Qatar it once complete. The celebrated the achievement drilling platform to supply of reaching a production the plant will be located 80 capacity of 77 million kilometres north-east of Year RasGas was tonnes per annum of LNG. Ras Laffan Industrial City, established Qatar now has the largest with onshore and offshore production capacity in facilities to be completed the world of this strategically important by JGC of Japan and Hyundai Heavy energy source.

Industries of South Korea respectively.

RasGas has developed world-class The project itself will be developed in offshore and onshore facilities for the two phases: Train 1 will come on-stream extraction, processing and storage of gas in 2014, with Train 2 following in 2015. from Qatar’s North Field. Its primary Together they will supply around 1.4 products are LNG for overseas export— billion standard cubic feet per day of sales mainly to Europe and Asia—for which it has gas. When Barzan Gas Trains 1 and 2 are a total production capacity of approximately operational, the total offshore production 37 million tonnes per annum; and the sale from all RasGas-operated facilities will of gas to the local Qatari market with a total reach around 11 billion standard cubic feet production capacity of approximately 2,000 per day (equivalent to almost two million standard cubic feet per day. barrels of oil), making RasGas the largest RasGas operates a dedicated fleet of gas producer in Qatar.

27 LNG carriers under long-term charter Ras Laffan Helium is a joint venture

2001

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RasGas operates a dedicated fleet of 27 LNG carriers

owned by RL, RL (II) and Qatargas, and operated by RasGas. Its first plant was announced in 2003 and came on-stream two years later. Its second plant, for which contracts were awarded in 2010, will be completed in 2013. One of the world’s leading helium producers, RasGas currently supplies around 10 per cent of the world’s total helium production, a figure that is expected to rise to 25 per cent in 2013.

The Al Khaleej Gas Project maximises the use of the liquids extracted from the North Field. Initiated by ExxonMobil Middle East Gas Marketing Limited, the project is operated by RasGas. The plant, at Ras Laffan Industrial City, is adjacent to RasGas Trains 3 and 4. Together, the project’s two trains are meeting 65 per cent

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RasGas

Gas demand is rising in Qatar

of Qatar’s domestic demand.

The nature of RasGas’ business means that safety, health and environmental risk controls are paramount. To this end, the company implements a comprehensive and integrated management system—the RasGas Elements for Excellence (RGEE). This system provides a framework of policies, procedures and continuous improvement processes that enables RasGas to maximise the safety and welfare of its people and property, and the environment.

In 2004, RasGas became one of the first Qatari companies to develop vapour recovery systems on all its liquid loading berths, which were designed to significantly reduce vented and flared emissions. The company has also implemented acid gas injection on three production trains, which will considerably reduce sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide emissions.

The Al Khaleej Gas project has brought environmental benefits to Qatar by replacing some of the oil currently used in electricity

“RasGas operates a dedicated fleet of 27 LNG carriers under long-term charter agreements with ship owners” BE EMEA | 231

“RasGas has developed its own Qatarization programme to recruit and retain quality Qataris” generation and other applications. To minimise the environmental impact of the project itself, the major waste streams from processing the gas (acid gas and produced water) are both re-injected into sub-surface reservoirs.

RasGas has also been instrumental in setting up Ras Laffan Industrial City’s (RLIC) Waste Management Facility and, together with RLIC and Qatargas, it has established the Ras Laffan Environmental Association (RLEA). RasGas also initiated

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ozone modelling for RLIC and the Qatar Airshed Management Association (QAMA) A significant proportion of Qatar’s energy deposits lie in the shallow waters near the coastline. With this in mind RasGas has formed an alliance with the University of Qatar to develop special conservation measures to ensure that all coastal disturbances are both minimal and temporary.

RasGas is also a key supporter of the Al Dhakhira Park project, in collaboration

RasGas

Qatar has the largest LNG production capacity in the world

with the Scientific and Applied Research Centre at the University of Qatar.

Naturalists working on the project have developed a park at Al Dhakhira on the north-eastern coast of Qatar, filled with indigenous flora and fauna, including some threatened species.

RasGas is also deeply committed to the development of its workforce and in particular, to the government’s plan, which was unveiled in early 2000, to Qatarize 50 per cent of the country’s booming oil, gas and petrochemical industries.

The aim of the Qatarization programme is to gradually increase the proportion of Qatari nationals in sectors of the economy that have previously relied heavily on expatriates to fulfil their recruitment needs.

Qatarization is a vital component of the state’s strategic development plan, enabling Qatari men and women to hold key positions to support the state’s business requirements.

The programme takes the form of a clearly structured system of recruitment, training, coaching and career development.

RasGas is fully committed to this initiative and has developed its own Qatarization programme to recruit and retain quality Qataris and to meet the targets set by the Qatar Petroleum strategic Qatarization plan.

For more information about RasGas visit: www.rasgas.com

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Making trade happen

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Freight Mark Services

A relatively small company is playing a big part in facilitating trade in a country with a troubled past that is gradually getting back on its feet written by: Alan Swaby research by: Paul Bradley

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Freight rail is fast moving and low cost

Freight Mark Services

‘W

ith God on our side’ is not the official slogan of Freight Mark Services—but it could be. It certainly underlines the guiding principles of how the business operates, as explained by Mandela Katsande, the logistics manager of this Zimbabwean company. “We are a Christianbased business,” he says, “and we conduct ourselves with complete transparency and strong ethics.”

Positive statements such as these are good to hear because officially, Zimbabwe doesn’t have the best of reputations. The 2011 survey by Transparency International ranked Zimbabwe 154th out of 182 countries in terms of the level of corruption. “There are two sides to every coin,” says Katsande.

“It’s not possible to deny that there isn’t corruption in the country; but since the formation of the Government of National Unity there has been steadily increasing levels of transparency and with them, improvements in the overall economy.”

There is certainly a lot of faith in the air when talking with the people from Freight Mark Services. After all, when William Ndava started the business in 2008, it has to be noted that not only was the global economy on the brink of collapse but Zimbabwe was going through its nightmare of hyper-inflation.

Nevertheless, Ndava saw an opportunity and a need; and from one man and a single vehicle five years ago, the business has built up to a fleet of 15 self-owned vehicles and a permanent staff of 20.

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But this doesn’t tell half the story. This small company, from its base in Harare, has some of the country’s most important companies on its client list. The biggest by far is Zimbabwe Phosphate Industries (ZIMPHOS), Zimbabwe’s largest fertilizer manufacturing company, and the services offered are typical for many of the other clients involved with gold or diamond mining or from within the manufacturing and farming sector.

“One of the services we provide to ensure total customer satisfaction and retention,” says Katsande, “is to manage the movement of goods and materials on behalf of clients.

We don’t have the financial resources to provide our own specialist vehicles—dump trucks, wagons or carriers for abnormal loads—so we outsource these to reputable partners we work closely with.”

But over the years it has applied the strategy of identifying an opportunity and then acquiring the skills needed to compete for that line of business. As such, it has developed expertise in handling goods in many specialised areas such as dangerous materials, containerised consignments and bulk shipments.

On a day-to-day basis, though, it is the clearance of various consignments through

the country’s border posts which provides the bread and butter income. “Zimbabwe is land-locked,” reminds Katsande, “and the government in its search for income has import duties on almost everything. Our job is to facilitate the smooth and efficient movement of goods—mostly inward, especially on surface routes—for the benefit of our valuable clients.”

With four neighbouring countries

“Since the formation of the Government of National Unity there has been steadily increasing levels of transparency” 238 | BE EMEA

Freight Mark Services

Quality, cost effective and efficient air freight services to or from major cities in Zimbabwe

– Za m bi a , S out h into the country. Like many Africa, Botswana and countries, Zimbabwe uses Moza mbique, Freight ASYCUDA—the Automated Mark Services has six System for Customs Data— offices alongside the designed by the United Number of self-owned relevant customs post.

Nations Conference on vehicles By far the most busy of Trade and Development these is at Beitbridge— to administer a country’s customs. It is worthy to the connection with South Africa that straddles the Limpopo River— note as well that the Zimbabwe Revenue where there can be 50 trucks or more a Authority is the first Revenue Authority in the COMESA Region to migrate to day passing through.

The potential for delays here is enormous ASYCUDA World System and this has and something that Freight Mark Services drawn a lot of interest from other countries works hard to avoid. Among many other within the region. tasks, ZIMRA, or the Zimbabwe Revenue Freight Mark Services’ solution is to Authority, has the responsibility for have dedicated runners with the sole collecting customs duty on goods imported responsibility of processing one of its client’s

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“Our job is to facilitate the smooth and efficient movement of goods—mostly inward, especially on surface routes—for the benefit of our valuable clients” loads. They can’t perform miracles but they can avoid unnecessary delays by avoiding paperwork going on the pending pile.

In fact, Freight Mark Services has taken this concept one step further and offers an ‘implant’ to clients who will be the key account manger within a company, dedicated to freeing client staff from the daily hassle of managing freight movements. At no

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additional cost to clients, an implant will deal with queries about customs and duty payments, providing tracking information on import and export charges. “Not having the adequate payment required for customs duty is often a cause of delay when clearing goods at the border,” explains Katsande.

“If the client is taking this responsibility, then it is out of our hands and can result in

Freight Mark Services

Effective and efficient movement of cargo throughout sub equatorial Africa and the world

delays and demurrage payments. Give the responsibility to one of our implants and that problem is negated.”

In a relatively short time, it is important to note that Freight Mark Services has made a place for itself within the Zimbabwean economy; and it has major plans for the future to ensure the growth of the company.

“Within five years,” says Katsande, “we plan to have offices not just in neighbouring countries but globally. We will take the implant concept to the extreme and put offices in key locations to suit our clients’ needs. So, as is the case with Chemplex Animal and Public Health (Zimbabwe’s largest chemical manufacturing company), we will have an office in England where

some of the raw materials and specialist equipment is sourced.”

In the meantime, the improved conditions being experienced in Zimbabwe are encouraging many Zimbabweans who had left the troubles behind them to return to their homeland. This is good news for Stuttafords—Freight Mark Services’ international removals partner—but also for the country as a whole, where all the skills and entrepreneurship possible are needed.

For more information about Freight Mark Services visit: www.freightmarkservices.com

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BIDDING TO BE THE BEST Quality, communication, consistency and reliability are the four essential qualities that, for more than three decades, have allowed Bidvest Laundry Group to deliver first-class garment rental and laundry services to industries across Southern Africa written by: Will Daynes research by: Paul Bradley

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Bidvest Laundry Group

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Dry cleaning services are provided by Boston Launderers

Bidvest Laundry Group

A

ble to offer a total solution insect repellent, flame retardant, lint free for garment and work wear and molten metal protective fabrics are also rental, mat rental, bulk available. Other health and safety measures laundry, hotel guest laundry, include covered press studs, extended length on-premise laundries and overall tops and drawstring trousers. industrial laundry equipment sales and Bidvest Laundry Group Mat Rental’s services, Bidvest Laundry Group’s activities activities are focused on tackling the are broken down into several divisions. problems raised by the amount of grime, dirt These include First Garment Rental, and dust that enters a company’s premises Bidvest Laundry Group Mat Rental, Boston through pedestrian traffic. The division’s Launderers, Montana Laundries and primary mission is to spread the word that the cost of keeping dirt out of a building is Montana Equipment Sales.

First Garment Rental specialises in the approximately ten percent of what it costs to rental and laundering of work wear to all remove it entirely once it has gained entry. industries, providing the In 1999, Boston Launderers became a highest quality garments and overalls through a first-class part of the Bidvest Group rental system. This includes of companies, opening up entirely new fields of the laundering, mending and replacing of overalls which quality laundry services to Boston Launderers the South African market. have suffered from wear became part of the and tear. With clients from Since becoming part of the Bidvest Group of across all sectors, including Bidvest Group it has strived companies the chemical, food, mining, to improve on a continuous pharmaceutical and retail basis, expanding its range industries, First Garment Rental’s track of high quality services and its processing record shows it provides its customers with of linen, specialised laundry and dry the complete peace of mind that comes from cleaning for the healthcare, hospitality dealing with a stable and reputable business. and mining sectors.

Recognising that each customer site is as Custom-made to meet individual workforce needs, all of its garments are individual as the organisation itself, Boston designed to particular specifications Launderers offers a full on-site survey and and made by its garment supplier at one assessment of a customer’s facility in order of two factories. The extended textile to highlight the best laundry solutions, range includes polycotton with a special including possible linen rental and guest finish to ensure all garments are crease laundry provision. resistant, moth proof and anti-static.

A further addition to the Bidvest Laundry Highly specialised fabrics, for example Group, Montana Laundries provides

1999

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Bidvest Laundry Group hygienic laundry services, CONDROU MANUFACTURING (PTY) LTD specifically catered for the Condrou is a family run business which specializes healthcare, hospitality, in the supply of Dry Cleaning, laundry and hospitality mining and industrial consumables, chemicals, packaging, dry cleaning sectors. Offering on-premise machinery and finishing equipment. laundry solutions to its We have been working closely together with Bidvest clients, it also provides a Laundry group, for the past 20 years customizing their requirement for packaging and chemicals to their unique and highly advanced individual needs and requirements. rental system throughout We offer a unique and wide range of products for Southern Africa. all our clients.

Working in accordance www.condrou.com w it h SA NS 10146 specifications, Montana Laundries ensures that all applicable legislation is adhered to at all times. In addition to being able to provide on-going site training as it is required, the company’s highly competent and motivated operations team manages and performs regular site visits and inspections on behalf of its customers. These activities are just a few examples of the way the company works to provide the highest quality service at competitive prices.

Bidvest Laundry Group’s strict adherence to SANS standards and procedures helps to ensure a safe and healthy environment for its customers, while the processes used

“Employee development is vital for maintaining a motivated workforce”

Bidvest offers linen rental services

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in its industrial laundries guarantee that disinfection levels are compliant with the most stringent of health and industry standards and that linen is treated with due care.

Among the many different systems and procedures the company has in place include quality control, stock control, infection control, garment sorting and identification, secure transportation and waste disposal.

Meanwhile, the NOSA MBO management

system, as well as SANS 10146 and Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa (COHSASA) standards are implemented and adhered to in all Bidvest Laundry facilities.

Bidvest Laundry Group’s best operating procedures and good manufacturing practices have been extensively researched to ensure that it is able to assist its customers in their efforts to achieve full

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Bidvest Laundry Group

Bidvest keeps abreast of the latest methods and technologies

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) compliancy. Added customer value is gained through the ability of the HACCP team to advise on good manufacturing practice, supplier quality assurance, basic hygiene and internal disinfection auditing.

Priding itself on keeping abreast of the very latest, state-of-the-art methods and technologies available within the garment rental and laundry sectors allows Bidvest Laundry Group to consistently provide its customers with the very best service equipment and technologies. The most recent development involves an RFID system, which utilises a comprehensive high frequency and ultra-high frequency infrastructure for item level tracking across a variety of industries.

Equally as important to Bidvest Laundry Group is employee development, something it sees as vital for maintaining a motivated and competent workforce in the face of South Africa’s current shortage of skilled labour.

Key to its focus on skills development is the company’s recognition of its customers’ expectations and requirements. All of Bidvest Laundry Group’s programmes are structured in a way that takes into account the business objectives and employee needs of its customers, as well as their demands for quality and reliability.

For more information about Bidvest Laundry Group visit: www.bidservlaundrygroup.co.za

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