Hi Listers, At the beginning of the year and visited Gikomba to see if I could get a basket ball backboard fabricated and task that was executed within an hour. Apart from the efficiency and flexibility with which is was done my experience re-affirms by believe that the Vision 2030 and no more a shelf document than the Sessional Paper number 3 I believe of 1968 was. I ask Mr. Kibati and his team to visit Gikomba and also Grogan (where a car is reconditioned in 8 hours flat), spend at least 2 hours after which you will be in a position to give sight to Vision 2030. Gikomba and Grogan epitomise what the vision was of the Kenya Industrial Estates workshops in Industrial Areas where supposed to be and also the later Nyayo Jua Kali Sheds but with the missing ingredient, the peculiar Kenyan. This is a picture of the average stalls in Gikomba, I visited 3 speciality workshops before the backboard was finally completed, each stall measures no more than 3 x 5 meters. The picture above is of a stall with a wood planner, circular saw and router. Each of the stalls usually accommodates a number of independent contractors with the usual broker offering the logistics and coordination function As the demand for space increases the stalls have now been extended to two levels and a few new constructions have risen to 3 and 4 storeys. The two locations apply all the rules of Just I Time and as an engineer you will appreciate the clustering of various activities in the form of a conveyor belt system. To me what I visualised was the Airbus manufacturing model where components are assembled in disparate locations. Let as be weary of picking a foreign model on industrialisation without localising it and taking into account the fact that Kenya is a different country and 2013 is not 1967 so the Asian Tiger models or the MIT models will fail here, we must incorporate our local peculiarities if we are to succeed. Regards
