3 June 2010

East London – During a visit to the Production Management Institute (PMI) Mercedes-Benz South Africa (MBSA) Vice-President responsible for manufacturing, Rainer Ruess said, “This partnership with the PMI is the answer to our need to further develop employees’ managerial and leadership skills at MBSA. We have always faced challenges with a solution-driven attitude. With the PMI we are finding our answer for local managerial skills training.”

MBSA has established a partner relationship with the PMI to help train and develop talented hourly-paid employees to take up future positions as Co-ordinators and Team Managers in the manufacturing plant.

In a significant first for MBSA the company is providing this training for the hourly-paid factory floor employee for a seamless progression to the team manager leadership level. Effectively this provides a powerful conduit for persons to progress from hourly-paid to salaried staff ranks and to equip them with nationally recognised qualifications in the process.

The selection of 130 employees has been completed and these employees have been appointed into their positions. However, they will only receive full recognition at a 'Level 5’ once they have qualified completely. This accomplishment will also bring about a remuneration benefit.

"We have also accommodated an additional 30 others to ensure that we can replenish qualified co-ordinator positions as and when the need arises. Attendance of the course is a compulsory requirement to obtain and keep a co-ordinator position,“ explained Ruess.

The tuition of this first group of employees is fully paid for by the company, while the MBSA employees are expected to attend class in their own time (after hours). The company is investing between R10 000 and R40 000 per learner, depending on their initial literacy and/or whether they are participating in the full three-stage programme (an individual doing one stage without requiring any literacy bridging will cost R10 000). Each stage will take approximately 14 months.

"Once the first group has qualified the course will be opened to other employees, but will follow the company guidelines of the MBSA Education Assistance Programme, namely, that the tuition fees for voluntary and approved candidates will be paid by the company provided all examinations are completed successfully.“

During the recent visit to the institute’s campus, the senior management group were most impressed with the level of training, the curriculum and the infrastructure offered by PMI. "Particularly pleasing is the fact that the PMI is flexible and prepared to adjust their course to accommodate specific requirements from our side as the client,“ said Ruess.

The modules applied for the MBSA delegates include the following:
Team Cordinator (NQF 4) - 14 months - Team Manager (NQF 5) - 28 months
First Line Management - Human Resource Management
Maths Skills - Maths 1
Production Planning & Control - Information Technology 1
Logistics Skills - Logistics Management 1
Quality Skills - Quality Management 1
Production Skills - Production Management 1
Study Skills (credit) - Financial Management 1
IAP - IAP1

"Our plan is to continuously put people through this programme; enough to maintain a constant talent pipeline of potential leadership for our business. Our hope is for the current co-ordinators to be the team managers of tomorrow, and to be replenished, in turn, from the next waves of learners from our hourly-paid ranks who move through the PMI programme.“