RHEINMETALL The international group is one of the companies collaborating with the CSIR to strengthen South Africa’s manufacturing industry
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), air defence developer, manufacturer and supplier Rheinmetall Air Defence – a division of German armament manufacturer Rheinmetall – global engineering and technology services company Siemens and engineering solutions company ESTEQ Industry Solutions recently signed memorandums of agreements (MoAs) to collaborate to support industry development in South Africa.
The MoAs form part of the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI’s) National Industrial Participation Programme, which seeks to leverage economic benefits and support the development of South African industry by using government procurement.
The objective of the MoAs is to contribute to the local manufacturing industry’s export growth by improving the industry and the CSIR’s product development capabilities. This imitative focuses on internationally competitive products. These capabilities can then be used to develop new products and improve existing products for export.
The MoAs also aim to create integration platforms across multitiered advanced industries in the form of product life cycle management (PLM) solutions, multienterprise concurrent engineering methodologies and engineering design integration capabilities spanning engineering disciplines in the product architecture, in response to the ninth iteration of the DTI’s Industrial Policy Action Plan.
The CSIR aims to support the development of small, medium-sized and microenterprises as components suppliers to share in the economic benefits of participating in the manufacturing value chain, and simultaneously contributing to black economic empowerment.
The council also aims to continuously establish, improve and grow specialised product development capabilities in South Africa by enabling and supporting capabilities through PLM solutions.