Inside the housing assembly line. Everything is kept spotless, clean and well organised.
EHG workers preparing components for furniture. Note the piping above the planing machine, for sucking out sawdust and particles.
The window-making plant. Simple designs allow for efficient production.
Charles Bengough inside the EHG furniture showroom in Naivasha.
cent moisture), providing good circulation of air through carefully stacked timbers. Depending on the thickness of the timber, it is ready after a couple of months (1” one month, 2” two months). For prefabricated constructions like emergency shelters, EHG now also uses “Ekoboard”, which is manufactured by Ekotech from Tetrapak packaging material waste. This recycled material does not need to be preserved against termites and is not attacked by fungi. EHG’s prefabricated housing section makes residential houses, guesthouses, staff houses, offices, community buildings and schools, and also does project development and site layout. There is a wide choice of architectural designs, using a modular system originally developed in cooperation with the Department of Architecture at the University of Nairobi. All work is done in-house, including making kitchens and treating timber. In the social field, EHG provides
Miti April-June 2010
employment for 100-200 people, comprising its contractual workers in Naivasha, its Nairobi office and its various building sites and casual labour when required. Walking through the company’s factories, one is impressed by the cleanliness of the buildings, the warning signs on the walls (“Keep your working area clean! Use your safety equipment all the time!”) and the order and organisation in the workshops. The workers are well taken care of, benefiting from a system of bonuses and medical benefits. To what does EHG owe its success? First, the simplicity of what is manufactured, and its mass production in continuous, separated, production lines. Components of prefabricated houses and furniture can be interchanged between different models. It is all straight lines, no curves and no tailor-made chairs or tables. Secondly, the technical skills of Emmanuel Njau, who was headhunted to become part of the company since its early days, and who brought with him a rich experience in timber processing. He became a shareholder and is now one of the directors. He learned his trade in the 1970s at Moshi Technical School in Tanzania, and afterwards he trained in logging and woodworking at a forest training centre, also in Moshi, then at the High Wycombe College of Technology, UK. He sees the commercial
benefits of large-scale production processes and advises small workshops to get together to form bigger entities. Thirdly, EHG owes its success to the networking skills and stubborn determination of the directors/owners, who have been pursuing the growth of their company in the workshop and on the shop floor, handson and pragmatically. For instance, the company imports good, used, woodworking machinery from Europe – basic machinery, not sophisticated. EHG also reinvests profits, extending the infrastructure, building up stock and investing in machinery. Typically, the company’s management does not take shortcuts, and practices clean business dealings. Contracts are secured through competitive and clean bidding, with no shady deals. Timber suppliers must have all the required permits. The company’s vision is longterm and customer-oriented. EHG clearly is a successful industry with a bright future. As the directors of the company are growing older, we wish them a good handover to a younger generation of managers, and a happy retirement. The writer is the Executive Director, Better Globe Forestry Ltd
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