A team of engineers from Transnet’s Rail Engineering division visited a number of CSIR laboratories recently on a fact-finding mission. The aim of the visit, according to Ntombi Twala, Transnet product development, was to see if they could tap into CSIR expertise as her organisation embarks on its expansion path. “We are here to see what the CSIR can offer in our specific areas,” explained Twala.
Transnet Rail Engineering is a leading South African supplier to the railway industry through the manufacture, upgrade and refurbishing of rolling stock and rail-related products.
The Transnet team visited the CSIR National Laser Centre; CSIR Materials Science and Manufacturing as well as the National Centre for Nano Structured Materials; and the mobile intelligent autonomous systems group at CSIR Modelling and Digital Science.
“With a memorandum of understanding (MoU) being put in place between the CSIR and Transnet at organisational level, we need to identify operational programmes in line with the MoU,” said Twala. “Transnet Rail Engineering is looking into bolstering the four strategic pillars of its operations, namely infrastructure; rolling stock; operations; and strategic support.
However, she said, Transnet Rail Engineering’s main interest lies in electronics because it wants to be a developer of electronic power systems. “Another area of interest is foundry,” she added, “and we are also looking into materials and manufacturing.”h a memorandum of understanding (MoU) being put in place between the CSIR and Transnet at organisational level, we need to identify operational programmes in line with the MoU,” said Twala. “Transnet Rail Engineering is looking into bolstering the four strategic pillars of its operations, namely infrastructure; rolling stock; operations; and strategic support.
“Essentially, the visit is about creating synergy,” she said. “For Transnet Rail Engineering to increase our efficiency, we need to grow our engineering capability to meet demands.”
Twala added that the MoU between her organisation and the CSIR would be beneficial to in training of Transnet engineers.
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Andries Wilken, product engineer at Transnet Rail Engineering, said the group enjoyed the laboratory visits and that it will be helpful in crafting the way forward.
“Our long-term strategy, he added,” is to focus on renewable energy while in the short term we have identified light materials as one of our big projects in the next five years,” he said.
Berenice Lue Marais, head of the CSIR delegation and Strategic Alliances manager, said, “We are fostering technical collaboration to bringing about projects to give content to this strategic partnership.”
Berenice continued: “We hope that this opportunity will open doors for building the relationship at technological level with Transnet Rail Engineering”.
She also revealed that following the visit to the CSIR, technical discussions have already taken place between Transnet and the CSIR with the aim of identifying specific projects for collaboration.
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