5 minute read
SA CAN REVITALISE ITS INFRASTRUCTURE - By leveraging local expertise
South Africa has a great opportunity to enhance its government-owned assets and improve its public infrastructure by addressing key issues like water management with locally developed solutions. According to South African-based enterprise asset management company Pragma, the country can attract foreign investment and better serve its citizens.
The South African government has over 93,000 buildings, 1.9 million hectares of land, and 74 hospitals under management. Many of these government assets belonging to municipalities and state-owned enterprises have great potential for improvement and revitilisation.
Bani Kgosana, Chief Revenue Officer at Pragma, explains, “Scheduled maintenance enables good outcomes. We have witnessed the positive effects after six months without the crippling load-shedding caused by Eskom’s challenges. Our advanced homegrown solutions, which Pragma is exporting, have the potential to not only enhance maintenance for government-owned assets, but also optimise them for the greater good of South Africans and our economy.”
Pragma is an industrial tech business headquartered in South Africa with enterprise clients in 46 countries. With roots in engineering consulting, it helps industrial businesses and municipalities maximise their return on asset investments to support highly functional and reliable operations.
“Pragma’s On Key enterprise asset management software enables the end-to-end management of a client’s maintenance processes and resource allocation. Resources, including third party contractors, are tightly managed removing the risk of work falling behind, jobs completed poorly, or work dragging out due to unprepared or poorly skilled teams not being able to complete the work they are tasked with. An added benefit for contractors is that work is allocated to the most suitable contractor closest to the job, ensuring that contractors can quickly respond to complete the job and conclude administrative processes in On Key to get sign-off and submit their invoices. This saves time and costs,” says Kgosana.
Pragma’s network of contractors is located across the country. A stringent accreditation process ensures that contractors with the right set of skills are identified and trained to ensure legislative compliance is intact. Aspects such as hourly rates, the time required to perform a job, and best practices are agreed with the client and contractors and set up in On Key. Spare parts are also specified to ensure that the right spares are used to prevent re-work due to poor quality. The requirement for rework is tightly monitored and where an anomaly is detected due to a contractor’s neglect, appropriate actions are taken. By doing the job properly once, the need to revisit sites is eliminated, saving both time, fuel and costs.
“With this approach, Pragma administers the efficient and quick distribution of work to smaller contractors. Instead of a big behemoth making money out of government, a lot of maintenance work is outsourced to smaller businesses, ensuring much-needed business for smaller contractors. Our approach has been shown to create significant job opportunities for regional SMEs, thereby contributing to economic growth,” says Kgosana.
Positive outcomes
A number of municipalities as well as public private partnerships in the healthcare sector have seen positive results from using Pragma’s services.
“We are the technology partner for Tsebo on facilities management at Albert Luthuli Hospital in KZN for instance, which is one of the best-run public hospitals in the country and showcases the potential for broader application.”
With Pragma’s active engagement, the Electrical Support Services department of a large metro measured a 2500% increase in operational output, with accurate asset data driving improved decision-making and reporting. Centralised communication streamlined scheduling, job tracking, and bottleneck identification, while standardised work planning enhanced control. At the refuge management side of a metro, an improvement on the management of their fleet’s tyres saved them R10m per annum, while a 90% reduction was achieved in overdue vehicle services for the solid waste department.
Pragma’s On Key offering focuses on:
• Intelligent asset register: Creates a detailed asset register with scalable maintenance plans.
• Work management: Streamlines operational processes to ensure timely maintenance and repairs.
• Supplier material management: Manages suppliers, spares and spending to enhance service delivery and efficiency.
“If the same commitment to planned maintenance that we eventually saw in electricity can be implemented by water management, building management sector and other utility management sectors, the impact on our country will be immense.
“I invite industry stakeholders, government officials, and potential partners to join us in revitalising our nation’s infrastructure. Together, we can forge a path toward sustainable growth and re-store confidence in South Africa’s capabilities,” concludes Kgosana.
About Pragma
Established in 1990, Pragma is an engineering services company that delivers enterprise asset management solutions geared for Industry 4.0. It provides smart asset management solutions, specialised management practices, and supporting software applications to a diverse asset-intensive client base in the mining, manufacturing, public infrastructure, retail, and corporate facilities, renewables, and oil and gas sectors to perform at their peak while balancing asset performance, cost, and risk.
Pragma’s offering is a scalable blend of services – from consulting and business process outsourcing to condition monitoring and training.
Headquartered in South Africa, Pragma has a global footprint with regional offices and representation in Europe and Mexico. Partnerships with various companies worldwide take services into many more territories.
www.pragmaworld.net
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Liza Schroeder
Email: liza.schroeder@pragmaworld.net
Work Phone: +27 21 943 3900
Mobile Phone: +27 79 522 8903
