The terms that come up on real production-line projects — sourcing, acceptance testing, controls, trade, and South African context — defined in plain language, the way we use them with manufacturers.
The structured test of a complete machine or line at the supplier's factory, run against acceptance criteria agreed in writing before the build starts. Passing FAT is the milestone that should release a major payment tranche and authorise shipment.
Full guide: FAT vs SAT: what to test and when
The same kind of test repeated on your own floor, with your real raw material and utilities, after installation. Warranty should start at SAT, not at the date the equipment shipped.
Full guide: FAT vs SAT: what to test and when
Bringing an installed line into stable production. Cold commissioning checks the line dry — services, interlocks and sequences; hot commissioning runs real product at rate.
Full guide: Commissioning & Maintenance
A contractual commitment to a minimum throughput — and often quality and efficiency — at acceptance, with the measurement method defined. Without it, a vague claim that the line works is unenforceable.
A pre-agreed, capped penalty the supplier pays for defined schedule slippage, so a late delivery carries a real contractual cost instead of just an argument.
The documented list of outstanding defects and incomplete items recorded at handover, each with an owner and a due date, that must be closed before final acceptance.
A manufacturer's declaration that equipment meets the applicable EU health, safety and environmental directives. Useful, but not a substitute for verifying the certificate and the compliance behind it.
A quality-management-system standard. It signals documented process discipline, not product quality on its own — confirm the certificate is current and actually covers the factory building your machine.
ICC-published trade terms that define exactly where cost and risk pass from seller to buyer in an international shipment. The wrong term quietly shifts large costs and liabilities onto you.
Full guide: Incoterms for African manufacturing imports
The seller delivers the goods, cleared for export, on board the vessel at the named origin port; cost and risk pass to you there. CISH usually recommends FOB on machinery imports for cost transparency.
Full guide: FOB vs CIF vs DAP
The seller pays freight and minimum marine insurance to the destination port, but risk still passes at the origin port. Convenient, but freight and insurance are bundled into the supplier's price.
The seller delivers to a named place ready for unloading; you handle import clearance and duties. Useful when you want the supplier to own the freight leg but keep customs in your control.
You take responsibility from the supplier's gate onward — the maximum buyer responsibility and usually the riskiest term for an inexperienced importer.
The Harmonised System tariff classification that sets the import duty rate. Get it wrong and SARS can reclassify the goods, sometimes upward — validate it before signing the contract.
South Africa's International Trade Administration Commission, which administers import and export permits and the duty rebates relevant to some machinery imports.
The elapsed time from a confirmed order to a defined milestone such as FAT or delivery. For a production line it runs in months, and is dominated by design and build, not by shipping.
The structured list of every component, sub-assembly and quantity in a machine. A complete BOM at handover is what makes future spares and maintenance possible.
The company that actually designs and builds the equipment, as opposed to a trading company reselling it. Knowing whether you are dealing with the OEM changes the entire negotiation.
Full guide: Chinese supplier audit checklist
A single percentage combining Availability × Performance × Quality that shows how much good output a line produces against its theoretical maximum. Around 85% is often called world-class, but the trend matters more than the headline number.
Full guide: Measuring OEE without a new PLC
The single slowest step that caps the throughput of the whole line. Adding capacity anywhere except the bottleneck does not increase output.
The time and work to switch a line from one product or format to another. Frequent short runs make changeover time a major and often hidden cost.
The period after commissioning when output and stability climb toward the design target. Budget for it — day-one rate is rarely the contracted rate.
The actual output rate of a line in product units — for example bph (bottles per hour) on a filling line, or tpd (tonnes per day) on a mill. Always separate peak from sustained average.
Mean Time Between Failures and Mean Time To Repair — the two numbers that describe reliability. High MTBF and low MTTR is the goal, and a sound spares strategy is what protects MTTR.
Full guide: Spare-parts strategy
The full lifetime cost of a line — purchase, install, energy, labour, maintenance, spares and downtime — not just the machine price, which is often only 15–35% of the 10-year total.
Full guide: Total cost of ownership
Capital expenditure, the upfront cost of buying and installing the asset, versus operating expenditure, the ongoing cost of running it. Cheap capex with heavy opex is a common false economy.
The industrial controller that runs a machine's logic, sequences and safety interlocks. Its age and brand support largely decide how upgradable a line is.
Full guide: When to upgrade your PLC
The operator screen used to run and monitor a line. A good HMI surfaces faults and data clearly; a poor one hides them.
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition — the layer that monitors and logs data across multiple machines or a whole plant, above the individual PLCs.
Adding new capability — sensors, controls, monitoring — to an existing line without replacing it. Often the fastest payback available in digitalisation.
Full guide: What digitalisation costs
Instrumenting a line so its real performance is visible and actionable, from basic output counting up to full OEE tracking and predictive maintenance.
Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment — South Africa's framework scoring procurement and ownership transformation, which can affect how a sourcing split is weighted on public and large private projects.
Full guide: B-BBEE & local content
The share of a project's value created locally — fabrication, assembly, labour. It can carry scoring and incentive weight, and it changes the buy-versus-build calculation.
Full guide: Buy from China vs fabricate locally
The African Continental Free Trade Area, progressively reducing tariffs on qualifying intra-African trade and reshaping where it makes sense to fabricate.
The Southern African Development Community — the regional bloc whose member markets many CISH projects serve.
A delivery model where one party is accountable end-to-end — scope, supply, install, commission and handover — so you sign one contract and hold one party responsible.
Full guide: Turnkey Production Lines
Combining imported equipment with local fabrication and integration to balance cost, lead time and local content.
Full guide: Local & Hybrid Manufacturing
If a term keeps coming up in your project and isn't here, tell us — we'll define it, and usually write the guide behind it.