Several publicly funded organisations and government departments are targeting foundries in South Africa to both improve the performance of the foundry industry, or to meet critical strategic objectives. Generally the coordination between these various bodies needs to be improved, synergies must be identified, priorities must be agreed on, and certain activities must be pursued in a cooperative way. NFTN can play this role.
Key to this result is also to constantly keep the industry informed of initiatives available, outcomes of surveys and studies done in the industry. On the other hand government needs to be updated on the needs, successful support and changes within the industry.
Achieved to date
A public support database was developed and posted on the website for download by companies NFTN website hits indicate that more than 25% of industry used the website A public entity support workshop was held Three (3) year impact report was developed.
Planned activities for 2011/12
Three (3) year impact report published and distributed Compile a database that captures the activities, support given and programmes/software used by foundries, mostly used in the public domain Two (2) articles published Increase the spread of usage of the NFTN website as source of information to 30%
2nd Public sector workshop held
This event was the 2nd workshop in 2011 hosted by the National Foundry Technology Network (NFTN) to support closer collaboration and resource utilisation by a range of public sector organisations.
In recent years the foundry industry has benefitted from an increasing number of public initiatives to improve the performance of the South African Foundry Sector. These initiatives cover a wide range of interventions with different objectives. At the previous workshop in March 2011 the NFTN aimed to clarify the expectations of various public organisations supporting the foundry sector. As a result of the 1st event several working groups where established and launched. This report is about the 2nd workshop. The most important outcome was the consolidation of the working groups into a manageable and sensible number. These working groups will form the basis of support to the foundry sector in the same way that the American Foundry Society is organising their support. The working groups are:
- Finance and Investment
- Technology improvement
- Environmental Management (currently called the Waste Management working group)
- Energy Efficiency
- Development of local market
- Education and skills development
For further information about the workshop, please see the following documents:
Inter-active foundry database
After a tender process was conducted in selecting a consultant to develop the foundry database, a consultant was appointed. The database will be operational as from January 2012. NFTN will be able to provide stakeholders with data on all relevant areas of the foundry industry.
NFTN will be responsible in keeping this database up-to-date in order to provide relevant data to government when needed.
