VISIONARIES UNITED

OJ Construction

A good success story is dependent on a couple of things. You need something unique and special, you need a powerful message and you need an impressive result. OJ Construction has all of these and to explain the details Jack Slater got in touch with Joint Owner Andre Oosthuizen to have a chat.

Founded in 2006, OJ Construction struck the industry with a resounding boom and since then has increased its turnover from a modest N$12 million annually to over N$100 million in 2012. The boom was clearly the hammer hitting the nail squarely on the head.

“This exposure has been obtained from managing construction projects of various sizes, large and small in the residential commercial and industrial sectors,” Andre explains, “The partners of OJ Constructions have a collective understand of over thirty four years of construction industry experience.”

“Visionaries precede followers and leave laggards behind,” is a good corporate saying, Andre continues, “Our incentive is to live out our visions and move on to the next challenge. As construction and project managers our first incentive is to replace confrontation and adversarial relationship with a spirit of joint endeavour and accomplishment between planner, designer and constructor, therefor serving the interest of the project owner.”

This sounds brilliant, but the question is always how does any company achieve such visions and philosophies? Words only go so far before actions are needed but Andre has this thoroughly worked out:

OJ Construction

Main dealer and distributor for New Holland Construction and Agricultural Machinery

Rex-Quip is a 100% Namibian owned company of repute where service is the key word.

“Our first priority it to be recognised as an excellent construction company. Secondly, to complete projects to the design standard, within the time schedule and finally within budget,” he says, “Our company is also dedicated to empower Namibian small and medium enterprises SMEs. Our vision is to apply effective management skills to guide construction projects to their successful conclusion and to foster faith of clients in our abilities to be nationally recognized as an excellent construction company.”

This is of particular importance to OJ Construction and their primary objective is to improve entrepreneurial and project management skills of SMEs and in that respect empower their own labour force to become service providers to them and other construction companies.

Small built environment firms in Namibia need business acumen to succeed and grow their business performance and competitiveness. Therefor OJC encourage growth of these businesses, creating wealth and ultimately generating employment within the construction sector. Furthermore, OJ Construction provides in-house training to its employees to become skilled in managing the construction process. Confidence in the supervision of certain trades on site is thus gained. Employees who show potential are assisted in registering as SMEs and receive preferential treatment on projects that OJ Construction has been awarded.

The design and build way of carrying out construction projects is a relatively new concept to Namibia but routinely executed in Northern hemisphere countries. The client

Rex Quip

Established: June 1996

Areas covered: construction, road building, civil engineering and mining industry

Diversified agency for: Hitachi products, Hamm products, Terex Finlay screens, Wirtgen Road products and Astra articulated and rigid dump trucks

Support: we have seven (7) service (LDV’s) and a 7 ton fully equipped crane truck, ten (10) skilled artisans which covers the whole of Namibia

Parts supply: our store is stocked with spare parts worth 12 million, ready for resale.

OJ Construction

approaches a reputable construction company, who in turn contracts designers, surveyors and engineers that are sufficiently experienced in the design of a required development.

“Our senior management is well qualified and experienced and can save time and cost for a client in such a process,” says Andre, “Major investment and property companies in the western cape of south Africa use design and construct as the preferred way in which they carry out developments. It’s our goal to see this method of project inception to become a norm in the Namibian construction industry.”

OJ Construction is committed to providing a safe and healthy environment for all personnel and visitors to their sites. As a company there is a continual drive to improve the effectiveness of the health and safety systems through the setting and measurement of specific objectives put in place and by conforming to the current, applicable occupational health and safety legislation.

Their Mission statement is as follows- as an employer we undertake to provide a safe working environment and appropriate tools. We also acknowledge that safety takes precedence over program and cost. The consequence of

injuries is a financial loss to both the individual and to the project.

“Green Feet at OJC “ is an initiative to promote recycling on construction site level. Why is recycling so important? Every metric ton of paper uses 40% less energy and 50% less water. If all household paper/cardboard was recycled 750 000 cubic metres of landfill space would be saved a year. The energy saved from paper recycling in a year is sufficient to provide electricity to 512 homes for a year. Glass is 100% recyclable but it does not biodegrade. The raw materials for glass- sand, soda and lime- all have to be dug from the earth and melted together at a very high temperatures. Energy is saved by recycling. The energy saved from recycling just one bottle will power a 100-watt light bulb for almost an hour. Every tone

OJ Construction

of glass recycled also saves 1.2 tones of raw materials.

Cans are 100% recyclable. They are melted down to make new steel. This reduces the need to mine new iron ore and saves o the energy used to mine and process it. More than 36 000 tons of high-grade steel is recovered re-smelting a year.

A total of 562- million PET bottles were recovered for recycling in 2007 alone. This removed 19000 tones of plastic rom landfill but that was only 2.4 percent of the PET bottles made that year. Recycling a ton of PET containers saved 7.4 cubic meters of landfill space. And 19 x 500ml PET bottles can be recycled into enough fibre filling for a standard pillow.

“The shortest distance between two points is under construction,” Leo Aikman.

The failure to accomplish tasks correctly, completely, in time and to do them correctly the first time causes continual disruptions, protracts budgets, destroys schedules and can ultimately destroy continuity of a construction company.

“Is it the policy of our company to provide the highest quality of construction services. We therefore strive to meet or exceed all stated requirements of every endeavour in which we are involved, with respect to materials, labour and administrative or time components. “

Each subjective, unquatifiable requirement must be made tangible. We must guarantee that every requirement is clearly defined in terms than can be measured and communicated in a manner that those responsible for its execution will clearly understand. If any requirement cannot be met we must cause the requirement to be officially changed.

OJ Constructionwww.ojcnam.com+264 61 246 021

Written by Jack Slater

www.littlegatepublishing.com