How can we achieve competitiveness and sustain it as well? The answer is simple and straight forward: through production of internationally acceptable quality products at the lowest possible cost. But, this is easier said than done. It requires re-vamping of the manufacturing sector through a combination of modern hi-tech machinery and process improvement—both continual and re- engineering.

Further, there is a need to develop the skills through a well-tailored training programme capable of delivering both quality and higher productivity.

The minimum standard for quality is meeting the customer demand consistently. In Pakistan, there is a great deal of thrust on getting ISO certification. It is a journey towards standardization of processes at internationally recognised levels.

The ISO system stipulates that organizations need to have a continual improvement plan and show consistency in their processes at various levels. For the manufacture of quality products, we need to have mutually agreed specifications with the suppliers and customers and a robust quality assurance system to ensure realization of the customers’ demand as enshrined in the mutually agreed specifications.

The other important imperative is to ensure product integrity - in other words , manufacturing a product which is free from all sorts of contamination through out the supply chain , that is , from procurement of raw materials right up to delivery stage.

Ensuring a contamination-free product requires a right attitude, substantial costs in improving infrastructure, such as, warehousing, transportation, and working closely with the suppliers. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, at this point in time we have not addressed these issues adequately.

Considering the magnitude and scale of the improvement required across the whole supply chain, there has to be an effort, both by the public and private sector not only at the manufacture stage but more so in the realm of logistics involving warehousing and movement of goods.

The Railways systems are internationally the cheapest and most efficient from the standpoint of transportation of goods. Unfortunately, the way our Railways operates with its dilapidated infrastructure and the moving stock makes it a choice of last resort to the business community.

The businessmen prefers road transportation which besides being costly puts extra pressure on our roads and high-ways which then require frequent repairs.

Packing materials play a pivotal part in enhancing the image of our products and brands. Pakistan is deficient in packing materials primarily in terms of their quality to meet the international standards. The major reason for this is the non-availability of the indigenous wood pulp which has to be imported. The high cost of imported wood pulp prohibits its use due to cost consideration , as such, the board industry rely on the kahi grass ( wheat straw) and recycled material which does not offer the required strength to the shipping cartons and other packaging materials due to lower fibre size.

Our print industry is coming of age with availability of state of the art processes and new off-set printing technology. However, the main constraint faced by this industry is printing of good quality board and paper.

The print industry while producing packaging materials for high speed packing machines running at 400-500 packs per minute face high rejections and thus higher costs of production . Over a period of time, the paper and board industry has made some experimentations but the country is still short of competing in the international market. Analysing our packaging base, we have limited companies producing good quality packaging materials.

To reduce the freight cost, it is required that we have economic size packing, optimising the capacities of both inland transportation and standard export containers. This area is generally overlooked.

Both the manufacturers and suppliers of inputs need to work hand in hand. Modern management science recognises the importance of suppliers and their criticality to achieving world class performance. Accordingly, there is a move from adversarial relationships to a relationship between customers and suppliers based on win - win situation. In short, suppliers are considered as partners in the business but it is just that they operate outside.

In order to help reduce cost of ones’ own business, it is imperative that efforts are made to drive away cost from the suppliers’ processes. Generally, limited financial resources are stuck up in inventories, abnormal wastes, and higher lead times. All these ills can be either due to sub-standard materials and processes but our experience shows that the problem is more pronounced when there is lack of trust between manufacturers and suppliers.

How this of lack trust be addressed for the mutual benefit of both customers’ and suppliers? It will be possible by sharing of knowledge and business information, in particular, giving long-term perspective to the suppliers. The long-term perspective helps in planning of supplies and frequent interaction between the two parties is helpful in fine tuning the data. In this way, suppliers can reduce their inventory and share the benefits with the customers.

Training and development plays a vital role in improving the human skills. Some good companies rely on their own training techniques. Such companies have a full time training manager, the departmental or functional managers come up with identifying the skills gap and plans are made to bridge the gap. The training is also aligned to the company strategy, its mission and long-term vision.

Pakistan has charted out an export strategy to enhance Pakistan’s exports. Referred to as a Rapid Export Growth strategy, a textile institution will be functioning in Multan and Lahore School of fashion design in Lahore.

It is imperative for Pakistan to capitalize on investments in industry. But machinery and raw materials alone will not take us any where. What is required is highly skilled work force, flexibility in operations, good knowledge of the national and international markets and maximizing efficiency level.

In running our industries, we need to be in total control and that is possible only if we have good integrated systems like the SAP -R3 .Being an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, it is an extremely useful tool to have on time information on inventories, keeping the inventories current and updated, using the cycle count process which compares the physical inventory with the system inventory and throw variances for management to take action on thus reducing or eliminating obsolescence.

Environment, health and safety (EHS) has also a major role in productivity. A company with dilapidated machinery and obsolete processes and poor skill level is prone to high accident rates which not only take a heavy toll on the meagre human resources but their absence on account of injuries at work place lead to lower productivity and dilution of skill level. Thus there is an adverse impact on the quality of products.

Eco-efficiency, affluent controls are all areas where EHS can contribute effectively. Reducing waste, making best use of available resources will help maintain the ecological balance and help reduce costs. This is also important from our exports point of view where the developing markets demand higher standards from the exporting countries both in the use of the available resources and management of industrial wastes.

Finally, the government needs to focus on improving the infrastructure at the dry ports and the sea ports for brisk clearance of goods so that the industry and the trade does not get stifled because of delays in getting raw materials.

Brisk clearance from the ports will contribute to lower inventories and thus less foreign exchange being tied up with higher inventories which currently the industry is forced to maintain. The issuance of phtyo-sanitary certificates have to have higher velocity and be more meaningfully used to avoid exports of substandard goods.

More importantly, the government needs to engage the trade bodies, the chambers of commerce in a constant dialogue to find ways and means to boost exports.

Taking steps which are business-friendly , minimising the bureaucratic controls , involving private sector in the future development of the trade strategy , improving product quality and productivity and a robust supply chain infrastructure will surely steer the economy to new heights.