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Landi Van der Merwe
CI Manager at VKBLandi van der Merwe graduated from the University of Pretoria in 2010 with honours in Industrial Engineering. From there she started working at VKB where they started building a chicken abattoir called Grain Field Chickens located in Reitz in the Eastern Free State. This was the first of VKB Agri Processor Sites.
She worked there for 7 years with the focus on capital projects and expansion projects with the aim of increasing the throughput rate from 80 000 chickens per day to 180 000 chickens per day. She started implementing the 20 Keys methodology there in 2016 for which she received her first SAIIE award for this 20 Keys implementation in 2020. From there on she moved from Grain Field Chickens to VKB Head office in 2019. Her job now includes the continuous improvement management and thus, 20 Keys implementation for all VKB’s industries. This still includes Grain Field Chickens with an added set of 2 Animal Feed plants, 1 Maize Mill, 1 Wheat mill/bakery and 1 Soja Oil Plant as well. From there she implemented the 20 keys methodology in manufacturing processes, but also started with the project that she will talk about during the webinar which is the 20 Keys implementation in a human capital department.
What makes this project special or unique is that the actual 20 Key methodology was developed with manufacturing processes in mind. This was both a challenge and motivation. But with the help of department heads and willing employees she received the SAIIE Award for Best Industrial Engineering Work conducted in Industry in 2022 for this project as well. She has been a registered professional engineer at ECSA since 2020.