TEVETA

The South African entity tasked with promoting employment growth in South Africa, Productivity SA, has collaborated with Malawi 's Technical, Entrepreneurial and Vocational Education and Training Authority (TEVETA) to share and disseminate productivity knowledge that stands to improve productivity within the two countries.

In order to achieve its mandate, the Authority regulates, facilitates, and promotes TEVETA in three main programs which are Formal Apprenticeships, Informal Apprenticeships and Productivity Enhancement Programmes (PEP). The PEP aims at ensuring improved productivity, performance and delivery of quality goods and services through the executing the following activities: Identifying productivity gaps, addressing productivity gaps, training, consulting, business reengineering and facilitating the adoption of the continuous Improvement (KAIZEN) philosophy.

This initiative is part of Pan African Productivity Association (PAPA) programme that encourages co-operation and collaboration between National Productivity Organisations in Africa and PAPA member countries. Malawi is the latest country to join PAPA in 2019.

In a venture under the PEP programme run by the Directorate of Training by TEVETA in Malawi, the collaboration saw a delegate six (6) productivity specialists undergo a two-week training on productivity enhancement methodologies in South Africa. The outcome of the training was to enable productivity specialists on the continent to be equipped with knowledge, systems, and critical skills in the production systems of both manufacturing, services, and various other sectors.

The theoretical and practical training which ran from 4th April – 13th April 2022 saw the Malawian delegates visit various South African model SMMEs, who have benefitted from Productivity SA Enterprise Development and Support Programmes to get first-hand experience of how their businesses were transformed through Productivity SA’s interventions. These visits also were an opportunity for the Malawian delegates to understand how the SMMEs have continued to utilize the tools leant from Productivity SA experts to ensure that their companies remain productive and competitive and are also able to identify any early warning signs of potential problems in their businesses.

The delegation visited several factories at the Automotive Industry Development Centre (AIDC) Automotive Incubation Hub which has an MOU with Productivity SA. The AIDC is a subsidiary of the Gauteng Growth and Development Agency (GGDA), an agency of the Gauteng Department of Economic Development (GDED).

The AIDC was established as a support centre to strengthen global competitiveness in the local automotive industry and to bolster the position of Gauteng as an automotive industry destination of choice.

The AIDC has accelerated economic growth within the automotive industry through strategic partnerships with government, non-governmental agencies, and industry leaders. The AIDC prides itself in being a world-class organisation, specialising in skills development and training, enterprise development, incubation programmes, management of incentive programmes and facility management.

The TEVETA delegation also visited the ABUSONS (PTY) LTD T/A UNICA PLASTIC MOULDERS, a distressed company in Pretoria that implemented Productivity SA “s Business Turnaround and Recovery Programme. TEVETA Malawi which is a regulatory body that was established in 1999 by an Act of Parliament with the mandate to regulate, promote and facilitate sustainable provision of quality technical, entrepreneurial, and vocational education and training in Malawi, relayed interest in the South Africa model.

Mr Joseph Chikopa said in order to increase access and equity, the TEVETA strives to develop quality skills training that equip the youth and other disadvantaged groups with skills that will enable them to become employable through Informal Training Programmes and the delegation will benefit from sharing knowledge with their South African counterparts, which will lead to enhanced productive stakeholder engagement and service provision back in Malawi.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Productivity SA, Mr Mothunye Mothiba, says the training holistically looked at productivity in general and all aspects that translate into successful organisational operations such as work environment, wastes and cost control for any business or organisation to be productive.

The training was tailormade to take into consideration the dynamics of the local industry in Malawi. The training also highlighted the benefits of Productivity improvement to economic performance and business efficiency and covered the following area:

• Theoretical understanding of productivity and the strategic positioning.
• Profit improvement as a function of “productivity improvement” and cost reduction strategies.
• Focus on productivity: input-throughput-output-outcome sequence.
• Measurements – efficiency and utilisation, Measurement Systems.
• Tools and techniques incl. assessment tools, problem solving etc.
• Process focuses as a strategy to improve productivity including value stream analysis and identifying waste.
• Key to sustained productivity improvement, and critical success factors.

Productivity has always been recognised and accepted as the underlying factor for competitiveness and the driver of growth. Several factors contribute to this, but it is people, knowledge and skills, and attitude that will make the difference. It is also common knowledge that good business thrives on higher productivity. Productivity provides a simple but powerful indicator of the ability of a country to optimally use its resources to drive economic growth. Removed last sentence.

Teveta Workshop Image Gallery

Enquiries

Mr Maupi Monyemangene
Media Liaison Manager; Productivity SA

+2782 447 3232
maupim@productivitysa.co.za
@productivitysa