Together, or not at all, towards electric elephant in room

It is common — perhaps even fashionable — for South Africans to scoff at the notion of a fourth industrial revolution here, especially when we face intractable problems such as service delivery, fractured infrastructure and the world’s most unequal society.

It is easy enough to fall into this mindset when we are bedevilled by power failures, business confidence is in the doldrums, living costs are spiking and our commutes feature potholes and broken traffic lights. Always there are the destitute and jobless, hoping against hope for something better.

Pessimism and scepticism are seductive, and nobody denies that SA has a long way to go in meeting its potential. But I am greatly encouraged by the project that has consumed my waking hours for the past 36 months, along with those of thousands of my colleagues.

Last February we announced an investment of R15.8bn in our SA manufacturing operations, the biggest in Ford’s 97-year history in SA. Since then we have lived and breathed a juggernaut of sparks, power tools and floorjuddering construction.

It is an enormous undertaking that has transformed facilities at Silverton in Pretoria and Struandale in Gqeberha specifically, increasing our annual installed production capacity to 200,000 units and supporting production of the next-generation Ford Ranger pickup for the domestic market and export.

It has allowed us to create 1,200 incremental Ford jobs in SA, increasing our local workforce to 5,500 employees and adding about 10,000 new jobs across our local supplier network, boosting the total to 60,000.

It will boost the foreign exchange Ford earns for SA, and our contribution to GDP.

A snapshot of the scale of the project: we have added nearly 8km² to our facilities, including 58,000m² of earthworks, 31,400 tonnes of structural steel, nearly 7,000m² of concrete and 6km of sprinkler lines.

I could surely be forgiven for not predicting all of this when I started working at Ford as a trainee in the Silverton Paint Shop in 1991, more than three decades ago. But overseeing SA’s biggest infrastructure investment in two decades while managing an enormous manufacturing and export operation in the aftermath of a pandemic has a way of focusing the mind.

I believe the expansion of Ford’s Silverton plant and a newly constructed 100,000m² frame-line in the Tshwane Automotive Special Economic Zone (SEZ) offers a glimpse of an industrialised future for

Africa, beyond our current challenges. The overarching conclusion is that we will get through this together or not at all. “This” refers to any major undertaking, like expanding an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) facility, or something bigger like removing SA from its ignominious position as the world’s most unequal country.

Many brands talk about people being at the centre of their operations, and many even believe that. But people cannot achieve much without two more Ps: partnerships and purpose.

Sound glib? Hear me out: we humans can get by putting self-interest first. You can subscribe to the ethos of “rugged individualism” without necessarily dooming yourself to failure or spiralling into

Lord of the Flies anarchy. But fundamental change demands collective effort, a pooling of ingenuity and strengths, and setting aside individual agendas.

December 1 — a couple of months from now — marks 109 years since Henry Ford installed the first assembly line for the mass production of motor vehicles. It cut more than 10 hours off the time required to build one, from 12 hours to just longer than one-and-a-half. Could he have achieved it on his own? Of course not. It demanded unity of purpose. And it changed the world.

The continued expansion of Ford’s operations in SA is because of our personnel: they understand they are part of something important, that the vehicles they are building today are destined for real, living, breathing customers tomorrow.

Ultimately it is a partnership that extends beyond our employees to everyone in our supply chain and dealer network and our customers, with whom we aim to build a lifelong relationship.

Our people also understand we have a crucial role to play in growing SA’s economy — already the most advanced, diverse, and industrialised economy on the continent. We are not just building vehicles here. We have an opportunity to help create a prosperous nation.

That understanding is also evident in our partnerships with the three spheres of government and relevant stateowned entities such as Transnet, in developing the Gauteng-Eastern Cape highcapacity rail freight corridor.

It will link the Silverton assembly plant and the new Tshwane SEZ, located adjacent to our Silverton plant, with the Struandale engine plant and the Coega SEZ, our global import and export markets, and increase the efficiency of the automotive logistics value chain.

It is also why we support the full extension of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which holds the potential for Africa to develop as a major automotive OEM force. It points the way to meeting the challenge and opportunity of our export markets shifting away from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles; the electric elephant in the room.

Ford Motor Company of Southern Africa is closing in on its centenary, having started assembling Model T Fords in a converted wool shed in Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha) in 1923. We’ve come a long way from those jumpy, scratchy, silent images of the little Model Ts bouncing out of the modest plant.

But, just as Henry Ford’s moving assembly line revolutionised the world by democratising access to vehicles, so automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and big data will empower humans

— and the co-operation that drives ingenuity and capacity for innovation.

That enables us to prepare for and capitalise on the greatest stride in automotive evolution in 100 years — the leap from internal combustion to electric vehicles.

Robotics, AI and big data will not replace humans. But managed properly they turboboost our capacity to unleash socioeconomic development and expansion that enables new opportunities for progress, livelihoods, dignity and a greener, more equitable world.

It might even mean we are in something akin to a fourth industrial revolution.

WE HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO HELP CREATE A PROSPEROUS NATION