There are only 15 000 engineers in South Africa for a population of 45 million - a figure which is 10 times below the world norm.
This is according to Mdu Nene, managing director of Pragma Africa. He reports that most engineers are white and close to retirement age and this threatens to leave a vast skills gap.
"Only 1.5% of Grade 12 learners pass matric with maths and science of a high enough standard to do engineering," states Nene.
"Currently the impact of this reality is hardest felt in the public sector, but the private sector could also be facing a serious skills shortage within a few years."
Without competitive manufacturing and mining sectors, along with well maintained infrastructure assets such as telecommunications, electricity, water, road and rail networks, South Africa will not be able to deliver on the government mandate of `a better life for all`, he argues.
And he goes on to say that maintenance cuts to the core of competitiveness, but unfortunately the discipline is often still considered as a `necessary evil` rather than an integral part of the overall business process.
"The maintenance budget still tends to be the first thing to get cut when money gets tight," Nene points out.
Regarding the latest developments in the maintenance industry, he says that there have been two trends in business over the past decade.
Outsourcing continues to increase in popularity as companies are more willing to look outside the organisation to procure certain activities, realising that more value can be generated this way, and that it frees them up to concentrate on their core business.
Secondly, services as opposed to physical products continue to command an ever-growing slice of the GDP pie.
"Pragma Africa, a services business, has a full range of service offerings aimed at the mining industry ranging from the traditional asset management consulting and training through to complete outsourced asset management solutions, best portrayed by our Asset Care Centre (ACC) model," Nene details.
"Through the ACC service, Pragma Africa will take full ownership of the maintenance management function."
The company supplies well-trained and experienced personnel to fulfil the required onsite activity, which is focused on providing accurate data and real time management information that enables effective decision-making.
Nene says this empowers the client to close the gap between actual and desired asset performance.
He adds the potential for savings from proper management of capital assets is immense, and these savings go straight to the bottom line.
"Capital assets require management throughout their life cycles," Nene explains.
"The lifecycle starts with the acquisition stage, goes through the operation stage and ends when the asset is disposed of."
The value generated by an asset is the difference between the benefits and costs associated with the asset across all lifecycle stages.
Typical benefits include revenue generation, expense reduction, regulatory compliance, more efficient processes and better operation of the assets; while costs include wastage, regulatory violations, customer dissatisfaction, limitations on process performance and limitations on the performance of other assets, states Nene.
He points out that the longest stage of the lifecycle is the operational stage, and during this stage the asset should recoup the investment made to acquire it, the cost of operation and maintenance, and the eventual disposal cost.
On top of this it should turn profit for the asset owner and achieving this requires an optimum maintenance mix consisting of an appropriate combination on preventive maintenance, condition-based maintenance and run to run to failure tactics that will optimise the cost/risk trade-off.
"These maintenance tasks should be executed not only efficiently, but also effectively," Nene says.
And he argues that specialist maintenance companies such as Pragma Africa are better positioned than a company`s maintenance department to focus on doing the right jobs, and have the resources to do the job properly.
He also puts forward that often companies have inappropriate spares levels that either tie up capital and eventually end up as redundant stock, or cause the organisation to run considerable risks due to the unavailability of spares.
During operations, meticulous measurement of performance is required so that benchmarks can be set and the root causes of performance failure can be identified, Nene adds.
"I believe that outsourcing will be an even bigger part of mining maintenance into the future," states Nene.
Pragma Africa has developed a comprehensive best practices framework called the Asset Management Improvement Plan (AMiP), which is designed to grow the asset management maturity of the mine, and is the sum total of its experience within the industry.
Nene reports that it considers 15 key performance areas (KPAs) including strategy development, performance measures, continuous improvement, work planning and control, and maintenance tactics.
"An AMiP intervention usually begins with a benchmark assessment, where each of the KPAs are ranked on a five-step scale ranging from firefighting through to excellence," Nene explicates.
"We measure both the enabling best practices and the resulting key performance indicators, and along with the client we then define the target levels and develop an improvement action plan."
Because of the aforementioned skills crisis our country is facing, Nene reports that companies have had to take initiative to train their own technical people.
Pragma Africa offers a number of asset management related training courses that are designed to foster in-house asset management excellence, are presented by experienced asset management practitioners, and are built around the time constraints of the client.
In September 2005 Pragma Africa concluded a five-year search for the best possible BEE partner, and selected Nokusa Investments, which acquired a 30% share in the business.
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