CAPITAL: The Voice of Business Issue 1, 2015 | Page 23

GEMBA
logic too. Wolhuter reveals that they have
doubled turnover in the past five years and
that this year 20–30% of their turnover will
be from “reshored products” — products
that left South Africa for manufacture in
other countries and which PDC has now
regained.
But as enamoured as he is with the
machines on his shop floor, Wolhuter says
that PDC does not intend simply to replace
the 220-strong workforce with machines.
“Automation leads to growth,” he
insists, referring to the findings of Erik
Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee in their
book The Second Machine Age: Work,
Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant
Technologies. “When you automate, costs
go down, you get more work and you need
more staff.”
“You have to transform to perform,” he
says, paraphrasing ex-Toyota South Africa
CEO Brand Pretorius, “and you have to try
to change faster inside your company than
the world is changing outside of it.”

A NEW WAY OF THINKING

ms its choreographed dance, turning out one
ue for the human when faced with the robot’s
flow. PHOTO: