Established over 100 years ago, the Safal Group is a major manufacturer of coated steel roofing in Eastern Africa. Their investments span throughout the central, eastern and southern parts of the continent including the Mabati Rolling Mills in Kenya and ALAF in Tanzania. According to the company’s website, Safal is well-known for its “world-class processes” and “conformance to environmental standards.” The Group produces various allied building products such as steel tubing, cold formed sections, and provides value added solutions such as cut and bend of reinforcing steel, and the design and supply of light-weight steel frame buildings.

In 2008, the company received the Durban Mayor Award for its approach to environmental issues and investment in the community. Its website states: “The Group plays a big role in uplifting standards of communities within which the individual companies operate, and continues to provide leadership, resources and the training necessary to create an environment in which every stakeholder and member can contribute to the growth and success of their community.”

New beginnings
Keeping in line with the Group’s growth strategy, Safal made the decision to establish a new company called Safal Steel in 2006. Chris O’Neill joined the Group as COO of Safal Steel, with the launch of the project. “The opportunity to come and build a plant really appealed to me,” says O’Neill, who previously worked in the automotive industry. “I have built a few automotive plants in the past, which I enjoyed and was ready for a new challenge,” he adds.

Safal Steel manufactures metal coated steel coils, which are supplied to both the local and global markets. The coils are produced in a variety of thickness, width and sizes and can be supplied either painted or unpainted. “We manufacture steel coils in a variety of configurations,” says O’Neill. “There are two main categories of coils that we produce. We use an aluminium zinc formulation to create a metal coated coil and then we essentially take that same product and apply a paint coating to it.”

Safal Steel purchases hot roll coils from a variety of the Safal Groups current global suppliers. The HRC coils are firstly cleaned through a fully automated picking line and acid regeneration plan to remove any oxidisation. The cleaned coils are then cold rolled to a variety of gauges ranging from 0.2mm to 1.2mm. The coils are then cleaned again before they are coated with an alloy of aluminium and zinc in the metal coating process.

The final process line involves the painting of the coils ,should this be required. The paint line has been manufactured to ‘white goods’ standard and also has the ability to paint a different colour on each side of the steel strip.


An investor of people
Safal Steel is a keen investor in its 320-strong workforce, offering various forms of training to help its employees develop. “We went through a very comprehensive recruitment process to find the right calibre individuals and from there we have put the training and development into our chosen candidates,” says O’Neill. “This training could be formalised education, where employees are encouraged to go and study to become engineers, right down to doing height safety training.” O’Neill explains that it is a requirement that anyone who works above two metres in height is sent on a specific height safety training and crane operative course. “This type of training is happening all day long and with many people involved,” he says.

The company also offers on-the-job training since many of its employees are either recent graduates from university or were previously doing much lower level work. “We have brought in certain skills from overseas and within the Safal Group. We do a ‘buddy-buddy’ type system so that when one of our trainees operates a machine or process, he has a ‘big brother’ to help and guide him.”

Manufacturing operations
Safal Steel, which is based in Cato Ridge, was built completely from nothing. “Once the investment was made, we started the whole project managing process, and then built the factory and the manufacturing processes,” explains O’Neill. The project is divided up over two phases. “The facility we have now is essentially phase one, which will put in the capacity of 150,000 tonnes. The second phase will be another 150,000 tonnes and this will happen in a two or three year time frame.”

The facility’s manufacturing operations include a new state-of-the-art metal-coating facility, incorporating a picking line, cold reducing rolling mill, an aluminium zinc coating line and a colour coating line. There are a number of other support lines and services that are being installed including an acid regeneration plant, a rewind and trim line and a nitrogen generation plant. “Safal Steel entered the market in July of this year when it started manufacturing in very small amounts,” says O’Neill. The company has been building up their order books ever since.

O’Neill explains that one of the issues that Safal Steel is currently facing is tracking where the general levels of demand for its services are. “The market in South Africa is depressed,” he says. “We have a case of the post World Cup soccer blues. Essentially what happened from about the August period is expenditure has been kept right down to a minimum by many of our customers.” O’Neill is positive about the future. “This downturn is essentially a short-term thing,” he says. “The general consensus is that from the first quarter of next year, it should actually pick up quite a lot.”

The new plant has specific technology items that allows the company to manufacture very high-tech products and O’Neill believes that this is one of Safal Steel’s competitive advantages. “It is very important that we have the right level of technology,” he says.

For example, the company runs AZ technology for its metal coating process, which is recognised as the best on the global market. O’Neill is confident that the company will eventually emerge as the preferred coil supplier in the country. He says: “We are never going to be the biggest supplier in the country but we definitely will be the leader in terms of product technology, service rates and customer relations. We have absolutely no doubt on that point.”