Industrial enterprises all over the world face ever increasing competition. Due to globalization and the dominance of the market economy this has become a reality not least for companies in developing countries. They face new demands of increased productivity, quality and clientorientation. The need for investment and renewal is one of the prerequisites for company survival. It may be inadequate however to invest in new, advanced production technology. To make use of the existing human and technical resources in a more efficient way is often of equal importance. The assimilation of new technical investments demands educated personnel and an organisation that can take full advantage of the new technology. It is also essential to stimulate a constructive dialogue for development between workers and management in favour of both parties.

In order to assist companies in developing countries to meet these needs Sida, in cooperation with Ifa Production Development, has organised an annual training program called "Improving Production for Competitiveness". The first part of the program consists of a 4-week course in Sweden. This course covers a number of topics concerning production and management philosophies, production planning, work organisation, industrial relations etc. The ambition is to offer the participants insight in modern production philosophy, strategy and technology. During the course the participants also make study visits to Swedish factories.

After successful participation in the training programme, the participants will be able to plan, undertake and evaluate an action for change for improved productivity, quality and working conditions. During the course the participant elaborate a "plan for a change" project within their company on an idea which they have brought to Sweden. After completing the course in Sweden the participants shall organise and carry out this project. About one year later the course tutors visit their pupils at their companies and a final project seminar is held with representatives from the company and the final examination is done.

The first course was held in autumn 1996, so during the autumn of 1997 the first follow-up visits and examinations have been made and the experiences can be summarized. The results have varied quite alot. The problems that many participants meet when they come home are for example:

lack of money and other resources to realise the changes.

difficulties to convince their colleagues and other people in the company about the new ideas ("these ideas might be good in a country like Sweden but they will never work here...")

a low educational level among the work force.

In some cases, however, the participants have succeeded to introduce great changes and have achieved very good results. One example is Vimal Mahendru and his project.

Mr Mahendru is Managing Director of Indo Kopp, a Miniature Circuit Breaker manufacturing plant situated on the outskirts of Delhi, India. His project focused on a new production line for a new product (100 amp isolator). This meant that he could perform the project and the new ideas as a small scale experiment without having to make big changes in an old organisation. The organisational design of the new line was a revolution in the factory. The two workers were trained to plan their own work, to produce the new product from the planning stage to a finished product and to be responsible for the quality. One means of achieving this was to engage the workers in the planning of the new line, the work places etc. All this was quite new to all people in the company. The workers in India traditionally have not participated in any form in the development of the organisation of the production. For most of his colleagues it came as a chock when it was proposed that they should involve the workers in deciding the plant layout.

Another big change that was a revolution in the administrative thinking in the company was the introduction of "the 2-bin system" for material receipt and issue. This is a simple visual system which eliminated a great part of the excessive administrative work for control of material utilisation.

This pilot project was a big success. The main achievements were:

The operators met the challenge and accepted their totally new role in a remarkable way, despite tradition, low educational level, a critical environment and cultural as well as language problems (India has 15 official languages and 14 alphabets!).

The 2-bin system led to a reduction in inventory, almost no paperwork and at the same time a more efficient work.

The operators are highly committed. They now have total responsibility for the assembly line and are fully trained on all functions of the assembly process. There are no checks or supervision from external agencies and they are trusted with the responsibility of meeting the targets of production and quality.

The store employees are also satisfied. They have a more meaningful job and have to be proactive in supporting the shop floor activities by constantly visiting the shop floor to check for empty bins.

The quality of the product has been consistent and good. The operators are themselves responsible for the quality. If they produce a bad sub-assembly they have to repair it themselves. The responsibility for quality is also built into the operators role.

The operators have been so efficient that the orders, though adequate, have not been enough to keep them fully occupied.

Due to this successful pilot project the thinking in the company began to change. Supervisors, engineers and workers became interested; not only that these new ideas obviously were possible to introduce, they also turned out to be very advantageous to productivity, quality, etc, as well as for the working conditions. They have proved to be a good tool for improving the competitiveness. The result is that they started reorganising the main assembly department according to the same principles: flow organisation, team work and pull system. In June this summer this new project was completed and the result was described as "phenomenal".

This successful example shows that it is possible to utilise the ideas and training from the course despite very different conditions compared to Sweden and other industrialised countries, where the ideas and experiences have been developed, and that you can achieve big improvements in productivity and competitiveness as well as working conditions. In this case the possibility of starting on a small scale, experimenting and thus demonstrating the possibilities and advantages played a big role in changing the thinking in the company.