Company Announcement - • Siemens officially hands over new lean manufacturing cell to Fearless Technical Contracts and Services (PTY) Ltd.
• Siemens North Riding Manufacturing Facility - an incubator for Small Enterprises.
• Siemens gives temporary workers the opportunity to register as a small enterprise and to continue rendering their services as a supplier.
• Fearless is a completely black owned company and today comprises of 15 employees, men and women.

On 15 September, Siemens hosted over 50 people, which included representatives from the Department of Trade and Industry and Eskom to celebrate the official handover of the new lean manufacturing cell to Fearless Technical Contracts and Services (PTY) Ltd at their Siemens North Riding Manufacturing Facility, an incubator for Small Enterprises.
The Fearless organisation started out as temporary workers that were contracted to a labour broker. Due to Siemens’ decision to stop the use of labour brokers, Tshepo Mokoena, founder of Fearless and his team were given the opportunity by Siemens to register his business as a small enterprise and to continue rendering their services as a supplier to Siemens. Fearless is a completely black owned company and today comprises of 15 employees, men and women.

As part of Siemens’ culture of continuous improvement, their manufacturing process was improved by isolating certain pre-assemblies and a lean manufacturing cell was established to produce these sub-assemblies. Taking into account Fearless’ excellent service delivery and commitment,  they have now been appointed as the main suppliers in charge of the new lean manufacturing cell to produce certain sub assemblies for the Eskom Kusile project. Rita Nkuhlu, Siemens Executive Director stated, “At Siemens, we believe that helping to develop small and medium sized enterprises can ignite an economic upturn in our country.” With Enterprise Development forming the core of the country’s economic sustainability, the company has invested over R100 million towards supporting strategic black partners in their quest for economic sustainability, by enabling them to hold 100% black share ownership in businesses which continue to have access to market share and thrive as stand-alone enterprises.

In February this year, Siemens launched the Supplier Development Programme, which marked the start of a process whereby a select number of suppliers were chosen to partner with Siemens in order to develop their business ambitions.

Fearless is one of the 50 companies that have been selected from their 3500 supplier base. Each of these suppliers is part of a tailored development programme to meet their specific requirements. The program includes a combination of mentoring, coaching and internal and external training in both technical and soft skills. The Siemens Supplier Development Programme supports the Departments of Trade and Industry’s new codes of good practice for 2016 in which it’s Enterprise and Supplier Development scorecard will place more emphasis on business development. Siemens spends more than 30% of its procurement budget, with Qualifying Small Enterprises and Emerging Medium-sized Enterprises (EME) - more than double the B-BBEE target of 15%.

In his speech, Jacob Maphutha, BEE Director, DTI stated “Siemens’ Supplier Development programme is a very positive example and meets the DTI’s objectives of implementing the new BEE code. This programme could potentially serve as the framework for other companies that would like to implement something similar.” “In South Africa, companies like us are called upon to aid the transformation of the business sector. This process has our full support. What we have found is that transformation is good for business. Our efforts to achieve a Level 2 B-BBEE rating, the highest for a German company in South Africa is but one example and has made us more competitive whilst inspiring a greater diversity of thinking. Rita concludes.”