suame magazine_part 1.pdf

7/25/2019 Suame Magazine_part 1.pdf

1/103

+SUAME MAGAZINE+

++an industrial cluster+++part one+++Kumasi+++Ghana+++


2/103


3/103

SUAME MAGAZINETHE GARDEN CITY ANTHOLOGY


4/103


5/103

AN INDUSTRIAL CLUSTER

The Suame Magazine located in Kumasi is recognised as the largest artisan engineering cluster:mechanical, electrical and car body building workshop in the sub-Sahara Africa. It occupies an

area of about 20 square miles. The Suame-Magazine, formed spontaneously in the 1929 is acluster of artisans engaged mainly in vehicle repairs and metal works.

This set of pictures is about the present-day situation of the Magazine.

The current state of technology has imposed significant challenges on Suame Magazine to adoptstate-of the art technology in its operations in order to remain relevant in the fast advancingglobal engineering industry in which it is an integral part.

The industrial area known locally as Suame-Magazine, because its original site once houseda military magazine used by the British, is involved in five major clustered set of activities. Theworking population of the magazine is estimated to be 200,000, more than three times thethreshold population of a political district, of which 12,000 are shop-owning proprietors.

Traditionally, the Magazine craftsmen were involved in vehicle repairs, with a small numberof blacksmiths also producing basic agricultural tools, charcoal stoves, and other simple metalgoods. Out of this base of blacksmithing has evolved a group of firms involved in various typesof metal-work manufacturing. All of the metal-working firms spend at least some of their time

doing repair and maintenance work, but all are also manufacturers. Dawson (1988) categorisedthem into three groups: blacksmiths who used clay and brick forges and hand tools, a middlegroup who had achieved a modest level of technological enhancement, mostly with the use oflocally made machines, and a group using machine tools, including at least one lathe, that Daw-son calls engineering workshops.

The first turning-point came with the retreat of Ghanas formal economy from the mid-1970sonwards when even the least ambitious blacksmith added new products to his range or, at thevery least, increased the volume of his production. Entrepreneurs saw vehicles lacking parts that

could no longer be imported, and attempted to fabricate suitable spares. Others saw the need forfood processing or agricultural equipment, and copied existing imported models.

The Suame Magazine is a cluster of artisans engaged mainly in vehicular repairs and metal workswith a working population of over 200,000 of which 12,000 are shop-owning proprietors. In theGhanaian economy the Suame-Magazine plays a crucial role in capacity building in technicaland vocational skills to young school dropouts and serves as the industrial attachment for practi-cal training for trainees in technical and vocational schools and polytechnics. It has strong verti-cal bilateral linkages between garages and metal workshops, mostly the engineering firms. The

strength of the activities depends on the ingenuity and diversity of services that is undertakenby both apprentices and master craftsmen of the cluster.


6/103


7/103


8/103


9/103


10/103


11/103


12/103


13/103


14/103


15/103


16/103


17/103


18/103


19/103


20/103


21/103


22/103


23/103


24/103


25/103


26/103


27/103


28/103


29/103


30/103


31/103


32/103


33/103


34/103


35/103


36/103


37/103


38/103


39/103


40/103


41/103


42/103


43/103


44/103


45/103


46/103


47/103


48/103


49/103


50/103


51/103


52/103


53/103


54/103


55/103


56/103


57/103


58/103


59/103


60/103


61/103


62/103


63/103


64/103


65/103


66/103


67/103


68/103


69/103


70/103


71/103


72/103


73/103


74/103


75/103


76/103


77/103


78/103


79/103


80/103


81/103


82/103


83/103


84/103


85/103


86/103


87/103


88/103


89/103


90/103


91/103


92/103


93/103


94/103


95/103


96/103


97/103


98/103


99/103


100/103


101/103


102/103


103/103

suame magazine_part 1.pdf

Documents