Multotec leadership underwent a changing of the guard in its top management during 2013 that has heralded in some young and energetic business unit managing directors who will work alongside Group stalwarts to lead the organisation forward into 2014.

These managing directors, serving under CEO Thomas Holtz, are Rhodes Nelson, Rikus Immink, Spike Taylor, Jaco du Toit and Mike Dexter. This leadership team will focus on amplifying the company’s world class reputation of being a reliable and trustworthy partner and specialist equipment supplier into the mineral processing field, established over 40 years ago. 

Multotec prides itself on its understanding of the supply nuances that differentiate the delivery of capital equipment, consumable equipment and services, and has created appropriate business models to do justice to the products in each of these domains within the Group. While the capital equipment business places a very strong emphasis on technology, process and equipment knowledge and pricing, the consumable equipment business is driven to a large extent by customer intimacy, product availability and reliable supply. The services model underpins both of these areas in different ways, with elements such as maintenance contracts supporting capital equipment, while optimisation and extended life are drivers of consumable equipment supply. Each of these three domains is supported by dedicated business units.

Multotec’s value proposition focuses on building its process and applications support know-how — a challenging task in today’s skills-depleted mining environment. However, this type of expertise is regarded as being key to a mining industry that is confronted by the same challenge.

The company places a great deal of value on its product specialists, developing their skill sets and product understanding on an ongoing basis. The role of the product specialist is key to the success of the organisation and one of Multotec’s core accomplishments is its ability to develop and build a network of product specialists with expert product and application knowledge. This team plays an active role in the industry by calling on customer operations and presenting training programmes that focus on mineral processing related applications specific to these operations.

Multotec first introduced this type of training programme internally to increase the level of understanding of applications within its sales force. More recently however, the training has been extended to customers at no cost. This is part of the group’s commitment to ensuring that customers’ plants are running efficiently and effectively and will be able to operate for many years to come, both in a financial and environmentally sustainable way, with optimised lifecycle costs.

As a result of global financial constraints and the ongoing downturn in the mining industry, mine owners are likely to continue to face the challenge of squeezing their assets and experiencing curtailed expansion. This climate makes Multotec’s value proposition an attractive opportunity to boost mineral processing operations by optimising the efficiencies of existing assets.

The group’s service proposition in terms of maintenance contracts is extending to countries such as Botswana and Mozambique and across products that include screens, cyclones, mill liners and ceramics. Multotec has enjoyed a head start in the field of maintenance contracts, which has assured a greater market share.  In order to remain relevant and competitive in the mining context, the company is committed to offering the best possible solutions by staying on the cutting edge of developments.

Bonded warehouse
Multotec recently established a bonded warehouse at Tema Port in Ghana, under the management of its local office in Accra. Contracts are already being negotiated with customers throughout West Africa, who recognise the significant value to be gained from being able to access the necessary consumable equipment in a matter of weeks. At present 99% of this type of product is imported from Europe, Australia, South Africa and other manufacturing hubs, which makes for extended lead times.

The bonded warehouse will concentrate on supplying consumable equipment such as mill linings, trommel panels, screen panels, interstage screens, ceramic tiles and adhesives to mining operations in Ghana, Burkina Faso and Mali, all of which are within 2 000 km of Accra. This fulfils the “speed to market’ commitment within Multotec’s consumable model. There is a clear intention to identify opportunities to establish similar facilities in other mining centres on the continent during the course of 2014.

Multotec’s future focus is on expanding into Africa, improving its services and growing in tandem with the markets it serves. The regions beyond the South African mining industry are largely an untapped mineral base and are low on the development curve, compared to South African resources, which are already on the opposite end of this curve.  Since Multotec regards the greater African mining industry as its home market, it plans to intensify its focus on a limited range of products which are world class and able to hold their own on an international platform. 

At the same time, the group will continue to forge ahead with its own technical and production capabilities to ensure that it remains cost competitive and technically relevant in terms of its product designs. The current emphasis is on the mechanical engineering aspect of its products, to ensure that they continue to be mechanically sound and commercially viable – produced quickly and cost effectively to world class standards.

Certain Multotec capital equipment products share the international platform through license agreements, notably state-of-the-art Siebtechnik sampling equipment and Ishigaki filter technology. In May last year the company entered into a technology and supply partnership agreement with Longi that saw the full range of Longi magnetic separators entering the African market under the new Multotec-Longi brand.

PROPEL MULTOTEC INTO 2014 PIC 01 : Multotec's managing directors, serving under CEO Thomas Holtz (far right seated), are Rhodes Nelson(far right standing), Rikus Immink (left seated), Spike Taylor (left standing) and Mike Dexter (not present).