HALL 6 STAND E06

Leading OEM Kwatani’s vibrating screens shake the mining industry

Established over 42 years ago and with +15 000 units in over 30 countries, Kwatani is the largest independent privately-owned OEM supplying and manufacturing custom designed vibratory equipment in Africa.

On average, one machine a day leaves the company’s 17 000 m2 heavy fabrication facility located in Johannesburg close to the JHB international airport. Kwatani is an ISO 9001:2015 and Level B-BBEE 3 accredited South African company; with all its vibratory equipment engineered and manufactured in-house.

Kwatani was originally registered in 1976 as Joest (Pty) Ltd as a subsidiary of a German company named JÖST GmbH & Co KG. In 1989 the current majority shareholder purchased Joest and successfully integrated local technology over the past 42 years to boost the equipment’s robustness and efficiencies to cope with the harsh African mining environment. 

“KwaTani” translated into Swahili means engineered ‘For Tonnage’. Kwatani has a heritage that is proudly African and it is therefore fitting that the company changed its name to one which embodies this credo.

Known for its ability to custom engineer fit-for-purpose vibrating equipment to meet specific application requirements and match existing plant footprints, Kwatani has an extensive installed machine base operating in some of the most extreme conditions and environments. Its extensive reference base with blue chip and junior miners spread across processing plants in and beyond Africa, is testament to its reliable and robust vibrating equipment providing continuous tonnage over the lowest cost of ownership.

The company develops vibrating equipment solutions for the most extreme arduous applications. Individual machines can weigh less than a tonne or up to as much as 54 tonnes and can handle throughputs of up to 7 000 tonnes per hour of heavy metal ores. The company’s largest screens are up to 4.3 m wide by 11 m long. Kwatani’s screening ‘beasts’ deliver solid performance in the most arduous conditions similar to rugby star Tendai ‘Beast’ Mtawarira.

Kwatani custom designs and manufactures a comprehensive range of vibrating equipment to meet all feeding and screening requirements and customer footprint. Kwatani prides itself as a brownfields specialist that has successfully and seamlessly undertaken numerous large-scale retrofits of vibrating equipment in existing plant infrastructure. Kwatani’s retrofits as performed with minimal changes to plant infrastructure and offer improved screening and feeding efficiency and uptime.

Kwatani’s in-house engineering offering is underpinned by expert design and detail engineering know-how, including Finite Element Analysis (FEA) modelling competency and R&D capabilities complete with a test laboratory. Kwatani employs many highly qualified and experienced engineers and all its designs are backed by an FEA. The company’s in-house laboratory is equipped with a versatile testing screen which can change all its key screening parameters. Material testing forms part of designing the optimal solution for the most challenging screening applications.

With extensive manufacturing facilities boasting 9 500 m2 under roof, most of its manufacturing processes are undertaken in-house. State-of-the-art shot blasting and painting technologies ensure that all its products receive the best corrosion protection available. Installed lifting cranage is over 160 tons, with the largest overhead crane lifting 40 tons.

The company manufactures on average one unit per day and can handle up to 250 tonnes of steel across its facilities, representing a considerable manufacturing capability. Key benefits of its job based production process is its ability to provide a high level of customisation, while at the same time allowing flexibility to provide emergency parts or services when required. Every vibrating unit is subjected to a one-hour test on a specialised testing floor where the unit must run optimally before being passed and certified by a Kwatani engineer.

Kwatani is the only OEM of vibrating equipment to engineer, assemble and test its comprehensive range of robust exciter gearboxes in-house. It is the only OEM to test every exciter gearbox at full load on its exciter test bench. This way Kwatani ensures that every exciter gearbox performs optimally when subjected to the true forces prior to dispatch. Its exciter gearboxes offer a robust housing design for longer in-service life and reduced noise levels of below 85 dB.

Unbalanced motors have been engineered to Kwatani’s technical specifications and are manufactured exclusively for the company in partnership with one of the world’s leading vibrator motor manufacturers in Europe. Kwatani’s unbalanced motor range offers a superior design which will result in extended uptime for vibrating equipment, as well as improved ease of maintenance.

Electromagnetic super feeder Lockers drives are engineered and manufactured in-house and smaller magnetic drives are sourced exclusively from AViTEQ in Germany.

Kwatani’s extensive offering includes complete in-house refurbishments of exciter gearboxes and vibrating screens and feeders for longer in-service life.

Kwatani represents Derrick Corporation’s range of engineered fine screening solutions in selected mining regions in Africa. Kwatani is a partner of Derrick Solutions International (DSI) Africa, the appointed the distributor of the group’s mineral processing equipment in Africa. Kwatani supplies and services the Derrick range of machines for coarse and fine screening and for arduous applications through to technologies with patented polyurethane panels for screening at 45 microns and finer particle sizes.

In 2012, Kwatani acquired the assets of Lockers Engineers and has since sustained the Lockers screen and feeder technology brand, established for over 100 years. The company continues to supply customers with the full product range, including vibrating screens and feeders, electromagnetic super feeder drives, controllers, Vimec conveyors and fluidised bed dryers.

Kwatani offers a range of fine screening equipment comprising round and rectangular separators. Use of a gyratory-reciprocating motion results in high efficiency and capacity, separating wet or dry, fine or coarse materials across multiple decks. Supplied across a range of industries including food and beverage, FMCG, chemical, plastic, petrochemical, powder coating, ceramic, pulp and paper, minerals beneficiation, recycling, and pharmaceutical.

Kwatani is committed to maintaining its customers’ uptime by providing a fast turnaround time with 24/7 customer service through its comprehensive service centre and branch network located in all the major mining areas throughout South Africa and including support into Africa. Kwatani stocks more than 14 000 items of OEM parts, supplied through its trained customer service team.