Schneider Electric has opened a new manufacturing plant in South Africa, with a 6 500 square metre factory and office employing 256 people.
The facility makes solutions to order across a variety of product lines, and includes an academy for staff and customer training.
The company launched a project in 2013, Co-location, aimed at bringing scattered manufacturing facilities together with groups like services and project management.
The new facility aims to create a platform for growth in the region.
By localising products, job opportunities are created, while the company’s competitive is increased through reduced costs and faster delivery.
Jean Pascal Tricoire, chairman and CEO of Schneider Electric, says the company has invested on a number of levels in the local operation.
The manufacturing facility is the first part of the investment, but the company has also made a number of acquisitions, while offering training and skills development through the academy.
“We have a business that is very technical and based on technology that changes very quickly,” he says. “Very often the schools and universities haven’t adapted fast enough so our job is to educate people in the new technologies.”
Schneider Electric expects robust growth in South Africa and Africa, and will match this growth with investment, Tricoire says. The company will this week open a similar manufacturing facility in East Africa.
Tricoire points out that Africa is a growing market, with the three mega trends that characterise the market being urbanisation, industrialisation and digitisation.
Along with these trends, Africa also faces the same challenges as the rest of the world: energy shortages, high energy prices, traffic congestion and pollution.
“As the global specialist in energy management, we can apply technology to these challenges,” he says.
“This is not only about supplying energy but about safety, which is of vital importance; about reliability, which is crucial for data centres, hospitals and critical processes; and about efficiency.
“You can work on efficiency when you automate things – and we have developed solutions that automate processes. When there are energy shortage in a country, this has tremendous value, allowing active energy efficiency.”
The green agenda is rapidly becoming more important for companies, and Tricoire says Schneider Electric is developing new technologies in this area.
“Our mission is to help customers make the most of the energy, making it safe, reliable and efficient,” he says. “This needs innovation in skills, electronics and connectivity.”
The new facility manufacture solutions for South Africa and southern Africa, although it also covers the whole of Africa with mining solutions, while it is the only facility in the world for winding gears.
