The Steel and Engineering Industries’ of Southern Africa’s Price and Index Pages (PIPS) is the most authoritative publication tracking cost escalation in the metals and engineering sector in South Africa. By having the right information, timely available, correctly calculated and interpreted, all from a central and credible source, SEIFSA has managed to advance the interest of businesses and large procuring agencies for more than 50 years.

Planning for cost escalation on a project before commencement is essential. Containing costs after the initiation of a project is equally important.

SEIFSA’s Economic and Commercial Division is in possession of time series data for more than 250 products/product categories spanning over 50 years. This is a veritable goldmine of information to understand cost trends over time, which is an essential tool when project planning is done.

It is crucial to understand the cycles (of higher and lower inflation) of costs changes as well as the drivers behind each. These two characteristics of cost changes are of huge assistance in project planning and cost containment afterwards.

The possibilities of using the latter can be broken down into many components as needs arise, for example;
• Identifying the relevant cost drivers,
• Explanations of each and the continuous updating of the price indicators,
• Reporting on the outstanding features and pressure points for management’s attention in graphical/dashboard style,

Tracking the most recent data points, compared to trends over time to act as early warnings of possible cost flashpoints,
• Explanations of the reasons for the above,
• Forecast of possible future patterns
• Comparisons of measured movements with anticipated/forecasted price movements,
• Comparisons with actual price movements detected and evaluation of ‘better/worse’ than trend performances, etc

Helping your company devising such a system to track and manage cost changes is what we do.

The publication is available on a subscription basis as a service offered by the Economics and Commercial Division of SEIFSA.