Sustainable Manufacturing – the way forward for South Africa’s manufacturers

August 2013 News

With the rapid industrialisation in Africa over the past couple of years, climate change and environmental issues have become dominant concerns for our future. Problems that we currently face in the manufacturing of products include volatile energy costs, global warming by greenhouse gas production, the use of non-renewable materials and increasing waste volume after manufacturing. This has led to renewed and strong efforts in the areas of sustainable manufacturing and efficient resource utilisation over the last decade.

In South Africa, one company that has fully defined sustainable manufacturing is Unilever. For years now, it has managed to shift focus from manufacturing efficiency based on machine utilisation to a more holistic view of manufacturing – one that is based on design for sustainability, product life cycle management and sustainable supply chain management. In February 2013, the company announced its plans to open a new factory worth over R800-million and spend R200-million on upgrading and expanding existing plants – all part of its R1bn sustainable project. There can be no doubt that this company is at the forefront of this trend and many other manufacturing organisations would do well to learn from them.

Unilever’s vice president of manufacturing, Sandeep Desai, will be among the speakers scheduled to discuss these issues and share their expertise at the Smart Manufacturing Forum which will be taking place 19-20 August at IIR SA’s Training Room – 1 Sixty Jan Smuts Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg.

For more information contact Leanca Bennett, IIR South Africa, +27 (0)11 771 7215, [email protected], www.iir.co..za/smartmanufacturing

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