Kaizen in isiXhosa: Where Process Meets People

At the heart of South Africa’s automotive sector, quality does not begin with machines, it starts with understanding. Sometimes understanding means speaking the language of the people behind the process.

When the Automotive Industry Development Centre Eastern Cape (AIDC-EC) rolled out its Quality and Productivity Improvement (QPI) Programme through the Component Suppliers and Investors Support Business Unit, it introduced a world-class methodology - Kaizen - known globally for enhancing operational efficiency on factory floors. Derived from Japanese, the core value of Kaizen centres around the adoption of an attitude to pursue advanced levels of productivity by all members of an organisation, and not just the application of its management method in isolation.

In May 2025, AIDC-EC hosted a Kaizen Training event in Gqeberha. But what unfolded at the training was not just a transfer of lean manufacturing principles. There was something far more human: a story of transformation that started with listening and gained power through inclusion.

At Tenneco Clean Air, the challenge was operational - but the solution was cultural. Struggling with long, inefficient changeovers (the time taken to switch production setups), the team was falling behind customer demand. With newly installed pipe bending equipment but no formal setup instructions, production delays were costly, and knowledge was siloed.

“Before Kaizen, we were working off assumptions and scattered know-how,” explains Melisela Mafumana, an engineer at Tenneco. They needed clarity - and the AIDC-EC engineering consultants gave them a lens to see their habits and change them for efficiency.

With the Component Suppliers and Investors Support Business Unit, Tenneco created step-by-step standardised setting instructions. They reorganised their workspace to keep tools and instructions near operators, cutting downtime, boosting confidence, and improving delivery reliability.  “We were not just handed a solution. We were shown how to see,” Mafumana reflects.

For Electrocoat, a supplier offering specialised post-treatment and material selection services, the Kaizen focus fell on their jigs - these are tools used to hold parts in place during coating. “Poor jig maintenance was causing water pockets, which led to defects,” says Phondi Ncamazana, a Quality Engineer.

During training, the company made a request: “Could the Kaizen materials be translated into isiXhosa?” Most of their shop-floor operators spoke little English - and could not fully grasp the Kaizen methodology being presented. The AIDC-EC did not hesitate. The training manuals were translated, creating technical access through linguistic dignity. Since then, Electrocoat has seen fewer defects, cleaner workspaces, and greater ownership across the team.

People understood not just what to do, but why it mattered. "We became aligned, and suddenly, improvements accelerated.”, says Ncamazana.

What unites these stories is not the machinery. It is the mindset.

The AIDC-EC’s Kaizen programme did more than optimise tools or processes, it catalysed buy-in from the people who make those tools work. And it did so by meeting teams where they are, in their context, in their language, and their rhythm.

Technical interventions without human understanding are incomplete. By entrenching engineers on the ground, and providing tools in the languages people speak, AIDC-EC did not just install quality - it activated it.

Inclusion is not a communications tactic. It is an operations strategy.

Because when you build systems that speak to people - you do not just improve performance, you promote participation. The future of manufacturing favours those who design for understanding - and lead with inclusion.