The Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa) on Thursday crowned HC Heat Exchangers as the Most Innovative Company of the Year at its Awards for Excellence ceremony.

The judges were impressed by the improvement of HC’s offering that sees it use its expertise to afford clients an opportunity to replace existing equipment that had an insufficient lifecycle.

“Through designing and supplying this solution, the company moved away from being one of the many suppliers offering a commercial product to being a partner supplier and offering a complete solution to customers,” the judges stated.

Pamodzi Unique Engineering won the Most Transformed Company of the Year award, while other winners were Babcock International for environmental stewardship and Vesco Plastics for customer service of the year.

“Pamodzi is praised for having embraced transformation fully by not only focusing on just the ownership aspect of the broad-based black economic empowerment codes, but also making significant progress in the employment equity, as well as the enterprise and supplier development elements.

“This saw Pamodzi moving from level six on the scorecard in 2014 to level two in 2017. The judges were also impressed by the work the company has done to entrench its company culture, which is centred around a ‘togetherness’ theme,” said Seifsa.

Seifsa commented that Babcock’s victory followed the company’s initiative to protect, control and conserve water. This included the company’s monthly monitoring of its own water use, its use of water meters at its different sites, as well as its recycling and re-use of its own water.

These initiatives, among others, resulted in a saving of about 5 000 ℓ of water.

To win the Health and Safety award, Howden demonstrated a multifaceted approach to risk management by implementing several programmes to positively influence the safety culture within the organisation.

SNC Lavalin won the Artisan Development of the Year award and Schneider Electric won for best corporate social responsibility. Seifsa noted that Schneider won on the back of its Isiboniso programme, which entailed upgrades to classrooms and a donation of a solar energy-lit street for a primary school in Orange Farm.

Former Cape Engineers and Founders Association executive director Colin Boyes won the CEO Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Industry, while Koketso Lekganyane received the Student of the Year award.

Further, KSB Pumps and Valves was named company of the year for its support of Seifsa, while the Constructional Engineering Association got the nod for being the association of the year.