NBSSI mulls Kaizen Centre of Excellence

The National Board For Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) plans to set up a KAIZEN Centre of Excellence to serve as a hub for the development of small and medium enterprises in the West Africa sub-region.

Ms Kosi Yankey, the Executive Director of NBSSI, said the Centre would be used for business acceleration and support for enterprise development in the sub-region.

“We all have a duty to ensure that KAIZEN concept and practice is adopted and sustained to become part of the enterprise development culture of the Ghanaian industrial ecosystem,” she said at the final forum on the Kaizen project.

In 2015, the NBSSI under the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) launched the KAIZEN project to provide business development service and training to small and medium-enterprises in the country.

Ms Yankey said the project had been largely successful due to the rise in productivity and that the NBSSI would continue to roll out the project nationwide.

She said over 278 enterprises and an average of 5,560 employees in these enterprises had been trained in KAIZEN.

Ms Yankee said five different regions the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Central and Northern benefitted from the project, adding that the other regions would be reached in the next phase of the programme.

She said these interventions had ultimately resulted in an increase in quality and productivity of many local and export-oriented businesses.

She stated that although the project had received positive reviews, efforts in ensuring that it became an institutional module in the country should be the major priority of the government as it looked to improve the industrial sector in the country.

The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Robert Ahomka-Lindsay commended NBSSI and JICA for the initiative to help government develop the SMEs sector.
He said the quest for increased productivity by the KAIZEN project was in line with government’s Industrial Transformation agenda.

He urged the NBSSI and JICA to work in the next phase of the project to ensure that the remaining five regions also benefited from the project.

The Japanese Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Tsutomu Himeno, pledged the support of his government to ensure the development of a well-developed and sustainable industrial sector on the African continent.

“Japan is committed to ensuring that its African allies are well empowered in order to make strides in the area of industrial development; hence, the decision to provide the necessary resources in order to achieve that goal,” he said.

As part of the forum, a Ghanaian Kaizen Logo was launched.