The Gauteng Enterprise Propeller’s (GEP's) investment into the Gauteng Tooling Initiative (GTI) has enabled tooling companies to benefit from global benchmarking practices as well as the development of an incubator environment, the Toolmaking Association of South Africa (Tasa) asserts.

The industry body said in a statement on Wednesday that the funding boost would enable tooling firms to successfully compete with the “massive” volume of tooling currently being imported.

Since 2011, financial support provided by the GEP has enabled the GTI to fulfil its mission of revitalising the local tooling industry by facilitating the participation of smaller tooling companies in the economy and providing access to the “huge” market for automotive tooling.

Initial funding during the pilot phase made possible the benchmarking of more than ten companies in Gauteng, using methodologies developed by the Fraunhöfer Institute at the University of Aachen, in Germany.

The aim of these benchmarking practices was to allow individual toolmaking companies to identify their level of competitiveness as well as their strengths and weaknesses.

This was followed by a gap analysis to understand what needed to be improved upon and what support would be required to implement these changes.

External service providers such as ThinkTank Engineering then assisted those participating companies to implement these manufacturing techniques.

Tasa said tooling companies in Gauteng that implemented the required changes were able to improve their focus on client requirements, with positive results for both the participating companies and their clients.

“This new thinking has also significantly increased the confidence of management to compete in international markets. In addition, the economy as a whole has also benefitted from this initiative through the creation of employment opportunities and an increased awareness of toolmaking as a career,” the association stated.

In addition to the initial funding, the GEP and GTI earlier this year signed a funding agreement to establish a viable toolmaking cluster to ensure market access to small, medium-sized and micro enterprises as well as broad-based black economic-empowerment companies now entering the industry.