NQPN (National Quality and Productivity Network) is a network for maximising the impact of Kaizen training delivery.

Founding members :

• The Automotive Industry Development Centre Eastern Cape(AIDC-EC)
• The Automotive Industry Development Centre Gauteng (AIDC-GP)
• Automotive Industry Transformation Fund (AITF).
• Automotive Supply Chain Competitiveness Initiative (ASCCI)
• Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
• Plastics SA
• Productivity SA
• Production Technologies Association of South Africa (PtSA)
• The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic)

NQPN is managed by the Management Team (MT), which is made up of representatives from NQPN organizations. In addition, from 2025 onwards, a Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) will be held once a year, where CEOs and management of NQPN organizations including the dtic and JICA will gather to mainly review the past year's activities and discuss the next year's activity policy and strategy.

Kaizen is a Japanese term that means "change for the better" or "continuous improvement". In corporate activities, Kaizen refers to identifying waste and bottlenecks in the production process, seeking solutions with the participation of everyone from management to production workers, pooling their wisdom, and continually improving the quality and productivity of a company's products and services with small investments.

In the project launched by JICA and the dtic, firstly, Japanese experts will train South African Kaizen Trainers through classroom training and in-company training, and then these Kaizen Trainers will provide similar classroom training and in-company training to Kaizen Consultants, thereby increasing the number of Kaizen Trainers and Kaizen Consultants by South Africans themselves, and building a system for continuous human resource development. In the first Basic Kaizen training held at the Indaba Hotel from 31 July to 3 August in 2023, the benefited 20 companies saw average of 62%productivity improvement, whereas that of the Training of Trainers (TOT) for Basic Kaizen in 2024, was 39.3% for 11 beneficiary companies. The top 10 Basic Kaizen Trainers were selected to attend the JICA study tour on capacity enhancement program in Japan from 15 to 30 June 2024. The overall goal was to deepen the understanding of quality management and productivity improvement through the Japanese Experience.