ABE Initiative Program Internship.
About Myself
My name is Gregory Mlay, from Tanzania. I am living in the city of Dar es Salaam, where we run a company called Woiso Original Products Company (WOP). In the year 2015, I applied for the African Business Education (ABE) Initiative program, to come to Japan for a Master Degree in Information systems, and also to learn how we can improve our production quality, quantity and efficiency in a Japanese way, so that we can expand business in various regions not only in Tanzania and Africa, but also outside Africa, and be able to hire more Tanzanian men and women and to serve more markets with high quality products and services.
About WOP
Woiso Original Products Company (WOP) is a pure Tanzanian owned company, that deals with Leather products manufacturing. Our Company is located in Dar es Salaam, Eastern Tanzania and has “Point-of-sales” in six (6) big regions in Tanzania, such as Mwanza, Arusha, Mbeya, Dodoma, Dar es Salaam and Kilimanjaro. We have been doing manufacturing for more than 15 years now, and we have been able to touch lives not only of our customers but also of our staff who mostly are the young people in Tanzania, who get the opportunity to work with us, and be able to run their lives and their loved ones. We are so proud for that.
ABE Initiative program objective.
The objective of ABE Initiative Master’s Degree and Internship Program is to support young personnel who can be a “Navigator” for contributing to the development of industries in Africa. This program offers opportunities for young African men and women to study at master’s courses at Japanese universities as international students and experience internships at Japanese companies. The aim is for them to develop effective skills in order for them to contribute to various fields. Beyond acquisition of skills and knowledge, this program also intends to cultivate excellent personnel who can recognize and understand the contexts of Japanese society and systems of Japanese companies. The expected outcome of the program is a network of potential contributors to the development of African industries who will also lead Japanese businesses to engage further in economic activities in Africa.
My Experience in Japan
I would like to talk about my experience in Japan in academic and business perspective, so that I can go direct to the point of linking my coming to Japan with my current carrier in Tanzania.
I applied for a masters program in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) of Kobe Institute of Computing (KIC), the program that focuses in utilizing ICT innovation in Solving various issues: and because in our company and Tanzania in general, we have a number of challenges that ICT innovation knowledge can play part in solving them, I saw it was a good idea to take this course.
During my research year, I specialized in studying how Kaizen and 5S can be utilized to improve manufacturing processes in Tanzania, with the case study of our company, Woiso Original Products Co. These two philosophies of Kaizen and 5S originates in Japan and they are very famous and most companies utilize these philosophies, and I felt that it will be important to learn more from the origin (Japan) and see during my internships how Japanese companies use them practically in a live business environments, so that when I go back home, I can be able to implement the techniques in Tanzania.
My Experience at Yagi Woodwork Company
Because our plan is to extend manufacturing to Furniture making, I decided to do my two internships in Furniture making companies, that not only produces quality furniture, but also utilizes Kaizen and 5S effectively. My first two weeks internship I went to Kashiwa Woodwork Company in Takayama, Japan where I learn more about Kaizen and 5S, and very little about Furniture making; and for my last one month internship I joined Yagi Woodwork Company in Osaka where I will get an opportunity to learn about Kaizen, 5S, furniture making and also visit other companies shops to see various designs (Japanese tastes of furniture designs), products display in shops, catalog designs, branding, marketing and sells of furniture in Japanese way, so that I can have a broader knowledge in what to expect when we do business with Japanese companies in the future.
At Yagi Woodwork Company I learn a number of things especially by seeing how they utilize machines with a small number of qualified staff. This is different thing compared to what we are doing in Tanzania. Also at Yagi Woodwork Co.; 5S and Kaizen is implemented, and I had the opportunity to see in live environment the implementation of what I learned in my University research. During my University research, I studied that there is 7 wastes that every company should fight to eliminate them in their production environment in order to maximize proper utilization of resources such as time, money, materials, utilities, labor power etc; and these wastes are called Lean wastes which are 1. Transportation 2. Inventory 3. Motion 4. Waiting 5. Over production 6. Over processing and 7. Defects. I will not be able to talk about them here and how they relate to each other, but I learned and saw how Japanese Companies are doing their best to eliminate these wastes in their manufacturing.
Most African companies do not perform well like Japanese companies, and most of the time, African companies collapse from business because of the growth of the mentioned wastes to be too high. But for the Japanese companies, not only furniture companies but also other companies like Toyota, Sony, Fujitsu, Toshiba etc,. The strong point of their products has been QUALITY. Researches shows that, Kaizen and 5S, not only increase products quality but also lower products costs as all resources are utilized effectively and efficiently in producing a particular products, and no resources will be allocated to do work that is not related in making the product. and by doing so, the customer will eventually pay for the product itself and not pay for wastes.
Other furniture Shops in Osaka
During my internship I got the opportunity to visit other shops in Osaka to see various designs of furniture so that I can learn and even introduce them in our market in Tanzania. Some of the few strong points I learned from my visits is the Japanese creativity in making the products with much high talent and experience that consider many things such as uniqueness, usability, quality, efficiency in utilizing raw materials etc. Some shops are making their furniture withing Japan and few of them imports from Indonesia, Singapore, China, Hong Kong etc.
During my visits to various shops in Osaka, I got to know the best way of doing some of the things that in Africa we do different. Things like Wood joining techniques, Wood selection, combination of other materials in making furniture such as utilization of Leather, Fabrics, Steel parts etc which expands the playing ground of producing various furniture for the customer.
Opportunities for Japanese Companies in Africa
Africa is still lagging behind in Industrialization but is very rich in natural resources. Japanese companies has a great opportunities to utilize these opportunities for the mutual benefits of our countries and our people, investing in various sectors in Africa. Currently, Tanzania is welcoming local and international businesses to start their businesses within the country, and policies and procedures for investments has been improved to ensure fast, easy and friendly environment for doing business for the local and the international companies.
