Match skills to technology

EMPLOYEE communication, competitiveness and customer service, intertwined with innovation to find local solutions for Africa’s problems could be key drivers in manufacturing growth and company success.

This was the crux of the message in debate during this week’s Manufacturing Indaba in Durban.

The comments came against a backdrop of a changing world in which jobs six years ago no longer existed. This meant multi-skilling the workforce was critical for employability and flexibility.

“Once workers felt part of the solution, they would adopt the solution – communication is fundamental,” Technology Localisation Implementation Unit (TLIU) manager Ashley Bhugwandin said.

This also meant academia and business had to co-operate to produce graduates with appropriate skills.

Coca-Cola Beverages South Africa packaging manager, Nhlanhla Yende, said matching skills to technology was critical. He said that when South Africa first adopted cellphones, thousands of small businesses emerged selling air-time recharge vouchers but today they were redundant as consumers recharged “virtually”.

That spoke to the multi-skilling issue that, closer to home, affected Coca-Cola where most sales happened in summer despite the company having employees year round.

He said manufacturing companies could not discuss competitiveness without tackling productivity and that centred on flexibility in customer delivery.

“Competitiveness is not only about price – it is also about having the right product at the right time in the right place, because, when a customer wants a treat not currently available with no indication when it will return, you lose that customer,” Yende said.

Sappi manufacturing director Pat McGrady said business could not survive without a competitive advantage.

Sappi had “a wake-up call” after the 2008 global crash, he said, when it still operated eight manufacturing plants using 40-year-old machinery, produced significant paper and pulp and operated six boilers. The company discovered that Asian competitors produced on one machine what took Sappi 14 to match.

Introspection revealed the company was “satisfying everyone” rather than simplifying the business model and identifying the niche in which it could provide customer service and efficiency.

He warned technology would phase out existing manufacturing jobs which meant applying a different approach. Given the best manufacturing companies still only operated at 80 percent efficiency, new jobs would evolve to close the waste gap.

Bhugwandin said along with finding core business it was important to train people to do a job correctly the first time to avoid unnecessary cost.

National Cleaner Production Centre South Africa (NCPC-SA) head, Ndivhuho Raphulu, said the bulk of South African companies had significant opportunity for fine-tuning manufacturing and production.

“There are massive opportunities... where green options exist,” he said.