Instrucciones para autores

consultancy services, training and technical updating projects, and to manage research and development activities. There is a potential to extend this framework to include, at least partially, the management of laboratories to perform technical tests, the establishment of quality control, and even the development of standards and certification.

More recently, commercial services have also been offered but there is a low demand for these because they do not meet the needs of industrial modernization, nor do they provide assistance for marketing, support in negotiations, or contact with potential partners and buyers in the local and external markets.

Quality and competitiveness issues

Quality planning is essential to the technological renewal and modernization of the SMEs in the African leather products sub-sector and thereby to the improvement of their productivity and competitiveness. The first step in planning and establishing quality is to improve, at both regional and national level, the technical services provided by service agencies throughout Africa. These agencies should be provided with the technical assistance and training that will qualify them to offer services, such as those included in Box 5.1, to modernize and improve the competitiveness of leather manufacturing enterprises. Enterprises served by these centres should be willing to implement TQM. (See Box 5.2.)

Recommendations

1. Governments should cooperate with enterprises in developing policies for sector development and the modernization of enterprises, in particular:

a. Develop concrete strategies for sub-regional integration of the African leather supply chain, including raw materials, semi-finished products and parts30 _{produced locally.}

b. Promote the development of regional or sub-regional markets for finished products. This would strengthen technical and manufacturing capacity by the transfer and sharing of technology, and would guarantee continuity of production in an expanded market.

2. Governments and enterprises should promote investment in: a. Improving technology and equipment.

b. Developing management skills in design and production. c. Improving company organization.

d. Managing product conversion.

e. Managing quality and technology, and raising quality levels. f. Positioning enterprises in the home market.

g. Updating tecmarket information systems and marketing penetration techniques.

3. Enterprises should consider:

a. Entering into sub-contracting agreements with companies abroad as independent enterprises or in groups of African enterprises in order to accelerate the transfer of technology and business know-how. This is already being practiced by some African enterprises with EU enterprises, and is further discussed in Chapter Six.

b. Participating in joint ventures to attract cheaper capital, obtain updated technology and modern management techniques, and gain better access to

global markets. (See Chapters 6 and 7 for a more complete discussion of joint ventures and FDI.)

These two initiatives would require improvements in the service infrastructure. The private sector, in the form of independent associations, could take part in joint actions with the government to improve the service infrastructure for both local and export production. This covers a wide range of services, from basic services to training and technical consulting. Further areas of improvement are related to the management of laboratories for technical testing, quality control, R&D, and the development of standards and certification.

Box 5.1 Modern Service Centres

The centres and their quality laboratories would provide the following services:

• Support for TQM.

• Quality certification and control.

• Technological and organizational services.

• Innovation and technology transfer (R&D).

• Vocational training.

• Telematics, data banks and communication.

A centre would require the following equipment, facilities and expertise:

• A physical-mechanical-chemical laboratory for quality tests, linked to foreign high-tech laboratories.

• Pilot production plants to provide vocational training, technical assistance and the transfer of technology.

• An R&D department linked with the most important foreign research centres.

• A vocational training centre with classrooms and basic facilities.

• A CAD/CAM laboratory to provide services to customers in rationalizing design and production to meet demand, and in fulfilling the requirements of standards.

• Qualified technical consultants previously exposed to the production structure and the functioning of services in the most important production districts in Europe.

The centres would be able to help enterprises apply retail trade quality guidelines, such as those listed below, and provide support in establishing export links.

• Suppliers’ selection criteria.

• Product performance standards derived from quality standards.

• Norms or rules on the organization of production delivery dates and times.

• Ethical, safety and work codes.

• Environmental issues such as those established by Ecolabel and EMAS.

Box 5.2 TQM Quality Programmes in the Enterprise

Groups of enterprises served by the centres should be willing to implement TQM. Managers, supervisory personnel and workers should understand and apply the following principles:

• Quality must be viewed from the wider perspective of the organizational structure of the company: in the overall management of the company; in all areas of production management and marketing; and as a concern both of departments and of individual employees.

• Modern quality management is about more than improving the features of a company’s products or services: the change in its attitude to quality will become one of its crucial strategic strengths.

• Total quality management brings increased productivity and cost reduction through the improved efficiency of all the company’s processes, and brings improvement in its image, in its market competitiveness, and in its profits.

• Leadership should strive for excellence – this is the goal of total quality, a goal that can only be achieved by a dynamic process of continuous improvement.