Building scaffolding industry in South Africa

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The African scaffolding industry sees the rise of a giant
The building scaffolding industry in South Africa is a ghost of its former self.

The build-up to the 2010 World Cup picked up real speed in 2008 when the massive infrastructure projects and sports stadium construction projects started.

To keep up with the massive demands from the construction industry the prominent names in the South African scaffolding market acquired vast amounts of stock and expanded their capacity significantly.

The boom could however not last forever and after the World Cup the scaffolding industry fell into the same slump that the rest of the construction industry was going through. With scaffolding being primarily oriented on the hire market, this left suppliers with a surplus of stock and a shortfall of clients.

Challenging market
With the market having become highly competitive in the country, the last thing one would expect to see is the entry of yet another company into the fray.

This is however exactly what happened when PERI acquired Wiehahn Formwork and Scaffolding in last year and decided to move into the neighbourhood. Wiehahn had been supplying PERI’s product range to the market and when the owner decided to retire, PERI seized the opportunity.

South African managing director for PERI, Johan Cilliers points out that the reason for this is not so much the South African market, which is undeniably saturated, but more for the opportunity that the company sees in the rest of Africa since the South African industry has cooled down.

That is not to say that the company is not still playing a major role in the South African scene. The recently completed Alexander Forbes building the heart of Sandton is a testament to that. But the company is using South Africa as a springboard for its operations further north.

“We are actively looking for work in the rest of Africa and we are using the footing that PERI ahs gained in South Africa through distributors like Wiehahn to do it,” Cilliers says.

The company is currently making sure that its distributors in Africa are properly supported. While developments in the steel market have driven up prices for PERI’s products, Cilliers points out that the company remains competitive.

More than just vertical access
Far from merely being an access tool, PERI points out that scaffolding technology needs to be viewed in the context of a time-saving, safety-driven technology. The technology cannot achieve this ideal on its own however and according to sources, the South African building market has a marked shortage of skills related to scaffolding.

While the technology is relatively slow to change, companies like PERI have opted for their own designed systems and with that the services company experts are afforded at times.

With safety being on everyone’s agenda in a big way in South Africa, PERI has made it a point to make speed of assembly part of this equation as well and the company’s Kwik-Stage and Self-Lock systems have enjoyed a reasonable amount of success for allowing safe access in relatively short times.
The emerging giant continues to make its presence felt nationally and one can imagine that market dominance in the rest of Africa awaits if PERI attacks the market in the same way that it has locally.

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