Local assembly and manufacturing Africa
Establishing the right network is the basis for successful local operations.
In recent years, governments and companies have begun to localize their supply chains.
Production is set-up in different locations globally to minimize costs, be closer to the customer, have less exposure to possible risks and have a better controlled answer to public health disruptions. Covid has shown that local production can have enormous benefits if the demand is huge and global supply limited.
The advantage of Africa is that it has abundant resources (the presence of a large, qualified, experienced engineering workforce), relatively low wages and low raw material costs and a growing local and regional demand which makes production quite efficient. Data security and sensitivity to intellectual property rights are in line with international standards. A relatively strong ecosystem that supports production. Adoption of newest technologies, AI, autonomous robotics, and other smart manufacturing technologies has increased.
Countries like South-Africa and Morocco have become important regional players when it comes to establishing local production capacity. Some governments have also started policies and supported programs to promote local production of medical technology with the objective to get a bigger percentage of the global value chain, further diversify their economies, decrease unemployment rates, minimize the risk of external macroeconomic shocks and assure future supply. In some countries, local authorities can even decide to ban importation to products like the ones manufactured locally.
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An important aspect is the continuous quality of the locally manufactured goods and related to that, the perception of locally produced products by the customer.
Companies willing to establish a local manufacturing facility should not compromise on the quality of the locally manufactured products if they want to last and have sustainable grow.
In some cases, purchases are required to be done locally (e.g. tenders, WHO). WHO standards are well accepted in Africa; no need to go through FDA/CE-mark if produced in Africa. When WHO standards are applied, locally manufactured Medical Devices become eligible for export to several other African countries. Gateway MedTech is closely monitoring with local authorities on cross-countries trade relationships & agreements. For local sales the national regulatory rules always prevail.
