Quarry Southern Africa September 2018 | Página 17

WINNING Quarry manager Fana Shozi overlooking Rossmin. Rossmin crushes and sizes material to suit client needs, aiming to provide superior customer service,” says Shozi. Extraction technology “Rossmin is proud to be a local mining business with local shareholders, and most of our employees come from the Oshabeni community, who are also shareholders in our venture. On this note, Rossmin is proud to support Dezzi, our local producer of mining earth moving equipment. Rossmin has a fleet of Dezzi front-end loaders (2500s and 3500s) and ADTs (30 tonners and 25 tonners).” Dezzi was chosen for three reasons: • Dezzi has a local factory benefiting the local community; • Dezzi is able to quickly support their fleet with servicing and maintenance requirements, providing better utilisation. Dezzi also visits for weekly checks on the vehicles to prevent out-of- maintenance issues; and • Dezzi equipment is robust and provides a local source of spares at lower cost “This is useful,” says Shozi, “because dust is our businesses! We’re moving rock all the time and dust is not friendly to equipment — so regular service and inspection is necessary.” Regulatory challenges “Mining is becoming ever stricter from a legal perspective. You see from the number of recent fatalities in mining that safety is becoming a critical issue, albeit most of these incidents related to underground mines. We all fall under the same mining regulations and so they apply as much to us — we have to comply with the same level of regulation as a large mine, even though we are small. That is a pressing challenge! “From a business perspective, we are currently trying to increase our penetration of our market. But we have a competitor right across the river that is more established than us and has a firmer grip on “From a business perspective, the position we are currently in is one of trying to increase our penetration of our market.” Fana Shozi, Rossmin One of Rossmin’s major challenges is having a well-established competitor across the Umzimkulu River. QUARRY SA | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018 _ 15