Prof Khumbulani Mpofu

The  mission for 2025 is to develop an efficient and enabling environment for advanced manufacturing developments, skills acquisition on up-to-date technologies that will meet with global standards in the field of manufacturing also known as production engineering. Recent research as well as global trends and dynamic challenges faced in the manufacturing sector have shown that there is a rapid drive towards the digital manufacturing era where production in the industrial sectors will be optimally achieved through wisdom manufacturing. In view of this, the  vision for 2025 is to provide  platforms where youth can be engaged and fortified with knowledge and skills to meet up with these emerging technologies of the digital age. 

In order to achieve this vision, the Chair provides on-going learning programs and courses with suitable research environment for Bachelors, Masters, Doctoral students and Post-doctoral Fellows so that trainees can be incubated with a wealth of manufacturing skills. As in the past (from 2016 till date), the chair will improve the learning and training horizon and further reach out to the citizens in order to increase the high-end skill in line with the aspiration of the doctoral degree as driver to national competitiveness. Considering the gallery of technologies and innovations in manufacturing such as reconfigurable machines that the chair has developed from inception till date, the chair will further develop designs and technologies that will find application in the manufacturing sectors. To provide significant technological contributions in the country, the chair will aspire to develop international patents that can provide a platform for collaboration between the country and other developed nations in the world. This collaboration will enable appropriate and efficient knowledge transfer between the citizens of South Africa, developing countries and other developed nations.       

Further, towards achieving this vision for 2025, the chair will develop training for technology management so that citizens will be able to fit into different opportunities in the manufacturing industries. In addition to the activities of the chair in the past, this training will include updated skills on how to develop small-medium scale businesses that can serve as service or product providers to the manufacturing industries. These skills transfer will be co-anchored by professionals in the field of business development that will see the participants through business development, actualisation and recognition. In addition to the gallery of publications and patents in the field of manufacturing that the chair has published in the past, the chair will further increase the publications so that the nation will gain and attract international recognition by the year 2025. To achieve this, it is a plan of the chair to organize training and develop the postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows on the art of writing in reputable journals and conferences in order for the nation to gain international recognition in terms of manufacturing.  

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