Corne Kleyn took over the responsibility of heading up the Pragma SA Academy from Louis Volschenk in August this year.

Corne is a qualified mechanical engineer with a knack for marketing, and has experience in the manufacturing and mining environment. His former practical experience is a competitive advantage as he understands the value of well-trained and knowledgeable staff.

Corne is a zealous and energised individual who is dedicated to taking the Pragma SA Academy to the next level of excellence. We asked him some questions about his new role.

What is your vision for the Pragma Academy? 

We aspire to have one of the Academy courses as part of a tertiary institution’s curriculum in an engineering discipline. That would be the ideal. But in the interim, I would like to expand the number of courses we present, but still keep it as close as possible to our core business (Physical Asset Management). In terms of expanding our horizons, we have been in talks with numerous large groups to put their Planning and Scheduling Departments in all their business units through our training programme. This will ideally be run on-site over a couple of months.

Are there plans to expand the range of courses presented? 

There are definitely plans in place to expand the offering from the Academy. Obviously we need to keep the courses and content as close as possible to Pragma’s core business, so that does limit what we can add. One course worth mentioning at the moment is Municipal Financial Management. There has been concern for a long time regarding municipal spending and we are looking at creating a training course for these institutes to help them adhere to legislation, but also bring into the equation how physical asset management relates to this.

Please tell us more about the interactive training that can be reached via the website?

At the moment, the online interactive training is free for evaluation purposes. From the Academy’s point of view, we are using it as a powerful marketing tool. Before you are able to access the content, you will need to enter your name, e-mail and company name. We will then follow up with the individuals for further training solutions.

The following short courses are currently available:

• Strategy Management
• Performance Measures
• Continuous Improvement
• Information Management
• Work Planning&Control
• Contractor Management
• Maintenance Tactics

How did the Academy fare in 2009?

The Academy did very well considering that most companies cut down on training first when times are difficult. About 700 people were trained during 2009. The most popular course was “Fundamentals of Asset Management”, accounting for almost 30% of all courses attended. We did a lot of work for two companies in particular, namely City of Cape Town and Assmang.

Where is the largest skills shortage if you look at what people actually attend?

This is a difficult one to answer, considering that all our courses revolve around the same subject matter, namely Physical Asset Management. From reading some of the feedback received from delegates, they were all eager to implement The Pragma Way at their places of work. I do believe that there is a serious lack of structure at some companies, especially when it comes to the continuous battle between Production and Maintenance. How to address that delicate balance between the two seems to be one of the greatest shortfalls in industry today.