Ispat Iscor, South Africa’s leading steel producer, said on Tuesday it will need to take several performance-related measures within the next three years to meet the challenges of the global steel industry.
Chief executive Louis van Niekerk said that while the steel industry is currently enjoying a surge, the impact of the strong rand and the growth in Chinese steel production will affect the South African steel producer negatively.
“While we have undergone significant operational improvements over the past 10 years, we cannot afford to become complacent and lose our international competitiveness. Instead we need to take the company to further improved levels of performance by focusing on all our costs as well as operational and throughput improvement opportunities.”
Key to this success, said Van Niekerk, is the support of the company’s people, and towards this end, Ispat Iscor has taken a new approach to achieve world-class productivity levels, by adopting the principle of voluntary and natural attrition to meet these objectives.
“We believe that this will not only bring greater levels of stability to our workforce but will usher in an era in which staff can partner the company to achieve world-class practices.” — I-Net Bridge