Vibrating screen OEM, Kwatani, has been named a finalist in the SACEEC Exporter of the Year Awards recently held in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Kwatani, one of few local manufacturers that holds an ISO 9001:2015 quality certification as well as a Level 1 B-BBEE rating, it says, placed in the Exporter of the Year Large category and came second in the Export of the Year Africa category.

The company said: “As one of South Africa’s leading vibrating screen OEMs, Kwatani understands the major role that local manufacturing has to play in the country. In addition, and of enormous advantage to mining operations in Africa, the company is the only South African vibrating equipment OEM independent of international technology and employs a far higher percentage of engineering personnel than others in this sector.”

Kim Schoepflin, CEO of Kwatani, said while recent amendments to the South Africa Mining Charter place even greater emphasis on the local manufacturing of mining equipment and products, it is vital to meaningfully measure exactly what ‘local content’ means in the mining environment.

“We can proudly say that Kwatani’s screening machines are locally manufactured,” Schoepflin said. “Our equipment is designed in our own in-house facility by our competent engineers and then built under stringent quality control conditions in our Spartan plant. This allows us to contribute significantly to job creation and economic transformation.”

She said Kwatani’s long history of manufacturing locally has brought many benefits to mining customers. The company has a legacy of more than 43 years and can reference fit-for-purpose screening machines installed across a wide spread of commodity sectors including coal, iron ore and other heavy metals.

“A key benefit of being a fully local OEM is that we can control quality,” she said. “With our suppliers close by, this facilitates close collaboration, quick turnaround and integration into our quality systems.”