The recently introduced Invicta 8-bolt BL78 frame is one of many innovations developed in response to local market demands in the wake of the 2008 appointment of Zest Electric Motors, part of the Zest WEG Group, as the African distributor of Invicta vibrator motors.
Invicta Vibrators are specialists in the design and manufacture of electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic vibrator motors for the material handling and processing industries. The Invicta range of vibrators includes both rotary and reciprocating designs, are used in the transport and movement of all types of bulk materials.
Tapping into the combined strengths of both companies, Zest WEG Group has also developed a vibrator motor specifically for Sasol that has since become a stock item for the petrochemical company.
“Zest WEG Group is a company fully focused on the needs of the African market, primarily in the mining sector,” Gary Daines, Zest WEG Group’s sales and marketing director, says. “Over the past few years we’ve grown exponentially year on year, both in South Africa and in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia.
“Our relationship with Invicta has contributed in no small part to this growth. There’s tremendous synergy between our two companies, particularly in terms of the type of customers we serve, and the Invicta distributorship has successfully extended our market offering with a range of complementary world class products.
“We’re enjoying an excellent uptake of Invicta vibrator motors and have established a large stockholding to support these customers across our branch network of seven outlets. We actively pursue a culture of supporting the products throughout their lifecycle in the field, which keeps us in regular contact with our end users and ensures the motors are maintained correctly to obtain optimum performance and life.
“Training is a key factor and is facilitated through our in-house training facility, able to accommodate 32 people at a time, which is active five days a week under the management of a dedicated training officer. Our own personnel also receive in-depth training to ensure appropriate support for Invicta customers. In addition, we run product training from key centres in other parts of South Africa, bringing it as close as possible to end user operations.
“We’ve enjoyed such an enthusiastic response to our Invicta product training that the programme we developed has been duplicated in other areas of the world market.”
Recent visit
During a recent visit to Zest WEG Group, Sam Pask, commercial director, and Anthony Bailey, managing director of Grantham Engineering in the United Kingdom, of which Invicta Vibrators is a division, concurred that the business cultures of the two companies are extremely similar.
Bailey took over as managing director after Colin Pask stepped down from this position in September 2011 to concentrate on his role as company chairman. Bailey has more than 30 years’ experience with Invicta vibrator motors and took on his new role after serving as the company’s financial director.
In 2011 the factory also celebrated its 65th anniversary, ushering Invicta Vibrators into the third generation of this family business. Bailey comments that this continuity underlies the company’s commitment to stability and the transition of experience in a specialist industry.
“In addition to high levels of synergy with market segments, Zest WEG Group shares Invicta’s ideals on customer service, stockholdings and after sales service,” says Bailey. “Since being appointed our African distributor, Zest WEG Group has bought into our core philosophies performed phenomenally, taking vibrator motors to a whole new level in this region.”
He comments that based on its commitment to investing in design and manufacturing technology, the Invicta factory is poised for expansion to increase capacity. A significant investment has been made into a new Mazak CNC vertical machining centre that now operates on a 24/7 basis to increase production output and maintain optimum product quality and the factory has also updated existing machinery and implemented a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to maintain good control of quality and costs.
“Today we are one of the longest-standing manufacturers of premium quality vibrator motors in the world market,” says Bailey. “We will continue to focus on R&D driven by market feedback and here the African market has made an important contribution to the direction of several of our designs.
“We want to develop the kind of product range that satisfies specific OEM requirements and we put a lot of effort into keeping the communication channels open with our distributors and affording them access to our support network. Another objective is to tackle new markets around the world, wherever there is a requirement from end users. In our case, these are predominantly the OEMs.”
Major clients
Zest WEG Group includes among its major customers BHP Billiton, Sasol, AngloGold Ashanti, Xstrata and Vale and has commenced a variety of projects implemented by these mining companies.
On Brazilian mining giant Vale’s Moatize project in the Tete coalfields of Mozambique, Zest WEG Group supplied all the vibrator motors for centrifuges as part of a total solution. Daines says the logistics associated with supplying this equipment to a remote project site, characterised by harsh conditions, was challenging and he is proud of the Zest WEG Group team who delivered the order on time. In developing the vibrator motors, Zest WEG Group worked closely with the OEM that manufactured the centrifuges.
In South Africa, Zest WEG Group has come up with a supply solution for Petra Diamonds’ Cullinan mine that draws from the combined technical expertise of Zest WEG Group and Invicta. When this team was called in, existing vibrator motors in the plant were damaging other equipment, owing to recent capacity increases. The Zest WEG/Invicta team successfully worked with Cullinan to develop an upgrade solution that suited the greater demand for capacity.
