Modern Mining May 2015

CRUSHING, SCREENING AND MILLING

inspection services to the minerals industry. Immediately prior to founding Aury Africa, he was GM of Ludowici Africa (now part of FLSmidth). Both these positions saw him trav- elling extensively in Africa and while with AHK he was based in Zambia for several years. Aury Africa’s consumables range includes woven wire and modular wedge wire screen panels, centrifuge baskets and components, modular polyurethane screen surfaces and sys- tems, as well as wear pipe and pipe linings. The company supplies from its headquarters in Jet Park, Johannesburg, where it has a 5 000 m 2 facility, but also has branches in Durban and Cape Town. Part of the consumables range is manufactured locally and last year Aury Africa commissioned two looms (representing a R1 million investment) at the Jet Park premises dedicated to producing woven wire screens. The larger of the two looms is capable of manu- facturing screens up to 3 m wide and 20 m long. When Aury Africa first started trading, it was importing the woven wire screens from China. The downside, however, was that there was a three-month turnaround time on orders. “Since we started local production, this lead time has been reduced to two weeks,” says Houchin. He adds that the target, now almost achieved, is to produce 1 000 units a month from the Jet Park facility. The success of the consumables business means that Aury Africa is now ready to put increased focus on selling capital equipment. “Currently, capital equipment sales only account for about 10 % of our turnover. We’re not unhappy with this as our strategy from the

The CS cone crusher, part of the crusher range available from Aury Africa.

outset was to build up the consumables busi- ness first. But with this essential groundwork having been done, the time is now ripe for Aury Africa to expand its equipment business,” states Houchin. Sales of vibrating screens were constrained until recently by a mismatch between the products available from Aury in China and the needs of the local market. “The primary requirement in China is for large screens, typi- cally in the 3,6 m to 4,9 m wide range,” notes Houchin. “This is very wide for the South African market where the main demand is for a 2,4 m screen. To supply us, Aury (Tianjin) sim- ply took its standard 3,6 m screen and scaled it down. The result was an over-engineered prod- uct that was capable enough but too expensive for local customers. So went back to Aury (Tianjin) and expressed our concerns. They listened to us and have now designed a 2,4 m screen from the ground up. The product is per- fect for the South African – and indeed African – mining industry in terms of both price and performance and our task is now to get this message out to the local market.” With South Africa having several very

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May 2015  MODERN MINING  47