Genrec Engineering, a division of Murray and Roberts, took top honours as it walked away with not only the Artisan of the Year Award, but also the Health and Safety Award of the Year.
South Africa’s largest manufacturer of secondary aluminium products, Zimco Aluminium Company, was declared the winner in the Most Innovative Company of the Year category, while Grohe Dawn Watertech scooped the Best Customer Service Award of the Year.
The Most Transformed Company of the Year Award went to the Scaw Metals Group, while the Environmental Stewardship Award was scooped by Steloy Castings.
Owing to the limited number of entries received for the Best Corporate Social Responsibility Programme of the Year Award, the judges took a unanimous decision not to have a winner for this category.
SEIFSA CEO Kaizer Nyatsumba presented the coveted CEO’s Awards. Former SEIFSA Presidents Mr Henk Duys and Mr Ufikile Khumalo jointly received the Outstanding Service to SEIFSA Award, while the Association of the Year Award went to South African Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Contractors’ Association. Voith Turbo was declared winner of the Company of the Year Award.
Mr Nyatsumba said the metals and engineering sector was faced with several challenges, including the prevalence of cheap imports from Asia, the lack of competitiveness in local manufacturing and policy uncertainty.
“In such turbulent economic times and a challenging business environment, we believe that it is critically important for those companies which excel at what they do to get the acknowledgement and recognition they deserve,” he stated.
He further commended all the companies that had entered the awards and congratulated the winners in the respective categories.
“I would like to encourage these companies to continue to work hard towards excelling and providing the sector with examples of excellence. This will inspire other companies to improve their operations so that they can be afforded the opportunity to win at future SEIFSA awards,” he concluded.