NEW AGE ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS: Where Quality is Not the Exception, it is the Rule

Founded in 2003, New Age Engineering Solutions rapidly approaches its 20th anniversary having become recognised as one of the top and most trusted structural, mechanical, electrical, instrumentation and piping (SMEIP) construction companies in South Africa.

Key offerings number plant shutdown and maintenance services, turnkey project management solutions, on-site mechanical services and welding solutions, and shop fabrication services across all industrial markets, and fully-fledged operations allow it to deliver the full scope of these competences across Northern Free State, Western Cape, Mpumalanga, Gauteng and Limpopo.

Over the two decades that New Age Engineering Solutions has been setting the standard for SMEIP construction services, excellence has become a deeply-ingrained habit. “We live, breathe and work by the ancient words of Aristotle: ‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit,’” the company outlines. “Whilst this may sound clichéd, our long-standing portfolio of best-of-breed clients, and our sterling track record of successfully completed projects that reduces total cost of ownership for these clients, are a testimony to exactly that.

“In fact, we are never satisfied with just completing a project to expectation, but we always strive to deliver well beyond this through excellent, quality by using cutting-edge technology and methods to enhance customers’ equipment integrity and availability.”

20 YEAR LANDMARK

There is a vital realism to the company’s admirable bid to excel, which helps it remain grounded and approachable as it is not aspiring to the unattainable. “We understand that it is basically impossible to attain perfection, but while we chase perfection, we know we will at least catch excellence,” New Age Engineering Solutions condenses. “We are therefore completely uncompromising about the integrity of the process engineering principles we apply to eliminate defects in any fabrications and repairs.”

Not only qualified as a Metallurgist and International Welding Engineer, but also having completed master’s degrees in both these disciplines, Founder and CEO Joseph Zinyana’s beginnings in the industry came as a Metallurgist at Mintek, from where he progressed to ArcelorMittal, and then Welding Engineer at Sasol, where he was responsible for quality control and plant welding maintenance activities for many years.

“The entrepreneurial bug finally bit when I founded New Age Engineering Solutions in 2003,” he admits, “and I remain actively involved in the strategic running of the business.”

What started out as a company that sold welding rods, with just a handful employees, is now a successful service provider in the SMIEP sector providing mechanical and welding engineering solutions to the oil, gas, fossil fuel, mining, and nuclear industry and with clients including Astron Energy, Eskom, and Sasol, among others.

“Having founded the organisation personally and grown it to what it is today, I think it is a great milestone to achieve two decades of execution and service offering to different industrial players,” Zinyana effuses, never having doubted the business’s ability to succeed. “It is still rare for black-owned businesses in South Africa to prosper for 20 years, and it is truly something to celebrate. If anyone had any negative comments along the way, this would have been simply ‘noise’ in my ears.”

CRITICAL OPERATIONS

A lot of its success is down to the specialised, multifaceted nature of New Age Engineering Solutions’ service offering, Zinyana opines. “We deal with critical operations, working with the likes of Koeberg, the only nuclear power station in the country and boasting the largest turbine generators in the Southern Hemisphere. We also do a lot of work on the petrochemical side and some in the energy sector, with coal-fired stations, for example, and are targeting expansion within this in the near future having identified real opportunities within the hydrogen space.

“For me, hydrogen is the key buzzword on the horizon. People are saying that Sasol will the first to join the hydrogen field but we are way ahead here, having already executed a contract with France’s Tractebel Engie to oversee and manage one of the first hydrogen projects in South Africa. This is a specific market which is perfectly suited to our own service offering,” Zinyana affirms, revealing his keenness to participate in another of the energy industry’s critical arms in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating climate change.

“The government is wanting to implement solar energy to meet baseload by introducing battery systems, which is a very exciting prospect and something in which we feel we could be a valuable participant,” he explains. “We feel that this is particularly applicable to the industrial market, where there exists a gap between the 10 to 20KV and the 100KV capacities, and we want to be able to service this segment.”

Zinyana is unequivocal on the direction in which he sees the industry unavoidably and inevitably heading. “Although we still have between 30 and 40 years’ worth of minerals remaining within our systems, while we pursue these we must of course refine the emissions produced and push for the decarbonisation of these plants,” he assesses. “I collate all of these projects and developments, including the abundant potential of nuclear, under the heading of the ‘industrial revolution’ in South Africa’s energy sector, that is due to take place imminently.”

UPSKILLING SA YOUTH

“At New Age Engineering Solutions we aim to help others grow, as we grow, with whatever means we have at our disposal,” asserts Zinyana. “To this end, we have a number of ongoing initiatives to give back to our communities, including a mission to help our children walk with pride and stay warm through the donation, by New Age Engineering School, of at least 100 complete uniforms, including shoes and jackets, to a school from a disadvantaged area during every winter season.”

In the face of an impossible to ignore shortage of technical skills countrywide, New Age Engineering Solutions is now committed to training the youth of South Africa through its Internship, Upskilling and Workplace (IUW) programme. To date, the company has recruited almost 100 trainees based at the company’s workshop in Evander and at the Sasol Secunda fuel plant, both in Mpumalanga, assigned to trades spanning mechanical fitter, welder, quality control and pipe fitter.

“The company’s purpose is to serve, solve and uplift and it hopes to uplift the youth through this programme,” explains Zinyana. “This year we increased the graduate intake because every year there are more people who are without jobs and New Age Engineering Solutions has a duty to expose graduates to the workplace environment. The IUW programme is also a vehicle to facilitate and accelerate skills transfer within the company.

“Our organisation is growing and requires our employees and young trainees to be placed in different geographic areas within the business. For this to happen, technical and company system knowledge is required and can only be transferred from long-standing company members,” Zinyana states, passionately believing that it is through such training programmes within the company that New Age Engineering Solutions will achieve longevity.

“We humbly believe the four main pillars that our success has been built on,” Zinyana offers by way of conclusion, “are our team’s demonstrated pursuit of excellence, our integration of progressive technology for enhanced efficiency, our approachable attitude that enables us to deliver solutions that are on-point with our clients’ requirements, and the fact that we have some of the most brilliant minds in the industry around our table, guaranteed.

“We strategically recruit the most qualified, the most experienced, and the most talented, and I can assure the industry that New Age offers more than a decade’s worth of experience in big shutdowns, and we have the capacity and capability to execute to our highest client requirements.“