The Tooling Association of South Africa (Tasa) and the Gauteng Tooling Initiative (GTI) were “on the verge” of launching a “formal cluster” aimed at providing the South African tooling sector access to large automotive tooling contracts.

The cluster would enable the country’s smaller tooling firms to gain access to the large automotive tooling contracts – typically valued at between R10-million and R50-million – that were historically too large for one company to handle, said GTI CEO and Tasa representative Henk Snyman.

Speaking to Engineering News Online ahead of the Afrimold Conference, to be held in June, he said tool-making firms were generally made up of between 10 to 15 specialists, stretching firms' capability to deliver on large orders and limiting their access to the market.

He cited the automotive sector’s expenditure last year of over R4.3-billion on tooling equipment – “very little” of which reached South Africa’s shores.

The cluster aimed to become a “single face” for the customer and to divide the secured large contracts between “franchised” tool-makers.

Participating tool-makers were required to become a so-called “franchise” of the yet-to-be-named cluster to ensure best practise, certain minimum standards, predictability and "quality in the tool shop”.

This would enable the cluster to “trust what is coming from the smaller tool-maker,” he emphasised.

“We will not negotiate on what the small business has to do to become part of the franchise, because somebody failing [in the allocated part of the contract] can delay the launch of a vehicle – and that cannot happen,” he stressed.

GTI and Tasa expected to launch the cluster within the next few weeks, as soon as funding for the initiative emerged. The parties signed an agreement with Gauteng Enterprise Propeller to provide seed money of R3.1-million a year for the next three years to the cluster.

The parties aimed to use the seed money to set up the cluster’s central offices and appoint project managers, but the partners also aimed to assist the joining small tool-makers to recapitalise, if required.

“We will have a whole value chain where we support people to have access to the market, to make the tools that are required and build South Africa into a tool-making country,” he noted.

Meanwhile, the skills training initiative in the tooling manufacturing sector has gained momentum, with the “foundation”, or initial batch of students, completing their final year, and support and funding for the programme enabling the intake of the next batch.

About 650 students entered the tool, die and mould-making (TDM) powered foundation and apprenticeship programme under various levels during 2010, said National Tooling Initiative Programme (NTIP) CEO and Tasa representative Dirk van Dyk.

With a retention rate of 80% a year, about 50% of the students were expected to complete their National Qualifications Framework 5 qualification by year-end; however, owing to the structure, levels and certification of the programme, the remaining students not completing the full three years offered by the programme were able to secure jobs in the manufacturing industry.

The programme offered a three-phase foundation course and a level one to three apprenticeship programme across several further education and training colleges.

As the programme prepared for its next 650 students, funded through the National Skills Fund, he commented that companies were “vying” for the prequalified and qualified students to work for them.

“If we want to put the growth of South Africa on manufacturing, tooling can not be ignored,” he said, adding that the country currently experienced a severe shortage of technically skilled people in the tooling manufacturing industry.

The programme aimed to rebuild the scarce skills value chain, stifle the perception of substandard skill quality and attempt to turn around the industry.

The TDM initiative is a collective programme by the NTIP, Tasa, the Department of Trade and Industry and multiple education and economic development institutions.

Afrimold – a yearly trade fair and conference for the design, precision engineering and machining, automotive component, tooling, tool-making, production and application development sectors – would be held at the Nasrec Expo Centre, in Johannesburg, from June 4 to 6.