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WEIR MINERALS AFRICA INCREASES ITS VALUE PROPOSITION TO HELP ITS MINING CUSTOMERS

Company News Tuesday, September 15, 2015: Weir Minerals Africa (Pty) Ltd

Weir Minerals Africa aims to be one of the top three suppliers in terms of market share in each of its product offerings, Gavin Dyer, regional managing director for Weir Minerals Africa and the Middle East, says. “Both organic and inorganic growth forms a vital part of our strategy. We continually look at businesses that are a good fit or that are complementary to the market and/or manufacturing capabilities that we possess. The latest acquisition by the Weir Group was that of Trio Engineered Products which designs and manufactures a wide range of crushers, Vertical Shaft Impact (VSI) crushers, mobile plants and conveyors for the mining, sand and aggregates industries.”

 

Dyer adds that Weir Minerals remains cognisant of the many challenges facing its customers in the mining industry, and is continually adapting its strategy to meet the needs of its customer base. “With the decline in mineral resources pricing over the last 12 to 15 months, it is not only the mining industry that has had to change the way it does business.

 

“It would be naïve not to have adapted our business operation and model to meet the challenges of this fast changing and challenging environment. The pace of change will continue to quicken, and it is our challenge to continue to adapt going forward. We have proven, even in the most adverse of circumstances, that our business model is robust,” Dyer says.

 

“In this market, value add and value proposition are critical and our focus is to ensure we assist our customers in reducing their operational costs wherever possible. The introduction of new technology has proved extremely successful to date. Other than the new pump technologies that have been launched, Weir Minerals has made material improvements that have added significant life to our customers’ pump installed base, thus reducing maintenance costs and increasing productivity. The International Procurement Leaders’ Award for Collaboration, awarded to Anglo American and Weir Minerals for the savings achieved from the introduction of wear reduction technology into their installed base of old technology pumps, bears testament to the success and value of such an initiative. Over the last five years, technology has been a key issue for our business. We see this as a differentiator in what has become a highly commoditised market.

 

“In order to compete effectively, our local manufacturing facilities have been upgraded to state-of-the-art and best-in-class, with continuous improvement at the heart of everything we do. Our Weir production systems and lean manufacturing processes continue to drive unnecessary costs out of the business,” Dyer says.

 

“Within these systems, we have created an environment that promotes effective measurement and, in most instances, self-management, thus creating the ownership which supports productivity. Skills are always an essential element in a highly technical environment and our on-going training programmes and knowledge sharing ensure that we have access to these increasingly scarce skills going forward. We have a large artisan training programme that supports the critical areas of the business and where the market is unable to provide these resources.”

 

An important part of Weir Minerals Africa’s strategy on the continent is community upliftment and development. “We look at local employment in each of the areas in which we operate, uplifting these skills and allowing these staff to make a positive contribution to their local communities. Being an engineering focused organisation, we have a number of projects underway to help with the upliftment of maths and science skills within these communities.

 

“Safety is a way of life at Weir, but we appreciate that our staff are even more at risk outside the workplace, particularly on the roads. We have extended Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) initiatives to include home, road and personal safety outside the workplace. We also view it as our duty to contribute to the economies in which we operate, and we have adapted our business model accordingly,” Dyer concludes.