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Drivingforce The Country’s
Jane Bordenave talks to COO of Busmark 2000, Hermann Staude, about how his company has become the leading provider of buses in South Africa
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Busmark 2000 FEATURE
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aving started as a small school bus manufacturer in 1974, Busmark 2000 has grown to become one of the leading creators of communal transport in Africa. The company has experienced three stages of growth over the past 36 years, from its initial maximum production capacity of eight buses it grew o to 20 per month in 1989, increasing again in 2000 to its current monthly output of up to 90 busses. Over this period, the company has diversified its operations and now produces vehicles for municipalities and private companies as well as schools. The diversification that took place over the
past 10 years was enabled by splitting the company into three segments, as Hermann Staude, the company’s Chief Operating Officer explains, “originally, we were a custom-build business, as was standard for the market at the time. This was largely the reason for our low output. However, in 2000 we split our operations into custom, semicustom and modular products. When we did this, we became the first South African bus manufacturer to introduce such a unique production line system and this in itself drove our market share and was the catalyst for the company’s recent phenomenal growth.” In fact, the growth brought about through this www.southafricamag.com
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Busmark 2000 FEATURE
diversification has led Busmark 2000 to the position of being the single largest supplier of buses in South Africa, with a market share of 37%. Additionally, the company sells into most of the countries in southern Africa, and is now also the largest provider in Mozambique. The firm’s range of vehicles is very varied and due to its diverse manufacturing capabilities, it attracts many different kinds of client. One of the sectors that benefits most from the semi-custom production facilities is the mining industry, “these companies want a modular product, in that they want something that is easy to keep on the road, find spare parts for and so on,” explains Mr Staude, “but there’s a lot of customisation that needs to be done to enable the bus to deal with
conditions at the mine – a stock standard city bus wont work in the extreme environment you find there.” Totally custom buses are normally provided to two sectors, the safari industry and special services industry such as mobile libraries. With the safari industry, the needs of each tour operator are different, as they themselves are offering different products from each other and operating in different areas. Thus, they present contrasting specifications, which the company needs to respond to on an individual basis. Library buses travel long distances, visiting villages that do not have their own municipal library or even electric power. These vehicles carry their own on board power generator, computers and toilet, as well as books, offering the citizens of each town the chance to exchange
We are very proud of the structure of all our vehicles, whether they are custom built or fully assembled books and use pubic computers, even though there is not a permanent facility available. Other than the company’s diverse range of product possibilities and high production run numbers, one of the things that makes it so attractive to customers is the safety of the buses it produces. Due to the nature of South African geography, outside of urban centres the quality of the roads connecting villages, towns and cities can be less than ideal. Sadly, this has lead to a number of incidents where buses have crashed or rolled over, injuring or killing its occupants. For Busmark 2000, it is of utmost importance to ensure that if one of their vehicles is involved in a crash then the passengers inside will be safe, “we have a substantial research and development department, where we do a lot of in house testing on the structural integrity of 4
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TRIDENT STERLING TUBE Trident Steel is an AVENG group company with our main operations centrally situated in Roodekop, Germiston and other facilities in Alrode, Durban, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. We supply a wide product range to the steel industry in South Africa as well as internationally from our extensive steel yards, modern and comprehensive steel processing and steel service centers, specialty steel division and tube manufacturing plant. We offer our customers a quality product, delivered on time at a competitive price. Our growth is guaranteed by the contribution we make to the success of our customers. www.trident.co.za Graham MacDonald Field Sales Manager +27 83 229 7278 / +27 11 908 1806 Fax 011 864 3093 Graham.Macdonald@trident.co.za
Busmark 2000 FEATURE
city of Cape Town’s new public transport system. Having seen chassisless buses in operation in Europe, the city planners approached the company to Specialising in labour hire build a fleet for them – a project that had never been undertaken in South Africa before. To overcome the problem PROVIDING LABOUR HIRE TO of inexperience in this particular field, • Mining sector • Metal industry the firm entered into a partnership with • Petrochemical industry • Engineering industry Optare, a UK-based company that was • Plastics and chemical • Motor industry amongst the first to develop this style • Building and construction • Road and freight industry of vehicle, “this is a very unique design, • Warehousing • Scaffolding and there is no sense in us setting out to reinvent the wheel,” says Mr Staude, • Tel: (011) 907 0390 • Fax: 0866 875 488 “so working with Optare on this project • E-mail: wayne@tymes.co.za www.tymes.co.za was the obvious solution.” The first bus for the scheme has been produced at the buses,” says Mr Staude, “we are very proud Optare’s English plant, to be shipped over to of the structure of all our vehicles, whether Busmark 2000 as a prototype for CKD assembly they are custom built or fully assembled. We development. The companies are now working go over and above the legal requirements together to enable more localised production in regarding vehicle safety and have a structure South Africa. that has been proven to save lives: Our buses So what new developments are in store for have been involved in a number of extreme Busmark 2000? “There is the possibility to rollover events – much more damaging than move into Compressed Natural Gas Buses, legal requirements – and in every one there especially in Mozambique as it is a plentiful were no fatalities at all, whereas often such resource in that country, but some South accidents can resulting African cities are in 20 or even 50 people also looking into dead.” As a result of it,” says Mr Staude, this highly impressive “over the next five safety record, the years, because of company has acquired the rising demand a new contract for city busses, supplying buses to we believe our Kenya, where there production-line plant were over 700 fatalities in the last two years as a will double in size, as will our custom plant, result of bus crashes. while the semi-custom side of our business Despite the fact that Busmark 2000 has will probably shrink. We are also working to an impressive range of products already on become a public company in five years time.” offer, one of the main challenges it faces is the It is clear that the bus building business in rapidly changing face of what its customers are South Africa is still a growth market and that, looking for. These changing demands don’t just having manoeuvred itself to the front of the cover small tweaks to existing bus designs, but field in terms of quality, safety and production wholesale redevelopment of what a bus is and capabilities, Busmark 2000 is the company to what it can do. One example of such event is the lead this market into the future. END © Creamer Media 280510CG
T S Tymes Labour Solutions L
Over the next five years we believe our production-line plant will double in size
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13 Foden Str Aureus P.O.Box 568 Randfontein 1760 South Africa Cell: +2782 823 3741 Fax: +2711 412 3122 Email: danie@busmark.co.za
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