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COMPANY PROFILE

2014

AOS Consulting Engineers

011 805 5414 | www.aosconsulting.co

company profile

Absolutely Outstanding Services Editorial: Roland Douglas Production: Emily Woodhall

AOS Consulting Engineers is making a name for itself around the continent. With a growing list of successful projects that includes the Museum Africa and Johannesburg City Library, Managing Director, Olu Soluade says that African expansion is a target for the near future. Since the construction boom that came to South Africa after the announcement that the FIFA World Cup would be held in the country in 2010, the industry has seen turbulent times. Some companies have thrived and some have fallen to the wayside. The government has promised much infrastructure spending but in some areas this is yet to filter through to the private sector. But where it has, construction and building have seen great success. One example of this success comes from Midrand based AOS Consulting Engineers (AOS). Founded in 2006 and starting trading in 2008, AOS is now one of the country’s leading mechanical, electrical and

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plumbing (MEP) consultants with ambitious plans to grow into Africa. Managing Director, Olu Soluade tells IndustrySA more about the history of the company, a story which has seen AOS grow from home based business to one recognised for excellence around the country. “The company was incorporated in South Africa in 2006. However, we started trading in 2008 on a full time basis. I started with the company then. I was the only staff member in 2008 and I ran the business from my house for some time,” he says. “Over the years, one of the first things that happened was that we won the Young Company of the Year award (CESA Glenrand MIB 2009) in South

AOS Consulting Engineers

Africa as a consulting engineering outfit. That was a breakthrough that started the movement of the company upward. “The first project we landed from the government was called the Pan-African Parliament which is similar to the European Parliament in Belgium. When we were appointed as the mechanical engineers, we started with the design with the team and that was our introduction into the African market. Since then we have gone from strength to strength. We are no longer working from home, we have full time staff in our offices and we have won many awards and are looking forward to many more. God has certainly been good to us.”

GREEN BUILDING The company’s mission is to ‘ensure that customers and clients satisfaction is guaranteed through service delivery, professional excellence and personal attention’ and its list of services is vast but focusses mainly on mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, project and program management and sustainable green building consulting. “At the moment we are a growing outfit. At any point in time we will bring in experts to assist so that we have the best possible resources to help our clients. “Right now, we are most busy with mechanical engineering and sustainable green consulting. I have a mechanical engineering degree and hence I am more

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company profile

biased to this type of work,” explains Soluade. Green building is a concept which is becoming more popular in South Africa and, just like other developed nations, the country now has a green building council which governs the practice. According to The Green Building Council South Africa (GBCSA), it is ‘leading the transformation of the South African property industry to ensure that buildings are designed, built and operated in an environmentally sustainable way’. AOS is a company very much behind this transformation and Soluade says one of his flagship projects was with MTN in Johannesburg. “One of the projects that we have been involved with that really stands out for me is the MTN head office in Johannesburg. We helped to ready the building for certification from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). Because it was the first building in South Africa to be certified by the USGBC through their existing building tool, it became a learning curve and everyone had to make sure that we fulfilled the requirements of USGBC. “It became a wonderful challenge and a the end of the day, when we got the certification in November 2012, it opened up other avenues for other things to be done and for me, that becomes the critical aspect for sustainable green building going forward. “At the time, there was no exiting building tool within the GBCSA. The only council that certified existing buildings was the Australian Green building Council and the USGBC. The decision was made by the management of MTN as the USGBC was well

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known and that is why we opted for that,” he says. Apart from the obvious benefits that green building brings, Soluade says that the practice can in fact integrate contractors and reduce the overall cost of a project. “I think if you look at the consulting environment, we tend to work in our own silos. The engineer wants to work in his way, the plumber wants to do things his way, the electrician wants to do things his way and the architect just wants an aesthetically pleasing building. “What the green building revolution is doing is encouraging people not to work in silo and encouraging an integrated approach to projects. There are a lot of advantages to an integrated approach; when you work in this way, the added value reduces the cost of a green building. If you go for a green approach but work in silo, the project will become more expensive as what it is now is a retro-fit and not part of the design,” he says.

BUILDING ON SA SUCCESS The success of AOS in South Africa is providing a platform for the company to expand on the continent. This is something that Soluade, originally from Nigeria, is keen to pursue. Already, the company has built a potential pipeline of work in both East and West Africa. “We have a lot of work in South Africa but we are actually expanding outside of SA. The aim is that we can open an office in East Africa - we are based in East Africa right now with some projects - so we are

AOS Consulting Engineers looking at the possibility of establishing ourselves as the preferred MEP contractor in East Africa. “We have an upcoming project in Nigeria which we hope will act as a springboard to achieve more in the region. “In South Africa, we have consolidated but we are letting people know, ‘you will achieve outstanding service’ so that we can claim repeat business. So the plan is to expand our base in SA; move into East Africa and possibly look at West Africa. “In East Africa we are looking at Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda,” he says. Hotel projects have provided a base in East Africa and Soluade says that the company is providing a full range of services. “We’ve been appointed as the MEP consultant and we are overseeing everything to do with electrics, plumbing, fire etc. One of the advantages we bring is that when we are appointed as an MEP consultant, we ensure that the sustainability element is bought on board. MEP has a lot of requirements in terms of sustainable building design.” And green building is important, even on the continent where green building councils are not as prominent, and Soluade hopes that AOS can use its competencies to contribute to the development of sustainable building across Africa. “I think we have more of a focus on green building in South Africa but Kenya and Nigeria are coming on board and Egypt is doing something similar so a lot of progress starts in SA and spreads through Africa. “This year it has been stated that Nigeria is the biggest economy in Africa with SA following. Nigeria already has a green building council and we are hoping that based on the knowledge and technical know-how we have in South Africa, we can assist with the development of the industry throughout Africa,” he says.

“I graduated from the University of Lagos in 1996 before relocating to South Africa. Before joining AOS, I was with another consulting company for eight years where I became the managing director as well,” he says. “We have more or less surpassed what we set out to achieve in January and that is quite amazing. We are pushing forward to see what we can achieve in the rest of the year before setting our next targets.” As for the future, AOS is well positioned for growth and Soluade says that the rest of 2014 will see the company finishing its hotel projects in Rwanda and focussing on consultancy on data centres in SA. “At the moment, we are doing certification of various data centres with the Uptime Institute from the US in South Africa so that will take a lot of my time. With the developments that we have in Kigali, a lot of the contractors are now on-board so there will be a lot of interfacing with them to make sure we get that right.” This is a company on the up and with green building becoming more and more popular across Africa, AOS is perfectly positioned to take on bigger and more complex projects and further enhance its already sterling reputation.

NO SUBSTITUTE FOR EXPERIENCE AOS is a company intent on providing quality wherever it works. The company is passionately committed to the implementation and maintenance of a quality management system that complies with ISO9001:2008 requirements and AOS endeavours to continually work on improving this system with the ultimate goal of improving customer satisfaction. As with any company, quality comes from the top and Soluade has much experience delivering quality projects.

Olu Soluade

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