Abstract

Malawi aspires to be a middle income country by the year 2020. At a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of US $151.50 per capita, as of 2003, Malawi is far behind the World Bank’s classification of a middle income country. The World Bank sets the GDP for a middle income country at US $2,046. Malawi has lately witnessed closures of a number of manufacturing companies; a situation that puts to question the realization of its aspirations. A number of researchers have tried to explain the reasons behind the poor performance of the manufacturing industry that has led to company closures. In their explanations, however, the role of technology in the performance of the manufacturing industry has not been given prominence. In this report, the role of technology as it impacts on the performance of the manufacturing industry, using tea industry as a case study, has been investigated. This research was designed to answer the research question “What role does technology play in the performance of the tea manufacturing industry?” where the tea industry was considered as a case study. To answer the question, four tea factories were selected for assessment. The selected companies were Chitakali, Smallholder Tea Company, Esperanza and Sayama.In the research, technology was defined as constituting three dimensions, machinery/equipment, processes and knowledge. The approach was to assume that after working in the industry for more than seven years, management would have acquired enough knowledge to run the industry effectively. With this assumption, only the roles of machinery and production processes were assessed. The role of machinery was assessed based on maintenance programmes that the factories have in place. The role of production processes was assessed based on the use of either the Lawrie Tea Processing (LTP) technology or rotorvane/cut-tear-curl (CTC) tea processing technology. Thus the selection of the four companies for assessment considered their maintenance programmes and processing methods. The analyses showed that companies that ignore the condition of their machinery, giving preference to production at the expense of preventive maintenance, struggle and eventually close shop. The research also revealed that use of LTP technology produces better quality tea than rotorvane/CTC technology. Finally the analyses showed that using rotorvane/CTC technology results in higher labour productivity than LTP technology.In conclusion, the research has demonstrated that technology plays an important role in performance of the tea manufacturing industry. Ignoring technology would lead to companies struggling or eventually closing. In addition, the choice of processing technology also helps in giving a company competitive edge over others. It was, therefore recommended that technology be given prominence when considering turnaround strategies for struggling companies in Malawi.

More details

School	: School of Law, Economics and Government
Issued Date	: 2006

Download full document