Students invent solutions to industry problems
WINNERS: Paarl Coldset management with the group of BTech students in the Department of Management and Project Management who walked away with R24 000 after winning the Paarl Coldset Project Management Challenge
Friday, 10 March 2017
Consistent with CPUT’s resolve to expose its students to the world of work, the Department of Management and Project Management teamed up with industry and challenged its students to come up with solutions to address Paarl Coldset’s waste problem.
For presenting their solutions, three of the BTech student groups walked away with cash prizes to the tune of R48 000.
Paarl Coldset, one of the leading newsprint companies in the country, generates 1 200kg of plastic and 60 – 70 tons of paper waste every month.
The students were therefore asked to devise ideas for re-using it (up-cycling), said lecturer Stanley Fore, who co-ordinated the project with lecturers Nobuhle Luphondo, Jephita Matande and Irshaad Desai.
“The project enabled students to generate feasible solutions of up-cycling the waste to create a secondary profitable business with limited capital expenditure as well as promoted academy-industrial partnership.”
To encourage participation and innovation in the project, last year the department divided its BTech students into about 40 teams which were awarded marks in various subjects for the related tasks they executed, added Fore.
After the groups presented their solutions recently, an adjudicating panel comprising of academics and Paarl Coldset management awarded cash prizes as follows:
First prize of R24 000 went to the group which looked into producing recycled pencils;
Second prize of R16 000 went to the group which explored generating electricity and;
Third prize of R8 000 went to the group which investigated producing sanitary towels.
“We achieved our goal of giving the students a chance to link theory with industry and we hope that other companies would come on board.”
RUNNERS UP: Paarl Coldset management with the group of students who walked away with R16 000 after coming second in the Paarl Coldset Project Management Challenge.
RUNNERS UP: Paarl Coldset management with the group of students who walked away with R8 000 third prize.
Written by Kwanele Butana
Email: butanak@cput.ac.za
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