Multotec Africa - embedding skills and partnerships

 
   Thomas Holtz, Multotec CEO                             Jaco du Toit, Managing Director IBD Africa
 

The new year sees industry-leading mineral processing solutions provider Multotec broadening its footprint into Africa, successfully leveraging its model of building local capacity into close and ongoing partnerships with its mining customers.

“Attrition levels of equipment in processing plants are high, so efficiencies and recoveries are quickly compromised if they are badly maintained,” says Multotec CEO Thomas Holtz. “This makes it vital for a group like ours to stay close to customers – so we can make sure that the equipment we supply is always running at optimum levels.”

Having proved its value proposition in South Africa for over four decades – putting in strong support and service infrastructure behind its sales – the Multotec Group has spent almost 20 years rolling it out into its African markets.

“We are now moving increasingly into maintenance contracts, where we take over the maintenance of our equipment on-site in terms of service level agreements that suit customers’ needs,” says Holtz. “Our close relationships with customers often require us to participate in their technical review processes – not only to evaluate support levels but also to explore opportunities for continuously improving their plant performance.”

Local empowerment

Such has been the success of this approach in recent years that Multotec has grown its Botswana operation from a branch office into a fully-fledged, locally-registered subsidiary – manned almost entirely by Botswana staff. The substantial Letlhakane-based operation is over 120 employees strong, the result of over five years of proactive growth in that country; the new company will be officially launched in early February.

According to Multotec Africa managing director Jaco du Toit, the progress in Botswana is an expression of the company’s mission to be close to customers as a foundation for providing high levels of technical and maintenance backup. The Letlhakane facility is very close to the Orapa, Damtshaa and Letlhakane diamond mines.

“We have personnel at our customers’ sites on a daily basis, and effectively have leveraged our strategic approach into Botswana, by putting strong technical expertise on the ground there,” says Du Toit. “The metallurgists and plant experts in the Letlhakane office manage our maintenance contracts, and are in turn supported by product specialists in the Johannesburg head office that can visit sites, as and when required.”


    Multotec successfully hosted a Technical Workshop in Ghana.

Cradle-to-grave approach

He also highlights the cradle-to-grave concept pursued by Multotec, which involves the providing of equipment, technical expertise and maintenance, as well as the removal and recycling of the product at the end of its life – in accordance with the mining operations ISO 14000 environmental management standards.

“We also plan the development of our infrastructure in each of our areas of operation in a way that allows us to offer complementary products and services,” he says. “This puts us in a position to conduct light fabrication at the request of customers – complementing not only our screening media products but also our wear-related and peripheral products such as mill-feed chutes, discharge chutes and pipes.”

A traditional school of thought among South African suppliers has been to conduct the engineering work and fabrication in South Africa and to transport the finished product to site in the particular African country – where there was limited capacity to sub-contract the work out.

“Now we can supply that service in Botswana – close to the customer – where we fabricate the equipment and apply the lining, as well as supporting the mine staff in the installation process during a scheduled plant maintenance shut-down,” says Du Toit.

Skills transfer

Multotec is looking to expand this approach in Africa in 2017, where it is already established in Zambia (serving the copper mining sector in that country and in the Democratic Republic of Congo), Ghana (serving predominantly the gold sector in West Africa), and Mozambique (with the current focus on coal) 

“The year will see us continuing with skills transfer and capacity-building in our African operations, as well as through our growing programme of training for customers in the mining sector,” says Holtz. “It is becoming increasingly important – both to us as suppliers and to our customers, the mines – to invest in local skill development as a key sustainability practice.”

Multotec has for many years provided training in process-related topics in South Africa, and in recent years has rolled this out in a more formal and structured manner in other regions; the group’s equipment can today be found in almost 50 countries on six continents, with a portfolio in all commodities.

“We focus on bridging the gap between the theory that mine staff will have learnt in tertiary studies, and the practical day-to-day mechanics of working with equipment in a plant environment,” he says. “The culture of a fly-in-fly-out consultant is generally expensive and not supportive of empowering local professionals and operators. Where we can build local capacity to support our products, the customers appreciate that – and we’ve seen growing interest from them in the past two to three years.”

In West Africa, for instance, Multotec has held sales conferences – in French and English – to provide customers with technical input to plant operators on its product lines. The group’s product specialists are typically experts who have years of experience in these kinds of plants, and can offer considerable value in terms of product and application knowledge, says Holtz.

Slurry pumps

The slurry pump business is another market that Multotec will continue to pursue in 2017, adding another ‘string to the bow’ of its on-site support offering.

“We maintain slurry pumps for a range of customers where our equipment is installed, as our service infrastructure is so strong,” he says. “In due course, we will move into developing our own slurry pumps as an original equipment manufacturer.”

Maintenance contracts provide on-site plant experts and specialist support.