Product development technology takes a proven process driven approach to product innovation, design and development of technology in the Chemical sector. Chemin has taken an enormous step to assist incubatees in raising funding for feasibility studies, technology audits and intellectual property registration. These services are subcontracted to external service providers as well as technology stations which then help the companies with the following stages:
Idea screening – to eliminate of unsound concepts prior devoting resources to them.
Concept development and testing – investigation of intellectual property issues and search patent databases.
Business Analysis – Estimate the selling price based upon competition and customer feedback.
Technical Implementation – New program initiation and finalise quality management systems.
The Chemin Quality Management System (QMS) outlines the operations of the organisation and includes the organisation’s policies and procedures, substantiating documents such as forms, templates, flow charts and training manuals. The policies and procedures once complete will be applied in an understandable and consistent manner in synch with actual practise.
The system is currently under development. Once complete, the quality management system which is being developed with the help of Busi Sikhotha owner of LSQ Consulting, a qualified Chemist with more than ten years of experience in Quality Assurance in the Pharmaceutical and Fine chemical sectors and has assisted more than 10 companies to develop ISO 9001: 2008 to enable them to be certified. Chemin is scheduled to be certified before the end of November 2013.
This training encompasses of good manufacturing practises, quality assurance, health and safety practises. Companies are trained on good manufacturing practises that determines the quality assurance of products are consistently produced and controlled to quality standards intended for their use and conforms to the regulatory requirements stipulated by industry authorities.
This training ensures that clients put in required amounts of raw materials and with the order that is stated on the formulation using manufacturing batch sheets. It also ensures that no manufacturing occurs without proper use of personal protective equipment.
The formulations training is a week long, the first two days covers theory and the last three days are practical training on how to manufacture chemical detergents, mainly household detergents. The main objective of this training is to ensure that clients adhere and practise good manufacturing standards.
It concurrently covers quality, safety rules and regulations, hazardous material handling, good housekeeping and an update on innovative formulations and latest manufacturing practices. In addition the training emphasizes on the use of validated formulations and good quality raw materials which clearly indicate that products are manufactured on agreed specifications and principles. Here is the summary outlined below:
Safety Rules and regulations in the Chemical Manufacturing Facilities:
Chemical manufacturing processes are inherently hazardous and so the materials which are used in the processes and in the factory must guarantee that the facilities are safe and environmentally sound, hence rules and regulations are formulated to regulate operations. The rules are clearly discussed and instructed to each client.
Good House Keeping:
This enables Small Medium Sized Enterprises to identify simple, practical, common sense measures related to good housekeeping. Good house practices relate to a number of measures that deal with preventing loss of raw materials, minimizing waste, conserving water, saving energy, improving the company operational and organizational procedures. The implementation of these practises is relatively easy, fast and the cost is usually low, thus are particularly suitable for SMME’S.
Advanced Formulations:
Each client is presented with a formulation booklet with the latest and updated formulas. The properties, uses and alternatives of raw material to consider when manufacturing are illuminated in the manual.
Chemin offers financial awareness training and bookkeeping training which helps them to create their own budgets, costing, filling, e- filling, invoicing, quotation and statements. This intensive programme assists clients to fulfil their objectives in the long run.
New SMEs are taken through general business principles to help them get familiar with the business environment. This workshop covers the importance of setting goals, vision and mission statements the each business will live by.
It also touches on fundamental values that represent what each business is all about. The purpose of the training / workshop is to ensure that the new businesses start at the right foot to pave a way for growth of their businesses.
The New Venture Creation Learnership funded by CHIETA through its discretionary grant funding mechanism through this learnership gets an opportunity to train Chemin more than 20 clients per year.
The training has been currently suspended as most training institutions that offer New Venture creations are not Seta accredited.
Chemin is in the process of implementing an Integrated Management System (IMS) that will manage all incubation processes. The system will integrate all components of Chemin’s business into one coherent system so as to enable the achievement of our purpose and mission.
The system will focus on incubation processes, quality, health and safety, environment, etc. All these processes and the documents that describe them will be integrated.