More on SOGI A Set of Complementary Skills at the Service of Industrial Equipment Editorial Advertisement - L'Union, September 2, 2001

SOGI, the Gabonese Industrial Company, was created in 1975 and is part of the SOGAFRIC Group, just like SODIM TP, SOGAFRIC Froid, Electra, Toyota Gabon, and GESPARC.

A Set of Diverse and Complementary Activities
SOGI concentrates its activities exclusively in the industrial field and have been, from the start, characterized by their diversity:

The general boiler making is the process of transforming metal sheets for the industrial making of metal riveted, stamped, or welded parts such as tanks, water towers, vats, silos, and any steel mechanically welded parts.

In its bodywork production workshop, SOGI mass produces the following equipment:

SOGI's Metal Structure Department designs and builds industrial buildings suited to local conditions that meet all the quality requirements demanded by this kind of works.

The Fine Plate Making Workshop produces most of the metal casing for the air piping and intake for central air conditioning systems. It also makes the pipeworks for vacuuming the dust and shaving for the local factories.

SOGI Naval, the ship building department, offers the services of new unit building, mechanical and painting jobs on river transportation vehicles (barges, LCT, and flats).

The General and Precision Mechanic Workshop produces all kinds of machined, drilled, or turned parts.

In the framework of its diesel injection activities, SOGI has, for several years, provided servicing for Bosch. In continuing this partnership, SOGI has recently moved into the sales of spare parts and proposes, for any kind vehicle (sedan, utility, 4x4, or trucks): batteries, filtration components, belts, brake pads, parts for hydraulic braking and clutch systems, ignition parts, fuel pumps, etc.

Finally, thanks to its aluminum carpentry expertise, SOGI brings aesthetic and creative solutions for any and all kinds of building external fronts by making windows, pergolas, awnings, platform awnings, and railings. For the inside, SOGI's priority is the well-being of the users by creating nice and functional spaces through partitions, fitting outs, doors, and glass roofs.

A Qualified and Effective Staff
The competence and performance of SOGI's 200 agents is the result of a hiring and training policy that was put in place by the company from the start.
Training is a fundamental part of the SOGAFRIC Group human resource development policy. It reflects the will for individual and collective progress to master technological innovations and thus enhance further the Group's expertise and reliability.

To ensure that its staff stays as competent as fulfilled, aware of technological advances, innovative work procedures, and customers' changing needs, SOGI, like the other companies of the SOGAFRIC Group, uses the Training Center that bears the name of one of the Group's founders, the "Boutonnet-Brenac Center." Created in 1998 to meet the Group's professional excellence ambition requirements, the Center offers 4 training spaces: An interactive training room, a classroom, a computer training room, and a technical training room.

In 2000, 12,000 internal training hours were given in the Center, 50% of which had to do with technical concerns. SOGI's agents were thus able to take various courses on computer-assisted drawing software, 200 hours on various welding techniques, and 60 hours of tracing applied to boiler making.

All this training activities demonstrate SOGI's and the SOGAFRIC Group's commitment to durably invest in the Gabonese economy and their trust in the country's future.

Quality Products and Services
Right from the start, SOGI committed to selecting its partners among world-renowned suppliers:

With its highly specialized and well-equipped facilities, SOGI regularly invests in high technology production processes. The company thus is equipped with a computerized unit for computing structural data, an optical reading and plasma torch cutting table , 2 high capacity guillotine shears, bending machines, and hoisting means that enable the production of one-piece blocs of up-to 10 metric tons.

Renovated, Modular, and Expendable Facilities
SOGI's facilities in the Oloumi Industrial Zone have been completely redone and cover an area of 12,000 square meters, 5,000 of which are covered. Totally renovated, they include the design office with its computer-assisted drawing software, the production and maintenance workshops, and the administrative offices. A space is reserved for servicing and selling Bosch spare parts. A specific workshop has also been set up for the aluminum carpentry activity.

The ship building workshop is on a different site, at the mouth of the Nomba River, on the Owendo Road. It is equipped with appropriate hoisting means and tooling that make possible to deal with any kind of ship. By receiving vessel of up-to 600 tons, 2,20 meter draft, and 13,50 meter wide, these facilities greatly extend SOGI's intervention capacities in Gabon.

Thanks to the complementary nature of the various activities of the SOGAFRIC Group, SOGI has can access the technological pole that has been entirely reorganized. Two billion have been invested in order to offer a global service to all the Group's customers and excellent work conditions to its agents. These new accommodations follow the guiding principles of service quality and effectiveness. All the work units have thus been reorganized and equipped with highly modern facilities. The heavy equipment workshops are especially better equipped in order to offer quality servicing: roomier facilities and new tooling today make it possible to meet a more important demand in less time, while meeting the security norms.

All these investments are part of the SOGAFRIC Group's commitment to participate to the unavoidable transformation process of the economy following the end of oil exploitation. The objective is to strengthen its base in order to adapt as quickly as possible to the evolution of the economy and to technological advances.

Products that Reflect Customers' Desires
Thanks to a great production flexibility and a close cooperation with the users, SOGI's technicians make it a point of honor to produce equipment and facilities especially suited to the local context.

Thus, for the past three years, SOGI has produced:

Finally, and to show SOGI's and the SOGAFRIC Group's commitment to seize all the development opportunities in the region, SOGI has built the metal structure of Mongomo's Conference Hall in Equatorial Guinea.

SOGI's Urban Bus: Human and Technical Synergy for Innovative National Solutions
SOGI's latest innovative product has to do with the design and production of an urban bus prototype. Because of its comfort, suitability to local conditions, totally modular design, and compliance to the most stringent security requirements, it perfectly suits the local population's expectations and needs.

The production of this prototype is the result of the complementary nature of various skills developed by SOGI. Thanks to their expertise acquired throughout the years in the fields of heavy equipment, general mechanics, and diesel injection, SOGI's technicians bring a national solution to the demand for the mass-production and maintenance of urban transportation vehicles. Job creation, cost and cycle-time reduction, vehicle fleet in continuous good condition: These are the social and economic perspectives offered by this innovation.

The production of this prototype is also the result of the synergy that exists among the companies of the SOGAFRIC Group. If SOGI is the initiator of the project, SODIM TP supplied the bare frame for the engine, SOGAFRIC made the plastic parts, and the technological pole should intervene for the maintenance of the buses. Through this creative and imaginative endeavor, SOGI intends to confirm its capacity for adaptation and for continuing evolution in order to ensure its prosperity, durability, and cohesion, and to increase its staff of technicians.

SOGI is a company of the SOGAFRIC Group