Continental Tyre South Africa (CTSA) has appointed a new senior management team for its tyre manufacturing plant in Gqeberha, Continental’s only tyre production facility in Africa.

Ahmed Boualam is the new manufacturing GM, with responsibility for overall management of plant operations. 

Ramoabi Moeng has been appointed as deputy plant manager, and will support Boualam with the running of the facility.

Boualam was seconded from Continental’s South Carolina Sumter tyre plant, in the US, where he served as plant manager for the past two years. 

CTSA’s outgoing manufacturing GM, JJ Dowling, has relocated to the US to take up the position of production manager for the Sumter plant.

“I want to thank JJ Dowling for all of his hard work and commitment to CTSA over the past five years he was with us, and wish him all the best for his new role at our sister plant in Sumter,” says CTSA MD Martin Buday.

“We extend a warm welcome back to Ahmed who takes over the reins as our new GM for manufacturing.

“Our Gqeberha plant in South Africa is not new to Ahmed, as he worked here for three years prior to his move to the US. 

“I am certain that he, along with our newly appointed deputy plant manager Ramoabi Moeng, will be a force to be reckoned with as they use their combined experience and expertise to successfully steer the manufacturing side of our business,” notes Buday.

Boualam has been involved in the tyre industry since 2007, starting in his native France as a production management engineer, before moving up to production manager in the curing and final finishing areas. 

He joined Continental in France in 2011, initially as area manager in the curing and mould shop, and later in the hot preparation and mixing room.

A three-year stint as production manager for the Continental Tyre plant in South Africa followed in 2016, before he was selected to head up the Sumter plant in 2019.

“It is fantastic to be back in South Africa, and I look forward to working with the local management team to continue the transformation of our facility as we work towards increasing the production of light truck tyres,” says Boualam. 

“While optimising the output of our current assets, we are working closely with our colleagues in Hanover, and will be making further investments in our factory to expand our production capacity for this important sector.

“The goal is to make CTSA a major producer of light commercial vehicle tyres within Continental globally, and supply tyres of the highest quality to more markets around the world.”

Boualam is a mechanical and production engineer, and has a master’s degree in business management.

As the new deputy plant manager, Moeng has gained experience in the manufacturing sector since 1997. 

He spent 11 years in vehicle production, including a one-year training stint in Germany, before joining a pharmaceutical company in 2008 where he headed up the engineering, production and operational projects portfolios over the ensuing seven years.

Moeng joined CTSA in 2016 as maintenance manager, and was selected to lead the manufacturing engineering technologies team in 2018, a position he held until his newest appointment.

“I am looking forward to learning more about the tyre manufacturing operations under the leadership of Ahmed and the rest of the CTSA exco team, while ensuring that we produce quality tyres on time and at competitive costs for our local and international customers,” says Moeng.

Moeng has a national diploma in electrical engineering, a diploma in business management and a qualification in advanced maintenance management, with the latter from the Augsburg University of Applied Sciences, in Germany. 

He completed a management development programme in 2006, and followed this up with a masters of business administration degree from Nelson Mandela University.