Benefiting from South Africa’s role as a global pioneer in Proximity Detection Systems (PDS), other countries in the region are embracing this safety and monitoring technology to great effect.

“South Africa is leading the drive for PDS deployment due to its legislation, but the country is also probably the most experienced in the world on this topic,” says Booyco Electronics CEO Anton Lourens. “We have seen that most Southern Africa mines are adopting technology and solutions that have been deployed and proven in South Africa.”

Lourens notes that most of Booyco Electronics’ solutions and products are suitable for rollout in neighbouring countries, as they can meet local compliance standards. At the same time, the company drives a continuous improvement programme to meet global best practice.

“The flexibility in our offering – facilitated through firmware optimisation on a universal hardware platform – ensures that we can effectively meet new customer demands without re-inventing the wheel for specific needs,” he explains.

This has underpinned the company’s expansion strategy that includes Southern Africa, where there has been considerable new development in the region’s mining sector. Booyco Electronics’ long history in South Africa has fed its success in the rest of the region, as it is regularly contacted by mining decision-makers who were previous customers in South Africa – and are now working in neighbouring countries. 

“Having worked with us before to understand PDS capabilities, these customers then develop an understanding of local requirements in the countries where they are now based,” he says. “This creates valuable opportunities for us to expand into the region and share our knowledge and solutions further afield.”

In its expansion, Booyco Electronics has adopted the strategy of partnering with in-country providers where a local support base can be established to ensure that the PDS technology is looked after and maintained. 

“We implement a skills transfer plan to develop the expertise of local support personnel while we are overseeing deployment and initial roll-out,” he explains. “By including these local resources as soon as possible in the deployment process, the in-country personnel become more competent and experienced. We retain oversight until the local team is able to provide full support and maintenance.”

Lourens highlights that successful implementation of any technology depends on the behaviour of the people involved, which requires proactive change management to facilitate the adoption of solutions.

“Considering that mines in other Southern African countries are lagging their South African counterparts in terms of their PDS deployments, they are relatively inexperienced customers in this space,” he points out. “While the technology is an enabler to support users in driving their mine safety agenda, the successful deployment of PDS will be based on local culture and discipline – which must be managed so that it leads to effective adoption.”

Booyco Engineering believes this can only be achieved through local partners that understand each country’s specific environment, languages and other differentiating factors.