New Concept Mining

New Concept Mining has grown because we have continuously focused on the needs of our customers. Our Vision Statement says that we strive to become by far the best partner to the mining industry through innovation, professional service, high quality manufacturing, short lead times and competitive pricing. We can only continue to be successful in these areas through the involvement of every employee.
Every employee needs to fully understand and appreciate how they influence our performance in each of these factors. New Concept Mining’s customers belong to each employee. Each can improve the customer’s opinion of our Company by providing outstanding service, quality and innovation. We need to be constantly improving what we have to offer and every employee can play an important role.
By better satisfying our customers we are all creating more opportunities for all employees at New Concept Mining. These opportunities are translated into promotions, education, development, health and security. Our Company Values include ‘Investment’. This means that we will use the gains achieved in satisfying our customers, to re-invest in the business. This means re-investing in the people at New Concept Mining and in the equipment. This is the repayment which is being made to employees for successfully giving our customers what they want.
The alternative is that we neglect the needs of the customer and then we can guarantee that they will soon change to other suppliers. This will cause the reduction of opportunities at New Concept Mining. It will mean less promotion opportunities, less training and development opportunities, less health benefits and less job security. As you read this article, the Mines are testing products from our competitors and it will be our track record in innovation, service, quality, lead times and pricing which will determine whether the Mines decide to stay with us.
The above is all obvious and we want to capture it in the slogan “MY customer, OUR opportunity”. The words capture what we all need to do to continue having a successful company and the resulting rewards.
The slogan “MY customer, OUR opportunity” will be used to promote the World Class Competitiveness initiative. We have to improve our competitiveness because if we don’t our customers will change to other suppliers. However, if we continually improve our competitiveness by giving the customers what they want then we will create more opportunities for everyone at New Concept Mining.

World Class Competitiveness is about empowering people throughout the company to monitor their own performance against specific targets, identify opportunities to improve and take ownership of their end products. World Class Competitiveness is about people. It is about problem solving at all levels. It is about everyone taking responsibility for ensuring our customers get the best and the result is that more opportunities are created for everyone: “ MY Customer, OUR Opportunity”

NCM recently participated in the inaugural SA Quality Awards hosted and adjudicated by the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) with entries in a number of categories including Best Enterprise, Best Quality Product and Best Quality Exporter. The Awards ceremony, held on the 10th of March at the Birchwood Hotel and Conference Centre in Boksburg, was attended by Vito d’Amico and Brendan Crompton from NCM.
The standard of entries from companies was high with entrants from a variety of industries including calibration and instrumentation laboratories; pharmaceutical manufacturing; medical laboratories; and weapons manufacture. A number of these companies are also compliant with a number of international quality standards and regulations (such as the FDAD). Approximately sixty companies submitted entries in the five award categories from which nine winners were announced (in four of the categories winners were announced for SMMEs as well as Large Enterprises). For each award three finalists were nominated from the entries received and from these finalists the winner was chosen for each category.
Of the three categories entered NCM was chosen as a finalist in both the Best Quality Product Award and the Best Quality Exporter Award, and was the only company to receive recognition in two categories.
Given the level of competition it is a remarkable achievement for NCM to have been nominated as a finalist in two categories. This achievement is to the credit of all at NCM working together to ensure the quality of the products produced to improve the safety of our customers working underground.

The hungry economical predator, recently widely referred to as the ‘economic crunch’, has managed to catch and feed on many South African businesses, but more importantly so, on families and individuals employed by these.
New Concept Mining faces the same threats as all other companies and the past successes cannot be taken for granted. Future growth (or even future survival) will be determined by to what extent we are prepared and competitive.
A wise man once said: “when chased by a lion, you do not need to run faster than the lion, you only need to run faster than the man next to you…”
Although this humorous view of life seems frivolous, it contains an invaluable secret to not only survive, but also to succeed.
NCM faces the continuous threat of substitute products, tremendous pressure to reduce price and to improve quality and delivery. These customer demands all call for continuous improvement. The choice to ignore these pressures means only one thing; the lion is now faster and the man next to you might also be…
For this reason NCM has embarked on a programme that was initially labelled as World Class Manufacturing (WCM), but more recently was enriched to cover so much more, and hence, going forward will be talked about as World Class Competitiveness (WCC).
The purpose of this programme is to create opportunities to empower and develop our own people, which in turn will create opportunities to strengthen NCM’s ability to be a sustainable world class supplier.
This reasoning has been the driver behind the birth of the WCC slogan: ‘MY Customer, OUR Opportunity’
I call upon every person in our organisation to support this drive and to play a role in their own and consequently NCM’s future.

Discipline is one of the most important criteria for business success. While industry leading skills and knowledgeable people are central to the success of any organisation, a culture of discipline is what truly differentiates a winning company.
Skills can be taught, self-discipline cannot. True organisational success is achieved through a team of committed individuals who strive methodically to grow themselves, their division and ultimately the company. When charting the course of the company, a crucial consideration is whether the right team members are on board.
Many management teams invest heavily in developing business strategies without even considering whether the people have the aptitude and discipline to deliver what is required. A proposed business strategy will live or die with the people who must implement it. Be brutally honest about the level of commitment of each team member. Identify their strengths and weaknesses. Ensure management give the right support and direction they require to do their job.
In successful companies the culture of discipline starts at the very top. Leaders display self-discipline, they are brutally honest about their own short comings and ensure that they choose executives who counter them. They lead with passion and commitment and are not egocentric. They recognise that the organisation is not built on the back of just one visionary leader. These leaders will create a culture of teamwork. They will recognise that the whole is stronger than the sum of its parts.

Each person must know that his success is inextricably linked to the success of the team as a whole, and that if his team is to win more often, he must take responsibility for improving his game. He/she must become accountable for his/her actions. This will eliminate the need for regimented and often counterproductive hierarchies.
Achieving success through a team is particularly relevant in World Class Competitiveness. Companies are under pressure to transform. Individuals have to work side by side to build on each other’s strengths and to compensate for their colleagues weaknesses. It is critical that individuals do not allow themselves to feel threatened and protective of their positions. Throughout history, true leaders have surrounded themselves with talent in a disciplined manner. They do so with the intention of “working themselves out of a job”. They are not egocentric and they set up their successors to achieve even greater heights.

Competition is increasing and the playing fields continue to level off in terms of access to capital, technology, equipment, material and information. As a result, the differentiation or competitive advantage is increasingly determined by the unique way in which the people in an organisation bring together the other major resources to serve customers better. It will therefore be the effectiveness of the human resources that will be the keystone. Right now teams provide the best way of maximising that effectiveness while meeting their own needs for greater control over their work life. Therefore the use of teams in organisations is increasing. “A team is a group of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable”- Katzenbach & Smith.
Teamwork in a world class company is not something soft or wooly with an emphasis on the emotional well-being of people. It is also not a voluntary activity. “Employee involvement has to increase. Teams must be allowed - must be made responsible for and held accountable for more decision making authority. An organisation can no longer afford to deny itself access to the total knowledge, intelligence, creativity, innovation, and passion available through the sum of its people. Management must be the responsibility of everyone in the organisation not just of a chosen few” - Ron Williams (3M).
Implementing teams is a major change initiative. An extremely high level of commitment and investment is required, whether implementing a few Ad hoc teams or moving toward a team-based culture, it will require a concerted effort in leadership and change management.
There are many barriers to effective teamwork - the resistance to change is the biggest hurdle to overcome. With the right training and continued drive and support most of the negative factors can be overcome. The benefits are phenomenal as has been asserted by the surveys done with the Fortune 100 companies in the USA. The majority of company’s having high employee involvement is where we see the return on sales, assets, investment and equity extremely higher than the company’s with low employee involvement.
It is a win-win situation all round as each person realises that his success is inextricably linked to the success of the team, the department and ultimately the company, ensuring a better and secure future for everyone.

As part of NCM’s initiative to introduce World Class Competitiveness, a Task Team has been appointed from the management team. This team will co-ordinate tasks between the shop floor teams and senior management, and will guide the shop floor to implement World Class Competitiveness. The team brings to the table a wide spectrum of skills in manufacturing from Foreman to Operations Manager. This team has been selected to include all the disciplines necessary for our manufacturing process, including quality, logistics and production.

The team has an in-depth knowledge as well as specialist skills in their respective fields of expertise, and has an important role to play in championing World Class Competitiveness. The task team has opened an office on the shop floor, in the Hydrabolt section next to Willie Kok’s office. Please join me in wishing the Task team good luck in their endeavor to champion World Class Competitiveness at New Concept Mining.

The history of smoking
The history of smoking dates back to as early as 5000–3000 BC when the agricultural product began to be cultivated in South America; consumption later evolved into burning the plant substance either by accident or with intent of exploring other means of consumption.
Frenchman, Jean Nicot (from whose name the word nicotine is derived), introduced tobacco to France in 1560, and tobacco then spread to England. The first report of a smoking Englishman is of a sailor in Bristol in 1556, seen “emitting smoke from his nostrils”.
Tobacco was introduced around 1600 by French merchants in what today is modern-day Gambia and Senegal. At the same time caravans from Morocco brought tobacco to the areas around Timbuktu and the Portuguese brought the commodity (and the plant) to southern Africa, establishing the popularity of tobacco throughout all of Africa by the 1650s.
In 1612, six years after the settlement of Jamestown, John Rolfe was credited as the first settler to successfully raise tobacco as a cash crop.
By the mid-1600s every major civilization had been introduced to tobacco smoking and in many cases had already assimilated it into the culture, despite the attempts of many rulers to eliminate the practice with harsh penalties or fines.
The English language term smoking was coined in the late 1700s; before then the practice was called drinking smoke.

The dangers of smoking
In Germany, anti-smoking groups, often associated with anti-liquor groups, first published advocacy against the consumption of tobacco in the journal Der Tabakgegner (The Tobacco Opponent) in 1912 and 1932. In 1929, Fritz Lickint of Dresden, Germany, published a paper containing formal statistical evidence of a lung cancer–tobacco link. Tobacco use leads most commonly to diseases affecting the heart and lungs, with smoking being a major risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, and cancer (particularly lung cancer, cancers of the larynx and mouth, and pancreatic cancer).
In the early 1960s warnings about the dangers of smoking cigarettes were released by the United States surgeon general. Shortly after these warnings were released congress passed the Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act. This act made it law that all cigarettes had to carry a warning label about the dangers of cigarettes. In 1984, another law was passed by congress that forced tobacco companies to label their packages with a more disparaging label. In the interest of public safety, the evolution of these laws continues today.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) there are two global causes of death on the increase: HIV/AIDS and tobacco smoking. For many years it has been common knowledge that smoking is detrimental to the health of the smoker. Smoking is the major cause of heart disease, the cause of 30% of all cancers, and the cause of 80% of all chronic lung diseases. The WHO estimates that tobacco caused 5.4 million deaths in 2004 and 100 million deaths over the course of the 20th century. Similarly, the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention describes tobacco use as “the single most important preventable risk to human health in developed countries and an important cause of premature death worldwide.”
Peter Ucko, the Director of the National Council Against Smoking says the laws will have an effect on everyone, smokers and non-smokers alike, with the focus being on protecting non-smokers from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke. Ucko also added that three times more people are killed by smoking in South Africa by tobacco smoke, than those killed in road accidents.
The National Council Against Smoking (NCAS) has welcomed the new legislation as one that “will have dramatic, important and far-reaching effects on public health and the tobacco industry's marketing activities.” NCAS director, Dr Yussuf Saloojee, said only 22% of South Africans smoked while four out of five people (78% adults) did not smoke and did not want to be exposed to tobacco smoke in public places.
“Smoking remains a leading cause of premature, preventable death in South Africa. Tobacco kills 44 000 South Africans every year (three times more than motor car accidents). Our efforts to reduce the death toll will be helped by the new legislation,” said Dr Saloojee.
Increased restrictions on smoking in outdoor public places like sports stadiums and railway platforms have already been implemented.
“The need for this amendment arose out of frequent complaints about non-smokers being affected by smoking out-of-doors. Mainly, the complaints related to restaurants where the exterior seating is often given over to smokers: non-smokers say they can’t enjoy sitting outside; they either have to sit indoors or endure the smoke.”
“These laws empower people, and let them feel they have the right to clean air. Now, non-smokers are bolder about demanding this right, and many smokers are respectful of this and don’t need to be ordered not to smoke in public places.
South Africa’s crackdown on smoking follows a global movement towards cleaner air. The World Health Organisation (WHO) called for all countries to go 100% smoke-free – meaning a total ban on smoking indoors at workplaces and public venues. WHO director-general Dr Margaret Chan was quoted as saying: “The evidence is clear. There is no safe level of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke.”
The NCAS gives short shrift to the argument that smokers are being denied the freedom to enjoy one of life’s basic pleasures; such a ‘right’ falls away if the pleasure puts others in harm’s way.
Saloojee cites the Constitution, which states that each person has the right to an environment that is not harmful to health: “There is no constitutional right to smoke”.

What Does the New Tobacco Law Say?
The new regulations that were gazetted (No 21610) on Friday, 29 September 2000 by the Department of Health, were enacted to protect the rights of all South Africans to breathe clean air. Controlling smoking in public places ensures a clean, healthy environment for activities of daily living, public events, travel and work.
Two new anti-smoking laws have been signed by President Jacob Zuma in September 2009. Anti-smoking campaigns are in full swing in this country, with hopes to increase fines, restrict marketing on tobacco and to ban smoking in cars.
In terms of this Act, the employer is obliged to take steps to protect his non-smoking staff from the cigarette smoke of the smokers.
There is no obligation whatsoever on the employer to provide smoke breaks, and indeed if he does provide smoke breaks he is entitled to insist that those employees must work in the time taken for ’smoke breaks’ after hours, without additional renumeration, or he can total up the ‘smoke breaks time’ and deduct it from wages at month end. The employer is entitled to ban smoking completely on his building or in the workplace if he wishes to.
It seems that smokers worldwide are going to have to start looking at a quit plan, as there are few places in the world where smoking is not taboo. Tobacco is the only product that harms every person exposed to it and kills half of its regular users.
The new tobacco regulations guarantee non-smokers the right to clean air. A smoker does not have the right to endanger the life of another human being. Employers thus have a moral, ethical and legal responsibility to protect the environment of all persons in the workplace by establishing a smoke-free workplace.
Tobacco use is harmful to the health of smokers and non-smokers and thus warrants restrictive laws in the public's interest. The workplace is a major source of exposure to the harmful effects of environmental tobacco smoke. In today’s hectic world, it seems like the entire globe has chosen to ban the use of tobacco or is seriously considering such a plan. But, unfortunately, the most serious threat to health, second hand smoke or “passive smoking” has not been addressed by any bans.
Impala Platinum, one of our most valued customers, have also taken the right decision and declared their premises Smoke Free as of 1 March 2010. New Concept Mining will be declared Smoke Free as well, NO smoking will be allowed on any of our premises as from 1 June 2010. I have personally been a smoker for a number of years and will be affected by this decision in the same way as other smokers. I too have to face reality and respect the health of non-smokers.

Congratulations, to all learners that wrote exams during February and March 2010

During February, NCM partnered with Solidarity Centre who facilitated a HIV/AIDS workshop at the company in which all employees participated. Everyone at NCM was encouraged to come together in order to create a united front in the fight against the disease. Lysan James, believes that , “Each and everyone has something unique to contribute – from standing up against the stigma and discrimination to educating ourselves about HIV prevention, as well as knowing our status and learning more about managing our health and lifestyle.”

On the Safety front there are some great things taking place. The biggest of this is the appointment of Mr Adam Khalo as the new SHE Officer for NCM.
Welcome to NCM Adam! We know you are up to the challenge and that you will make the most of it.
In line with this, a Safety drive is being planned to create increased awareness towards safety in the workplace. We’re hoping to make this a memorable event and that everyone will learn more about safety and their role in creating a safe work environment.
Thanks to our HR department, the onsite clinic is open to employees for longer periods than in the past. This is great news and will benefit all employees.
Thank you all for the commitment shown towards Safety up until now. With Adam on board as the Safety Officer, there will be much more focus on SHE matters than we have seen in the past and I know that every person at NCM will give Adam the support that he deserves.
‘Work safely and think of the safety of your co-workers at all times!’

Training Programmes

NCM offers a range of Skills Development and Training programmes, and is proud to congratulate the successful candidates on being selected to participate in this initiative. The successful candidates are:
B Kobo (Fitter), Bopape (Fitter), LD Williams (Electrician), G Netso (Fork Lift), B Matiyase (Fork Lift).

QMS for NCM Suppliers

From a Quality Assurance perspective, 2010 is going to be a busy but exciting year. The company has embarked on an initiative to assist our critical suppliers to comply with the NCM Quality Management System.
A Supplier Risk Committee has been established to get the initiative off the ground and to determine the way forward. The Quality and Procurement Departments will work together on this project and both departments are committed to achieving the objective of improved quality from suppliers.
The benefit of this initiative for NCM will be immense, as it will enable us to reduce the quantity of goods to be inspected upon receipt; production downtime will be reduced; it will make the task of planning easier and ultimately our unit costs will be affected in a positive manner.
The first suppliers have already been audited and a Quality Management System has been developed for implementation at these suppliers, to ensure that they will comply with the NCM QMS.
Good luck to all involved in this initiative and hopefully the results of the work going into this will soon be evident in the improved quality of goods delivered by our suppliers!

Bill Coetzee

NCM Supports CANSA with a Shavathon

On the 5th of March, NCM employees were invited to participate in a Shavathon in support of the Cancer Association of South Africa (CANSA).

World Cup Soccer Jerseys

With the FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup just around the corner, World Cup Soccer Jerseys were given to a few lucky employees. Random draws as well as certain selection criteria were applied in order to distribute the jerseys.

New Appointments

Congratulations go to Schalk Burger, Dave Gravett and Brendan Crompton, who have been appointed as Directors.

A big welcome to our new employees

Name	Job Title
Aimee Heywood	Communication Officer
Tomislav Radulovic	Project Engineer
Terence Rogers	Robotic Technician
Sibusiso Khumalo	Warehouse Stores Supervisor
Ashraff Khan	Inventory Clerk
Endlani Morris Rivombo	Inventory Clerk
Ian Van Heerden	C & D Engineer
Mpumelelo Adam Khalo	Safety Officer
Marcelle Marshall	Production Foreman
Morne Roberts	Maintenance Manager
Richard Lowe	Financial Projects Manager
Edmond Ribane	Maintenance Planner

Congratulations Lunga!

Congratulations to Lunga Phakathi on his marriage to Samukelisiwe Mgobhazi. The wedding ceremony was held on the 20th February in New Germany in Pinetown with the traditional ceremony taking place on the 21st February at Ka-Mkhize Primary School in eHlathikhulu, Escort.

Condolences

Our condolences go to the family, friends and colleagues of Johannes Msimango who tragically passed away on the 15th December 2009 and also to Ronald Mashilo who also tragically passed away on the 31st of December last year.

The views expressed in Izwi Lethu are not necessarily those of New Concept Mining