Joint collaboration to grow the South African automotive industry
About the initiative
Established in 2013, ASCCI is a collaborative initiative between suppliers, OEMs, government and labour with the objectives of increasing supplier competitiveness and growing local content in the South African automotive industry.
Results
Supplier 1: reduced changeover times by 41% in a primary plant and 25% in a secondary plant
Supplier 2: reduced manufacturing overhead costs by 6% of sales
Supplier 3: achieved a 20% volume increase with the same resources
Executive summary
ASCCI’s range of programmes focus on upgrading supplier competitiveness, building higher levels of local content, and developing insights into policy and regulatory issues that influence industry growth and competitiveness. Its WCM programme is supporting competitiveness upgrading at 37 automotive component suppliers, with this number set to grow significantly.
Challenges
By global standards, the South African automotive industry is a small one. This places a particular burden on local producers as they compete against suppliers in dominant automotive economies. Constantly advancing competitiveness is an ongoing challenge that firms must commit to as they look to sustain and grow their businesses.
How the initiative helped
To date, ASCCI’s projects have: helped firms to bolster their competitiveness, developed business cases to localise specific components, and developed insights into successful automotive policy in competing countries.
Results and future plans
ASCCI is a new initiative. It represents the first in respect of such broad and deep collaboration in developing a successful and sustainable automotive industry. Its initial activities have begun to yield positive results. Going forward the objective is to expand the organisations reach and impact to meet its objectives of increasing industry competitiveness and advancing localisation.