MechChem Africa July 2019

⎪ Hydraulic and pneumatic systems ⎪

New sponge blasting equipment optimises the speed and safety of removing paint and other contaminants from cylinders, while also allowing for specialised surface finishes to be implemented on new or refurbished products.

Developed in-house using technologies from across the Bosch Rexroth South Africa Group companies, Hytec Engineering’s test bench tests each cylinder before it leaves the factory to ensure quality and performance reliability.

current operations, as well as towards meet- ing our expectations of growth, especially in the African markets, in the future,” Goosen explains. Thesemarkets, he says, particularly Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo, now represent close to a third of the company’s business. Complete process visibility Matching the company’s investments in new equipment andmodernisedproductionmeth- odologies is its desire to gain greater visibility of the factory floor, and Hytec Engineering is the first of the Bosch Rexroth South Africa Group companies to introduce the Group’s new, sophisticated job tracking system to its workshop. The system automates and integrates in- formationof the company’s completeproduc- tion chain, from the availability of materials and OEM parts to the administration of the various tasks of the production floor onto a central, in-house developed platform that communicates seamlessly with the Group’s enterprise resource planning system. This provides Hytec Engineering far greater intelligence in understanding the sta- tus, progress and predicted delivery dates of eachproject, down to component level. Anew scanning system at each workstation tracks parts across the production floor. “Previously disparate islands of infor- mation regarding our internal production processes are now integrated in customised,

usable dashboards that provide real time intelligence about the status of each cylinder,” Goosen says. “For our customers, this means greater accuracy and transparency in predicting the final quotation time frames, manufacturing lead times anddelivery dates of their cylinder order or repair. This is based on algorithms considering longest lead time of materials, labour availability, machine availability, and so on.” Customers will be able to receive automated reports about their products on request. Relevant dashboards will also be avail- able to the other Bosch Rexroth South Africa Group companies who use and distribute Hytec Engineering cylinders. “Internally, the system gives us the tools to increase our understanding of key per- formance indicators, as well as potential bottlenecks and other inefficiencies across the production floor via an intelligent re- porting layer,” Goosen explains. This will help the company operate with maximum agility,

operational flexibility and capacity. Ensuring production is executed with maximum efficiency is a key innovation that will maintain Hytec Engineering’s position as one of Africa’s leading hydraulic cylinder OEMs. Cylinder Exchange Programme Another key pillar of the company’s success is its hydraulic cylinder exchange programme that is offered as part of its cylinder services across Africa. An extensive and comprehen- sive stockholding of refurbished cylinders means that Hytec Engineering can imme- diately replace damaged or worn cylinders with an exact replacement during the repair process to avoid lengthy periods of opera- tional downtime. Witharevamped,modernproductionfloor geared to efficiently delivering the new and repaired cylinders for which it is renowned, Hytec Engineering is ready tomeet the needs ofmines and industries across Africawith the highest quality fluid power solutions. q

Bosch Rexroth South Africa Group of Companies TheBoschRexrothSouthAfricaGroupof Companies (previously theHytecGroup) isAfrica’s largest fluidpower and automation company. It comprises eight specialist companies: Bosch Rexroth South Africa (previously Hytec Holdings), Hytec South Africa, Tectra Automation, Hytec Fluid Technology, Hydraulic and Automation Warehouse, Hytec Engineering, Hytec Services Africa andHYSA, which collectively source, market and distribute over 30 interna- tional hydraulic, pneumatic and automation brands. TheGroup employs approximately 850 people through a network of 40 sales and service branches across sub-Saharan Africa. q

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