A manufacturer of pneumatic lifting equipment for the mining sector has said it is only beginning to see an improvement of imports through the Port of Durban for hoists and winches the company tools for export clients in the US, Mongolia, China, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia.
According to Jorrie Bezuidenhout, sales representative for MME Lifting in Carletonville, they need up to 80 component parts for some of the equipment they make, mostly from suppliers in Germany and some from Japan.
“We need our import crates to reach us in a day or two once it has arrived at the port, but recently, we have had to wait as long as a month before our goods arrive.
“As you can imagine, it holds everything back.”
Bezuidenhout said they had seen significant improvement of their goods moving through the port, but had been forced to implement mitigating strategies to absorb the potential impact of parts not reaching them fast enough.
“What we have been trying to do is order in more stock than usual so we have inventory back-up.
“However, it also doesn’t help to build up too much inventory. We can’t bring in 1 000 parts of something while only needing 200 annually. Ultimately it makes for a tricky balancing act.”
Bezuidenhout said although demand for their high-quality hoists kept growing, forcing them to keep pace with incoming sales, they had managed to work predictive manufacturing efficiencies into their output.
“Ideally, our supply chain on the import side should be of such a nature that we can duly bring in parts as required to meet growing demand. But we’re constantly challenged by bottlenecks at the port.”
He said MME Manufacturing, the holding company of MME Lifting, had even tried alternative component part supply measures through “nearshoring”, the practice of finding supply outlets much closer to home, if not in one’s own country.
“We started making our own load limiters, for example, completely re-engineering technology that had been used since 1979,” which incidentally was when the company started.
“The end result was something that was stronger and quicker.”
However, it was the detail of their air hoists, said Bezuidenhout, much of it thanks to the parts used in the machining of the company’s equipment, that made MME Lifting’s equipment so desirable.
“We’ve got a very good name in the mining sector and want to keep it that way. The reason why we export to countries like the US is because we make durable hoists you can depend on, at an affordable price.
“We’ve got large-quantum resellers in countries like the US, and demand for our equipment continues to grow.”
- Are you an import-export manufacturer with similar challenges covered in this post? If so, please email the editor at: eugeneg@nowmedia.co.za
