Project Description:
The purpose of the Pakistan Agriculture Technology Transfer Activity (PATTA) Project is to identify, support and bring to scale private sector solutions to improve agricultural productivity in Pakistan, through a four-year activity. PATTA will partner with agricultural technologies companies to commercialize product and services that can increase the productivity and competiveness of small holder farmers and mobilize private sector investment in agricultural technology. PATTA’s partnership will give small holder farmers broader access to affordable technologies to increase productivity, build resilience to climate change and reduce postharvest losses.
Background:
The agricultural technology manufacturing sector is at a very rudimentary stage with low productivity, high energy consumption and poor cost competitiveness. The major areas of improvement include workers skills up-gradation, application of industrial engineering principles, certification and standardization, technology up-gradation, efficient usage of energy etc.
All these factors are leading to lower process and labor productivity with high wastage and high re-work rate, greater consumption of material and energy resulting in unnecessary costs which is rendering the manufacturing units uncompetitive in local and international markets.
Process / operations productivity is one of the greatest issues, which have never been taken in to account as one of the important element in resource efficiency of the manufacturing units, mostly due to lack of awareness and management capacity. Majority of these manufacturing units grew from small to medium industries but the expansion was not well -planned in most of the cases for SME sector, contrary to the industrial engineering principles. Therefore, major problems exist in their layout, process flow and product flow causing low productivity. Energy wastages are another issue exist across various processes due to under-utilized and manual controls on machines.
Keeping in view existing issues, PATTA intends to provide technical assistance to manufacturing units to improve their process / operations efficiency through implementation of resource efficiency and management assistance by addressing and improving productivity and energy losses and emission control following environmental best practices and health and safety parameters
Objectives of the Technical Assistance:
The objective of this consultancy is to work with 4-6 agricultural technology companies to improve their processes, operations, productivity by introducing innovative tools & good manufacturing practices and reduce energy consumption by conducting detailed energy audits and make appropriate recommendations for bringing improvement in efffiecincy of Agricultural manufacturing tools and related practices
Assignment Scope:
The STTA’s tasks will include but not be limited to:
- Coordinate with the PATTA Technology Development team for development of work plan including stakeholder visit schedule;
- Collect necessary data related to production and energy consumption
- Analyze and evaluate the current production systems & energy consumption pattern of technology companies along with all processes and operations to identify the existing gaps.
- In each unit, perform all essential activities related to process improvement and energy efficiency improvement including detailed data collection & highlighting energy wastages across various production processes/utilities.
- Measure and collect data & relevant parameters with respect to energy use in power generation, electrical distribution system, capacitor banks, electric motors, pumps, compressors, furnace, lux levels, power quality parameters (harmonics etc) and thermal imaging of distribution system.
- Impart in-house awareness, orientation and training session for employees and management of each unit, required for effective implementation of resource efficiency and management. .
- Develop posters, pamphlets, and other informative material required for information and implementation of the said systems for the workers and management.
Deliverables:
The specific deliverables of STTA are;
- Develop a detailed work plan for the STTA assignment within 2 days of assignment commencement
- Provide 1-page weekly update to the PATTA COP/Director Agricultural Technology/Crop Technology Officer
- Company wise / unit wise assessment and appropriate recommendations to the management of each units describing the specific workable recommendations.
- De-briefing to USAID Pakistan, specific recommendations after the completion of assignment
- Write detailed chapter wise report of each unit encompassing analysis and evaluation of current system/practices and gaps therein with respect to process, wastages and energy consumption reduction. Moreover, the report should provide the way forward, a strategy and action plan for the implementation of energy efficiency improvement.
Estimated level of effort (LOE) for the assignment:
21 working days (inclusive of 2 travel days and upto 4 – 5 days for resource efficiency & management in each technology company)
Qualifications:
The international consultant should have:
- Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Engineering/Mechanical Engineering / Industrial Engineering or related field.
- At least 15 years of professional experience in resource efficiency and management practices.
- Experience providing technical assistance to private sector for implementation of productivity tools and energy efficiency is essential.
- Requisite prior experience of working at senior level consulting assignments with USAID funded projects on similar tasks will be plus
- Experience of conducting training sessions would definitely be a plus.
- Demonstrated ability to work in a team;
- Demonstrated interpersonal and communication skills; and
- Documented report writing skills in English;
- Oral fluency in English.