Zimpapers Logo

Kiyapili Sibanda, Business Reporter
THE Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) is rolling out a training programme meant to assist local firms to improve business competitiveness.

Newly elected CZI president, Mr Sifelani Jabangwe, said the training programme was focused on lean manufacturing strategies as a build up to the organisation’s initiatives since 2016.

Lean manufacturing is a systematic method of eliminating waste within a manufacturing system for efficiency purposes. The system takes into account waste created through overburden and unevenness in workloads.

CZI is conducting the training in partnership with the Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Centre (SIRDIC) and Lean Institute of South Africa.

“We adopted this programme at our congress in 2015 and we are targeting all manufacturers in our membership,” said Mr Jabangwe.

He said the model was important for the economy as it helps companies to minimise waste in their operations.

“This programme of lean manufacturing helps companies to minimise waste in their operations. This enables companies to produce more with less making them more competitive. Competitiveness is what we need in a high cost environment like ours.

“It would be very difficult for manufacturing companies to survive without adopting lean practices as they would be outcompeted by lean businesses. These practices are appropriate for our environment where the cost of production is high,” said Mr Jabangwe.

Implementation of the programme is expected to boost efficiency within local firms for competitiveness on both the domestic and regional markets.

The CZI boss said the approach has worked well in countries like Japan as it helped them to develop several global brands such as Mazda and Toyota.

The manufacturing sector has been constrained by a number of setbacks such as high costs of production, high staff costs as well as competition from cheap imports.

@Kiyaz_Cool