Visit to Zimbabwe: My key activities

By Chika Obuah

Date Activity Main Contact

7th Sept Factory visit 1 Planning Team

8th Sept Factory visit 2 Tawanda Mandiwara

Recap with country MD Nancy

Overview of PPDS design and Masterdata

Planning Team

Recap with SC Head Israel Potera

Integration session with CSO Team Warehouse Visit

CSO Teams

9th Sept IPM Training Planning Team

The Agenda

Factory Visit 1

We visited the factories; NSD, Soaps , Savoury and Vim packing line.

The aim of the factory visit was to confirm the layout we signed-off in the personalization phase, physically visualize how the changes SAP will be bringing will be accommodated and get a good appreciation of the Zimbabwe general factory operations.

Factory Visit 2 and PPDS design discussion

Microsoft Office PowerPoint Presentation

This second factory visit bothered more on; re-verification of current capacity and scheduling constraints and analysis of the potential needs for dependency heuristics as a result of the variances.

I compared what was on paper to the layout we saw, marked out the discrepancies and went further to analyze if the variances where sufficient to call for a change in the design.

After this visit I had discussions with local planners, SC head( Israel Potera) on the PPDS design and verified Masterdata management requirements with the team.

Microsoft Office Word 97 - 2003 Document

Recap with Country MD

I also had a chat with the country MD. She shared her experiences from her trainee days and currently as an MD. I also shared my experiences so far and my mission in Zimbabwe.

It was an opportunity to learn from a different perspective ; to learn what it takes to manage a business struggling with a recovering economy, the strategies-growth mindset oriented actions.

Integration session with CSO Team

I visited the 3rd party charged with the responsibility of keeping the stocks. Shared with the them the design we adopted with the Bulawayo and Harare DC, the impact of SAP from a planning perspective and how they will be affected.

I was amused to find out that the CSO team had kept the contractors up to date with all our CSO related designs at the U2K2 level. They brought them into all our meetings! (Customer focus)

IPM Training

Microsoft Office PowerPoint 97-2003 Pres

I had the privilege of taking the planning team (and a member of the CSO team) through the Innovation Planning Modeling tool.The aim of the training was to equip and refresh them on the need to optimize our working capital by predetermining the safety stocks required to achieve the targeted service levels.

It was also an opportunity to conduct what-if analysis and scenario simulation.

On a lighter note…

I also had some time to visit Domboshawa, Lion and Cheetah pack, Avondale flea market, Harare Gardens and Chiremba Balancing Rocks!