A new African demand dawn?

The heart and head were both evident at 7719 bauma Conexpo Africa 2015. Talking to representatives from leading OEMs and their sub-Saharan Africa dealerships, there is some optimism that Africa’s largely depressed mining and quarrying industry will be kick-started from its slumber by a number of nations’ governments injecting large financial sums into new infrastructure works.

But some of the senior figures at the Johannesburg, South Africa-located exhibition said it would be those best able to meet customer needs, sometimes by changing their products or investing shrewdly in effective aftermarket packages, that would be best placed to make the most out of any increased equipment demand.

John Vaassen, manager of EMEA business at 3599 Trimble Loadrite, used the example of the company’s INSIGHT web-based crushing and screening plant reporting system to illustrate how using the head to note a shift in customer priorities can work alongside the heartfelt hope of new infrastructure investment.

“When we first looked at creating INSIGHT, we were just thinking about reporting on volumes, such as how many tonnes of material customers produce to each fraction. Then we looked at our customers’ issues and they also wanted to know about plant uptime, and the reasons behind any downtime,” explains Vaassen. “From that, we created downtime reporting through INSIGHT. This meant our customers could get to the exact cause of a problem, such as a quarry haul truck breaking down.”

Shane 3107 Fitzpatrick, executive director of sales and marketing for Barloworld Equipment, the 395 Caterpillar dealer for South Africa and ten other southern Africa countries, is clear on how his firm can retain as well as secure new southern Africa business. “We need to be able to continue to support our customers and we do that through our servicing and parts availability.”

Also speaking at 7719 bauma Conexpo Africa 2015, Luke Talbot, managing director of duo Africa, part of the 3652 Terex and 447 Powerscreen global dealer network, said: “In Africa lots of people want to do deals, but it’s all about getting finance. We are taking small footsteps doing business the right way.”

It won’t be easy to achieve construction, quarrying and mining equipment sales growth in Africa. As 4293 VDMA chairman Johann Sailer pointed out during a 386 bauma Munich 2016 press conference, African earthmover equipment sales alone were down 25% in H1 2015, compared to the same period of 2014. The ISC figures quoted by Sailer show the end result of some of the problems limiting the African continent’s immense potential – with corruption, weak currencies, red tape and lack of quality road and other logistics infrastructure chief among them.

However, in South Africa alone, major infrastructure works such as the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project and the new transport and building infrastructure required to enable the major eastern coastal city of Durban to successfully stage the 2022 Commonwealth Games, offer much encouragement to aggregate sector companies and construction equipment producers.

Continuing the African theme, this issue includes a Market Report focused on sub-Saharan Africa aggregate demand; a Quarry Profile on how a South African quarrying company is achieving huge efficiency gains through its drilling and blasting methods; and how the building of Kenya’s new infrastructure has created big demand for sand and gravel, forcing some consumers and suppliers to look for these materials in areas featuring environmentally delicate ecosystems.