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Development and Retention of Technical Skills

Development of Operator Skills

Promotion of Advanced Skills

Comprehensive HIV&AIDS Programmes at a Firm Level

Energy Efficiency

Benchmarking and Knowledge Sharing

Firm Competitiveness

The DCC Firm Competitiveness Programme has a number of objectives which includes the following:

• Improve cost competitiveness in the areas of process, logistics and raw materials;
• Improve energy efficiency and more effectively manage supply to operations;
• Improve internal regulatory related processes;
• Increase availability of identified operational, technical and advanced skills;
• Effective cluster-wide engagement with HIV and AIDS; and,
• Promote HSE best practices.

In support of meeting these objectives, the Firm Competitiveness TSC is responsible for the implementation/execution of the activities listed below.
 

Development and Retention of Technical Skills 

• The scarcity of technical skills is of major concern to all industry participants and needs to be addressed in order to benefit both the local industry and the national economy.
• The purpose of this intervention is to align the industry with tertiary institutions so as to increase the quality and quantity of skilled persons entering the industry.
• Current issues being addressed include curriculum concerns, technical expertise and lecturing capabilities, firm-level relations, duration of placements, industry awareness, curriculum input from chemical firms and capacity building.
• Some of the intended outputs are to increase the placement of P1 and P2 and related students at firms and improve the alignment between higher education institutions and industry.

Development of Operator Skills

• Operators at firms are responsible for the crucial value-adding activities required to manufacture quality products. It is thus vital that operator skills are developed on a continual basis. In addition, a focus on continuous improvement is imperative to firm survival, with the input of operators crucial to ensuring that this environment exists.
• It is with this in mind that this intervention, focusing on the development of operator skills, aims to increase the skills of operators to a suitable level where they are have the necessary knowledge to manufacture effectively, and also contribute towards the competitiveness upgrading of the industry individual contribution, a vital aspect of continuous improvement.

Promotion of Advanced Skills

• For any industry to grow it is vital that advanced skills are supported and retained. This initiative will entail a coordinated approach to the promotion of advanced skills development, as well as the retention of these skills so as to limit the shortage of skills being experienced.
• The initiative will consider projects for students as well as bursaries for advanced research as proposed methods for overcoming this problem.

Comprehensive HIV & AIDS Programmes at a Firm Level 

The prevalence of HIV and AIDS in the South African workforce poses a serious risk to the competitiveness of the labour intensive chemical industry. HIV and AIDS is consequently as much a corporate responsibility as a social problem. The absence of reliable information on HIV and AIDS prevalence in the chemical industry in KZN makes an accurate estimate of the current HIV and AIDS status amongst DCC members almost impossible.

In response to this the DCC has forged relationships with a variety of different parties, inlcuding the South African Business Coalition on HIV and AIDS (SABCOHA), to improve the DCC's ability to understand and mitigate the impact of HIV and AIDS within DCC member companies

• Assist member companies to implement comprehensive HIV and AIDS workplace programmes, including facilitating and providing treatment and care for HIV+ employees
• Drive down the costs associated with HIV and AIDS programmes through joint action
• Increase knowledge sharing and partnership amongst member companies

At the end of 2009, the DCC revisited all of the Programme components in an effort to improve the effectiveness of the Programme, as well as to ensure it's sustainability in 2010 and beyond.  The Programme has subsequently been expanded to a 12-step Programme:

Energy Efficiency  

• With the current strains on energy supply being faced by all of South Africa, including the chemical industry, there is potential benefit to be gained from shared learnings in the field of energy savings.
• Intended outputs include the establishment of energy saving networks and 10% efficiency gains.
• Current primary focus areas include technical training sessions, site audits and the publication of energy newsletters as a means for sharing energy-related information.

Benchmarking and Knowledge Sharing

• The long-term objective of this programme includes the completion of firm-level benchmarking activities and the creation and maintenance of a regional and international benchmarking database.
• A further aim is the establishment and promotion of a platform from where participating firms can share manufacturing best practices as well as improving firm-level knowledge of World Class Manufacturing processes and practices.
• Initially a pilot benchmarking project will be conducted and from that a more comprehensive project will be formed in order to meet the long-term objectives of the programme. The benchmarking overview is outlined below.

Benchmarking Overview
The firm level competitiveness benchmarking analyses that take place annually comprise two integrated components, namely a customer benchmark and a like-with-like comparative benchmark. These components allow B&M Analysts to accurately present a value chain picture of the competitiveness of a company in terms of:

• The ability to understand and meet customer demands
• Match and exceed comparator/competitor performance levels

The firm-level benchmarking methodology, as well as the market driver approach and the associated operational performance measures are outlined below:

The ability to meet and exceed comparator/competitor performance is evaluated using a ‘market driver’ methodology. While economic & financial measures such as sales, profitability, employment, ROI & cost of sales are measured as indicators of past performance, the measures listed below under the various market drivers represent the heart of the competitive analysis.