Over the past 12 years Zest WEG, the South African subsidiary of Brazilian motor and controls manufacturer WEG, has evolved from being primarily a sales and distribution company to a fully-fledged manufacturer working to the best global standards.

In 2010 WEG acquired a majority shareholding in Zest, which was the WEG distributor in South Africa. While Zest had some manufacturing capability, its focus was on distributing WEG’s range in the sub-Saharan market. Once WEG assumed control, the decision was taken to progressively expand the company’s local manufacturing capability.

WEG, founded in 1961, is a truly global manufacturer with factories on all five continents and manufactures in 12 countries outside of Brazil with the plants in these countries accounting for almost 50 % of WEG’s production. Manufacturing is in WEG’s DNA and is now part of the DNA of the South African operation. Currently Zest WEG’s manufacturing sites in South Africa are able to produce a wide range of equipment with varying levels of local content – more than 90 % in the case of transformers and close to 70% for panels and E-Houses.

In Gauteng Zest WEG has two transformer manufacturing facilities. One is in Wadeville and the other in Heidelberg. These facilities were acquired when the company bought out two local manufacturers in 2013 and in 2015. As a result, Zest WEG now has the capability to locally manufacture transformers up to 45 MVA capacity.

Zest WEG has upgraded and extended the facilities, which are now equipped with state-of-the-art equipment including an impulse voltage generator at the Heidelberg factory which allows the in-house testing of transformers.

Also in Gauteng, Zest WEG – through its automation division  – produces a wide range of electrical panels in Robertsham and E-Houses and electrical enclosures in Heidelberg.

In Cape Town, the company has a genset factory and a panel manufacturing facility. The genset site is dedicated to producing custom-engineered gensets and is complemented by an assembly line at Zest WEG’s headquarters in Longlake, Johannesburg, which assembles boxed gensets and gear motors.

Zest WEG has put a huge effort into building up a network of local suppliers, who contribute to the manufacturing process.  This is not merely to meet government-mandated targets on local procurement but is something that WEG has always done. The company started up in the early 60s in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina which was then very undeveloped so it really had no choice but to develop local suppliers. The process worked extremely well and is now standard throughout its global operations.

While Zest WEG’s manufacturing drive has been highly successful, it has not been without its challenges. WEG is a very aggressive company when it comes to manufacturing and is very focused on efficiency and productivity and it was by no means easy to translate this WEG culture to the South African manufacturing operations. Nevertheless, the parent company’s efforts have been rewarded and the South African plants now perform as well as those anywhere else in the global WEG group and work to the exact same quality standards.

The benefits of local manufacture include helping to control costs, allowing the customisation of products and giving Zest WEG the ability to adapt much faster to changing specifications and regulations. Most of all, however, it gives the company a significant advantage in supplying the key African market. South Africa is the gateway to much of the continent and it’s a strategic imperative for WEG to have a strong manufacturing and supply hub serving the African region.