AUTO INDUSTRY

Toyota South Africa Motors (TSAM) has announced the creation of the Toyota Empowerment Trust (TET).

The TET has been seeded with R42-million in start-up funding and will focus on skills and enterprise development initiatives in the automotive industry.

Initially, it will facilitate the training and qualification of specialised automation technicians.

“The TET will implement training and enterprise development initiatives alongside and in support of our other education initiatives,” says TSAM CEO Andrew Kirby.

“These include our Toyota Teach programme that supports over nine primary schools and our Toyota Technical Education Programme that supports, and often manages, technical high schools in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.”

Toyota has already started with the creation of a fully equipped robotics and automation training facility in Durban.

This facility will train technicians in the maintenance of complex manufacturing equipment, such as welding and spray painting robots.

The new robotics and automation facility will form part of TALA, Toyota’s corporate training division.

TALA has campuses in Gauteng and Durban.

In addition to training, the TET will eventually be able to support qualified technicians to start their own maintenance firms and to offer this specialist service to Toyota and other vehicle manufacturers in South Africa.

“As the largest vehicle manufacturer in South Africa, we are ideally suited to offer this type of training,” says Kirby.

“Trainees will be able to hone their skills at our manufacturing facility in Prospecton, Durban, and we will no doubt use their new talents to full effect at our plant.

“I trust that many of the trainees will find employment at our plant or, in the case of prospective small business owners, a stable base of work from where they can expand their services to other manufacturers.”

TSAM will start training in earnest in January.