Enterprise Productivity & Competitiveness
Developing productive and competitive enterprises, while promoting job retention, job creation and poverty alleviation is of utmost importance to Productivity SA as we seek to support Government-directed national strategic initiatives with the ultimate goal of decreasing unemployment and growing our economy.
1. The Workplace Challenge
Increased competitiveness and higher productivity in enterprises is fundamental to achieving increased growth in South Africa. Productivity SA encourages globally competitive enterprises through the Workplace Challenge Programme which assists South African business organizations to improve their productivity and competitiveness through constructive workplace relations, improving workplace practices based on “best operating practices” and “world-class manufacturing principles” and sharing and disseminating processes and lessons. During the last three years, this programme has impacted on some 170 companies employing around 40 000 people.
Mentorship is key to achieving these goals. Our Facilitators and Service Providers work with clusters of companies to develop world class practices and share their experiences with others in the same region. This approach enables companies to focus on improving quality, speed, cost effectiveness and morale while eliminating waste and improving the value flow. It also helps establish close links with customers and suppliers while improving leadership practices that promote teamwork, participation, continuous learning and flexibility. The WPC also guides companies through Best Operating Practices such as “goal alignment”, “5 S’s”, “7 wastes” and “world-class leadership”.
The most recent development in the WPC is the User Groups concept, which is a more focused programme to develop world-class practices. Read more about the Workplace Challenge on our website at www.workplacechallenge.co.za
2. Turnaround Solutions
Productivity SA has over the years been involved in a number of interventions aimed at increasing the productive capacity of different organization, sectors as well as individual enterprises in South Africa. The Turnaround Solutions is an initiative of the Department of Labour, project managed by Productivity SA. The organization has also been involved in assisting communities largely affected by job loss to identify job creation opportunities as well as conduct research to determine the feasibility of such job creation opportunities.
This has been done as part of Productivity SA’s mandate as the Project Manager of the Turnaround Solutions Technical Support Facility which entails assisting companies in distress to minimize job losses. Achieving these objectives has involved the development of turnaround strategies for enterprises in decline and also providing technical support to communities affected by job loss in order to investigate and pursue job creation opportunities. Over the past three years, Productivity SA’s interventions at enterprises has protected over 10 000 jobs and in the next year this figure should exceed 12 000 jobs and also expand to the creation of 7 500 new job opportunities. Thereby supporting government’s Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa – ASGISA –tasked with halving unemployment and poverty by 2014.
Visit the SocialPlan website at www.turnaroundsolutions.co.za
3. Operations
Productivity solutions (which encompass processes, tools and techniques) are as follows:
Industrial Engineering Techniques
o Time Study (direct work measurement and rating)
o Synthetic Time Standards
o Method Study
o Activity Sampling
o Integrated Business Control (IBC)
o Just-in-time (JIT)
o Factory, office and stores layout design and optimisation
o Materials Handling
o Inventory Control
o Production Planning and Control
o Project Planning and Control
o Maintenance Management System
o Productivity Systems (MIS)
o Ergonomic Assessments (Manufacturing and Office)
o Theory of Constraints (TOC)
Performance/workload assessment to achieve the following:
o Staff justification (too many/too few)
o Equipment justification
o Technology justification
o Product justification
o Service justification
Provide training
o Work study practitioners course
o Time study training course
Please feel free to contact the operations team, for more information on one of the above solutions, at the following e-mail address: info@productivitysa.co.za
|
