The role of collaboration in the South African tooling industry

Published ArticleThe efficient design and manufacturing of injection moulds (and other tooling), requires collaboration between multi-disciplinary, geographically separated units and companies, including the company that orders plastic parts, the ones that design and/or produce the moulds and/or mould-components, and those that use injection moulding machines to produce components. Distributed collaborative tooling design and manufacturing, while being a great concept, is still difficult to implement in today's complex environment. This is clear as more functional groups become involved in the total product development process earlier to meet time-to-market and cost objectives. Although internal design and manufacturing groups may have experience in collaborating with different degrees of success, the global trend is towards greater outsourcing of activities and inclusion of complementary organisations. The requirement for extended collaboration - the process of securely and selectively exchanging, reviewing, and managing the change of product information with other internal participants and external groups such as customers, design partners, suppliers and distributed manufacturing companies - presents huge challenges. Delivering these capabilities in today's global product development processes requires a different approach to doing business than a few years ago. Companies must be willing to share more information, which "is hard because we are competitors." The toolmaking companies' in South Africa (of which 90% are small and medium size enterprises (SMEs)) concern for success in delivering these capabilities, can also be greatly impacted by the underlying software or information technology infrastructure required for supporting the entire product development process. This article provides a perspective for SMEs and others that might participate in collaborative tool design and manufacture in South Africa today or in the future

The use of financial management practices by small, medium and micro enterprises: a perspective from South Africa

This paper reports on an investigation of financial management practices used by small, medium-sized and micro-enterprises (SMMEs) in South Africa. It was found that more than half the SMMEs examined use external accounting staff to prepare accounting reports and more than 60% rely on external accounting staff to interpret and use accounting information. A majority of the SMME owners were found to lack interpretation skills and an awareness of how to use information from financial statements. An implication of this study therefore is that policy makers, business support organizations, banks and academic institutions need to focus on educating SMMEs more effectively in financial management, thereby mitigating the risk of cash flow problems and business failure

Landboumeganisasie en die behoefte aan die opleiding van plaasarbeiders

Mechanisation, farm labou

The national grazing strategy of the Republic of South Africa: Objectives, achievements and future challenges.

The White Paper on Agricultural Policy, tabled in May 1984, made reference to the alarming deterioration of natural rangelands and led to the drawing up of the National Grazing Strategy (NGS), released to parliament in May 1985, which was endorsed by the Department of Agriculture and accepted in its entirety by the Government. The NGS committed authorities to reassess approaches to rangeland utilization in South Africa and to achieve a number of clearly-defined goals within a specified time frame. It is proposed that future implementation of the NGS should be augmented by some important second phase actions; Over the past few years various measures have been applied to address the problem of the retrogression of southern African rangelands. However, it has become apparent that many of these measures were ad hoc and not part of a long-term strategy aimed at fostering effective management of the rangeland resources. The White Paper on Agricultural Policy, tabled in May 1984, made reference to the alarming deterioration of natural rangelands and led to the drawing up of the National Grazing Strategy (NGS), released to Parliament in May 1985, which was endorsed by the Department of Agriculture and accepted in its entirety by the Government. The NGS committed authorities to reassess approaches to rangeland utilization in South Africa and to achieve a number of clearly-defined goals within a specified time frame. The implementation of the NGS has been carefully monitored. Despite some progress, few of the goals set have actually been achieved. However, various problems have arisen such as the need to: encourage the cooperation of all range users, develop informed public opinion, increase manpower and establish priorities, all of which must be taken into account when future rangeland strategies are devised. These strategies also need to recognize the dichotomy that exists between programmes aimed at the development of certain industries and those aimed at resource conservation. It is proposed that future implementation of the NGS should be augmented by some of the following important second phase actions: (i) The strategy should be converted into a policy to be applied to all Departmental institutions, (ii) policy makers and politicians must accept liability and must take the lead in the application of stringent measures aimed at agricultural resource conservation and utilization.Language: EnglishKeywords: Agricultural policies; Grazing; National Grazing Strategy; Natural rangelands; South Africa; agricultural policy; management; rangeland; rangeland utilization; resource conservation; grazing strategy; retrogression; utilization; conservation; rangelands; strategies; white paper; policies; agriculture; goal

The ASOS Surgical Risk Calculator: development and validation of a tool for identifying African surgical patients at risk of severe postoperative complications

Background: The African Surgical Outcomes Study (ASOS) showed that surgical patients in Africa have a mortality twice the global average. Existing risk assessment tools are not valid for use in this population because the pattern of risk for poor outcomes differs from high-income countries. The objective of this study was to derive and validate a simple, preoperative risk stratification tool to identify African surgical patients at risk for in-hospital postoperative mortality and severe complications. Methods: ASOS was a 7-day prospective cohort study of adult patients undergoing surgery in Africa. The ASOS Surgical Risk Calculator was constructed with a multivariable logistic regression model for the outcome of in-hospital mortality and severe postoperative complications. The following preoperative risk factors were entered into the model; age, sex, smoking status, ASA physical status, preoperative chronic comorbid conditions, indication for surgery, urgency, severity, and type of surgery. Results: The model was derived from 8799 patients from 168 African hospitals. The composite outcome of severe postoperative complications and death occurred in 423/8799 (4.8%) patients. The ASOS Surgical Risk Calculator includes the following risk factors: age, ASA physical status, indication for surgery, urgency, severity, and type of surgery. The model showed good discrimination with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.805 and good calibration with c-statistic corrected for optimism of 0.784. Conclusions: This simple preoperative risk calculator could be used to identify high-risk surgical patients in African hospitals and facilitate increased postoperative surveillance. © 2018 British Journal of Anaesthesia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Medical Research Council of South Africa gran