What does one factory mean to a small town?

Large factories that employ local workers support thousands of community members, but ongoing load shedding is costing such industries a lot of money.

Ilembe Chamber executive members visited the Whirpool factory (a chamber member) in Isithebe on last Thursday, and were told by Whirlpool South Africa site director, Trevor Graham that the factory was vital to the company, producing 3 000 pieces per day and employing 900 locals.

The 900 employees consist of 600 full time and 300 seasonal workers and through them, the factory supported about 5 500 community members.

The community also benefits from the factory’s on-site training programme, teaching skills such as welding, gas safety and quality control, and the local Further Education and Training (FET) college students do practical training there.

Graham said the Mandeni area had a very high HIV AIDS infection rate and work done at the onsite HIV AIDS clinic has seen a decrease in staff infection rate as well as seeing a decrease in staff progressing from HIV to full blown AIDS.

He said the factory also annually sponsored a top matric student from the area to study electrical engineering at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Last month, load shedding cost the factory about 5 000 units. Graham said if the power goes off for two hours, the factory loses four to five production hours because the plastic that is moulded to shape the inside of the fridges and freezers has to be reheated and melted before production can continue and that takes two to three hours.

He said they did not always receive prior notice of load shedding, whereas if they had warning, they might be able to find ways of keeping the plastic warm.

Graham said they were looking at alternative power sources for critical machines.