TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER IN PRESS TOOL INDUSTRY: EFFECTIVENESS AND EFFICIENCY IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONTEXT

摘要

Technology plays a very crucial role in the advancement of an economy and also increases the level of flexibility within the manufacturing plants. Some of the most sophisticated technologies produced in the world today come from the developed countries. However, African countries including South Africa are facing major challenges to compete economically with other developed countries due to high level of products imported and lack of Intellectual Property ownership. The evolution of manufacturing technologies in the developing world has been very slow to an extent that many industries such as a press tool industry relied heavily on foreign machines to increase their participation in the economy. Furthermore, lack of technology ownership and full product license holder create environment that is not sustainable for local production and ownership of the technology. The development of press tool industries can be considered as prominent approach to sustainable development. However, South Africa as part of the international community, does not build much technology, but instead imports most of its technology from other countries. Technology transfer has been defined differently by various literature sources with the emphasis on the following, licensing, provision of knowhow and technical expertise. This paper explores the technology transfer process and seeks to determine the weakness and strengths of technology transfer in the press tool industry in South Africa. A structured questionnaire email distributed to press tool industries in the Gauteng province was used. Various data pertaining to imports and exports of press tool industry technology were gathered from government institutions that monitor technology development and technology flow within South African economy. Import projections were done using mathematical tool to highlight various factors linked to lack of technology transfer and lack of partnership with the universities in press tool industry. This paper showed the impact of producing press tool industry technology locally on job creation and expanding know-how on technology produced. Researcher proposes some solutions to the identified challenges. Future research will focus on developing industry partnership with university reconfigurable technology transfer model that provide synergy for mutual benefits between government, society and industry at large.