Developing a performance measurement system for the South African tooling industry

Abstract

The Tooling Industry in South Africa has been identified as a great expansion opportunity by the Government, addressing problems such as economic decline and unemployment. A benchmark study has been done by a German University to compare the European and South African Tooling Industries. The purpose of this project is to develop a system of performance measurements that could assist the South African tooling industry in moving forward. The scope of the project is limited to small, struggling tooling companies with less than 15 employees, which represent 80% of the industry. This system will not only create visibility in terms of performance, but it will provide a base for goal-setting and continuous improvement as well. Some of the capabilities of this performance measurement system is the ability for each company to choose specific measurements and to change it over time as the company changes. It provides a single-view dashboard that prioritizes improvements for the managers. It also tracks performance over time and indicates when there is a decline in a measure’s performance. This project is done for the NTIP (National Tooling Initiative Program) alongside Fourier Approach, a consulting Industrial Engineering firm. Chapter 1 of this report includes the introduction to the project: the background, problem statement, project aim and scope. Chapter 2 is the literature study containing a summary of the Benchmark study done by Germany and an in-depth study of performance measurement to provide a base for making decisions about the development of the system. Chapter 3 defines the method that is used to solve the problem. Chapter 4 contains the main deliverable of this project, the Performance Measurement System. Chapter 5 is the practical application of the system developed in chapter 4 in a Performance Tracker in Excel. Chapter 6 concludes this project and includes recommendations for future study.