Toyota SA aims to increase its vehicle production volume to 220 000 units a year by 2008 and to that end, the Prospecton-based company recently opened a state-of-the art training facility in Sandton to address the need for more skilled personnel.
Toyota SA aims to increase its vehicle production volume to 220 000 units a year by 2008 and to that end, the Prospecton-based company recently opened a state-of-the art training facility in Sandton to address the need for more skilled personnel.
Toyota SA recently opened its R30-million training facility in Sandton, Johannesburg, which will supplement the Prospecton-based company’s facilities and play a role in the training of new employees across the African continent.
The president and chief executive of Toyota SA, Johan Van Zyl, said that the new facility was the largest single investment that Toyota had made in sustaining future training and the building of skills. The company is said to invest approximately R70 million in skills training every year – from local technical training to management and supervisory experience overseas.
The expenditure follows a multi-billion rand upgrade to the company’s production facilities which, along with the instatement of skilled labour provided by the academies, hopes to contribute to the the South African motor industry’s efforts to affect a two-thirds increase in manufacturing capacity by 2020, from the current figure of 615 000 units (operating at 100 per cent capacity) to one million units at ninety per cent capacity.
Speaking at the recent CAR Conference, Van Zyl said the targeted increase in local manufacturing capacity and skills development went hand-in-hand. The aim to turn South Africa into a significant world player in the vehicle manufacturing industry was “achievable in the medium term, with the proviso that we increase efficiencies and fill the skills vacuum the country faces”.
Currently, the pool of people set to benefit from training at the Academy looks set to grow every year as newcomers progress through the primary education system. Some 10 000 people benefited from training programmes offered by the academy in 2004 alone. This year has seen 843 courses being attended by over 16 000 people between Toyota’s manufacturing facility in Prospecton, KwaZulu-Natal and the new Sandton Academy. The result is that twenty-five per cent of the production workers in Durban and Sandton are certified as multi-skilled.
A joint venture has been proposed between Naamsa, Naacam and the RMI to form a major job skills programme to provide technical skills training opportunities for 24 000 people in the industry over the next six years at a cost of more than one billion rand. Toyota SA is looking to contribute to that six-year plan with a projected spend of some R600 million over the next six years going towards training and skills initiatives.
Toyota’s investment in skills development began in 1972 when the company’s founder, Dr Albert Wessels, put structures in place for the company to invest in educational grants. The issues of social development in South Africa were being addressed via training and education opportunities in 1989 with the formation of the Toyota South Africa Foundation. The principle of educational sustainability has been continued in the guise of “Toyota Teach”; an initiative to improve educational standards, especially maths and sciences, in schools and allow students to take advantage of opportunities offered by tertiary education.
The Sandton academy looks to perpetuate the social and educational upliftment initiative and integrate “environmentally sound” technology in its construction to save energy and water; taking the concept of sustainable growth a step further.
