DSI on Advanced Manufacturing Technology Strategy; CSIR on Future Production Manufacturing

Meeting report

Department of Science and Innovation Briefing

Dr Mmboneni Muofhe, Deputy Director-General (DDG): Technology Innovation DSI, said that the presentation would lay the foundation for the work that the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) was doing.

He highlighted the history of the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Strategy (AMTS); the AMTS focal areas; milestones or achievements of the AMTS and the Department’s manufacturing initiatives; current DSI instruments and initiatives in support of advanced manufacturing; collaborative programmes and partnerships; Technology Stations Programme (TSP) highlights and initiatives; sectoral focus and DSI performance indicators.

[See the presentation for further information]

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Briefing
 
Dr Ajith Gopal, Director: Manufacturing Cluster, CSIR, took Members through a detailed presentation of the CSIR on the AMTS. He described how the CSIR was supporting the DSI on the AMTS; the strategic objectives of the programme; the value chain that the programme supports, from materials all the way to supporting market-specific applications for the products; highlights of the work done; Aeroswift objectives and its implementation plan; and the future of Aeroswift commercialisation.

The CSIR presentation went into depth on the AMTS, the different sectors that it covered; various projects and initiatives achieved through the AMTS, like the Aeroswift project, and how it would be commercialised; advanced manufacturing project highlights and industry support to Smart Management Tools (SMT) Link, Micromax and Shoprite; the CSIR learning factory, which seeks to create awareness of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) and its impact locally, and to upskill students on 4IR and the labour market, which shows a demand for high skilled workers to contribute towards reducing the unemployment rate in the country and learning factory highlights.

[See the presentation for further information]

Discussion

The Chairperson sought clarity from the presentation of the Department on the TSP national footprint and how that footprint could be expanded through the inclusion of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges; the 16 stations referred to in the presentation, which were embedded in universities; if it was possible to build a TSP at a TVET college and if there was an under- or over-subscription of young people participating in the TSP programme; and how many young people reached the end step, which was the commercialisation of the product to get it into the market.  

During a space summit or conference she had attended, she had picked up that the space sector in South Africa was not transformed, and she wanted to know if the Department was ensuring that it advanced transformation in the sector.

Mr B Pillay (ANC) asked the DSI about the high-level research students who were either fully funded or co-funded, particularly the number of students funded in this financial year compared to the previous year; the number of interns that applied for the TSP programme, and the fate of interns after completing the internship programme.

From the key performance indicators (KPIs) of the CSIR, he noted that over the last three financial years, there had been a decline in the number of funded PhD and Master’s students. What was the plan for the Collaborative Programme in Additive Manufacturing (CPAM) programme post-2024? What was the time frame to get to the finished product? He also asked about the local and global marketing of the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Programme (AMP).
Dr W Boshoff (FF Plus) posed comments and questions to the CSIR, and said the Learning Factory programme was quite interesting. He appreciated it and would like to visit them.

Regarding the Aeroswift project, there was a partnership with ABC Aerospace Company, and this partnership had gone bust, but a year ago, he had learned that the CSIR was looking for new partners in the aerospace industry. When referring to interests in acquiring the technology, did it mean that other businesses wanted to buy the machines from the CSIR – was the CSIR going to manufacture these machines, or would businesses present plans and the printing would be done at the CSIR? He also wanted to know about the CSIR’s ability to generate revenue through patents and royalties.

Ms D Sibiya (ANC) asked in which provinces the TSP stations had been established, and how many interns had been enrolled in this programme.

Ms J Mananiso (ANC) said the Committee noted the exclusion of vulnerable groups of people in the sector. It was important that the leadership commit to the inclusion of people living with disabilities. In future, Members needed to see that there was an appetite to include these vulnerable groups.

She acknowledged that the Department had shown examples of the work that it was doing. There were also changes in the inclusion of young people, and during oversight, she had seen the CSIR taking the country into its confidence regarding the work it was doing. Most of its beneficiaries were young people and women. It was important for both the Department and CSIR to enhance radical marketing and publicity, and ensure people from the rural areas were not left behind. Local newspapers must be utilised to reach out to young people in the peripheral communities.

She asked about provinces benefiting from the CSIR’s TSP programme and how the district development model (DDM) found expression in the presented plans and how they aligned with the DTM plans.

She could pick up which departments were working with the DSI from the slides, and it was important to acknowledge this. On 2 May, South Africa affirmed sign language as an official language, and she asked if DSI was ready to accommodate people who communicated through sign language in their institutions.

Responses
 
DSI
 
Dr Muofhe replied to the question about the TSP footprint and its possible expansion, and said the DSI wanted to improve access to the TSPs, and various approaches were being considered. The first was the Learning Factory, which had commenced formalisation partnerships with TVET colleges. This model would be utilised to also co-locate some of these initiatives, but this would require resources. The team would consider the best approach on how to expand this programme. Working with TVET colleges would be crucial, especially in supporting entrepreneurship.

Although the DSI was not as transformed as it wanted to be in the space sector, what the Chairperson had seen was an under-representation of what the DSI had done in the sector concerning transformation. In January last year, when the DSI launched the locally developed satellites, these satellites were developed by students who were predominantly young and black engineers. It was a fair representation of the country’s demographics. The DSI was not happy that somehow the selection to attend the Conference had not included them. The one company that did almost all the testing and validation of satellites before they went into space was a black- and woman-owned company.

The DSI’s experience with interns hosted by the Department and its entities was that most of these interns were found to be employed when traced. The DSI created an environment where they learn and leave properly skilled; some were absorbed if positions were available.

The one thing that the CSIR had done over the past years was that where it was unable to license or commercialise, it would make public announcements to call on entrepreneurs who may be interested in a particular intellectual property (IP), to commercialise it.  

The mapping of the TSP stations was on slide 18 of the presentation.

The DSI had started reflecting on the inclusivity of people living with disabilities. The DSI would use the fact that the participation was low to improve the transformation.

Regarding the DDM model, as the DSI begins to map projects, it ensures that the programmes are geo-referenced. The plan was that going forward, when one clicks on the plan, they should be able to pick up all the projects, including where the footprint of the Learning Factory and the Tech Stations are.

The DSI had taken note of the issue of sign language. He had engaged the team recently about this, and even with some of the information communication technology (ICT)-based language technologies, what did they think about interfacing the languages with sign language? For example, ChatGPT could communicate in English because a lot of databases had been built around the English language. The DSI was now trying to build databases using its own languages and was considering what could be done about including sign language.

CSIR

Dr Kaven Naidoo, Acting Group Executive: Business Excellence and Integration, said the CSIR was in the process of rolling out to 18 stations for TVET colleges. Regarding the assistance for aspiring entrepreneurs, there was an opportunity to scale this up, but it depended on the funding. The CSIR would like to scale some of its projects, but funding is limited. There was a demand, however.

Support for PhD and master’s students depended on how the students moved through the pipeline. The CSIR could take new students for funding only once the existing students had graduated. As for the ventilator and the appetite for local manufacturing, efforts were underway to expand the technology, and the CSIR was engaging potential partners on this. The current product (ventilator) had been developed for local requirements because of the pandemic. There were a few entities that were developing that type of ventilator. It was pursuing the development of advanced versions of that technology to be introduced in the market.

As for the Aeroswift project, the machine technology and the printing projects were still a priority for the CSIR, not only with aerospace, but also in other industries like automotive, mining and medical, which were all priorities. The CSIR was expanding the potential market sectors that were driving the uptake. There was interest in the technologies, and the CSIR was in the process of building a pre-production machine. It was driving the initiative for industrialisation while partners were also being sought. Feedback would be provided as it unfolds. The CSIR was now open to both business models -- manufacturing of the machines and printing.

For patents and royalties, the CSIR ensured that it covered its costs and the viability of the entity. The drive for commercialisation was an active part of the strategy. For the CSIR to realise its strategy and grow enterprises, there was a need for further commercialisation. The CSIR aspired to enhance the scale and pace of commercialisation through several initiatives, such as creating dedicated business development and commercialisation officers and increasing the capacity, and enhancing the awareness and sensitivity of the science and engineering base as to how commercialisation was done. The CSIR was also driving the establishment of the commercialisation vehicle, which looked to attract the type of funding needed to take these technologies through the so-called "valley of death," and attracting funding from the private sector and industry.

Dr Gopal acknowledged the comment on rural and non-urban areas for public awareness.

DSI

Mr Beeuwen Gerryts, Chief Director: Technology Localisation, said the technology station model was based on the German model, which relied on its impact on industry and universities. In adopting this model, they had expanded the impact on industry to also talk to small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs), including registering formal and informal entrepreneurs and cooperatives. In expanding its footprint, the DSI also partnered with institutions for agricultural work, like the Universities of Limpopo and Venda, and for automotive DSI, partnering with the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). It explored the model of expanding the stations and the instruments. Currently, the science councils and universities like Wits are not included. The DSI wanted to expand this model to one association with a lower sponsorship rate.

The intern programme had been substantially scaled down. Currently, it is supporting two interns per technology station. The DSI received additional funding from the President Youth Employment Scheme, but the number of interns was quite small.

With the change in funding, the DSI had to move a lot of funding from technology development to technology diffusion, which affected the number of students that could be supported, and the number declined from 300 to 200 students in the current financial year. The DSI would also leverage the National Research Foundation (NRF).

Ms Mmamose Seloane, Director: Technology Localisation, said the DSI had an experiential training programme implemented by the Technology Localisation Implementation Unit (TLIU), in collaboration with the South African Society for Cooperative Education. The programme was focused on assisting students to obtain their degrees or graduate. The absorption of students into industries was an additional impact. The TLIU leveraged the companies that had supported students, including the technology stations. In 2019/20, the intern enrolment had been 769. Of those, 625 had completed the programme and 429 had graduated. Of these, 195 interns were employed, of whom 130 were absorbed by the host companies where they had been placed, and the industry absorbed 65.

The Chairperson thanked the DSI and CSIR. The Committee would consider visiting some of the stations to get a sense of what the stations entailed. There were stations in the Western Cape, at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) and the University of Stellenbosch. Members could visit these stations in their various provinces.

The meeting was adjourned.