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United Nations Industrial Development Organization, together with Ministry of Economic Affairs and Labour implements “E4PQ. High tech Regional Programme to Increase Industrial e-Productivity and Quality in CEE/NIS Countries”, known as „E4PQ Programme” ‘(E4PQ -  where ‘E’ stands for electronic , ‘P’ for Productivity and ‘Q’ for Quality).

The E4PQ Programme aims at improvement of productivity and quality in the economies of CEE/NIS countries through implementation of ICT in enterprises, as well as at making the industries, and SME's in particular, better fit for the e-economy. By facilitating productive utilisation of ICT in enterprises, E4PQ Programme enables the market access and facilitates trade flows. The programme is a practical reference to UN Millennium Development Goals, as well as to the Declaration of Principles “Building the Information Society: a global challenge in the new Millennium” - adopted in Geneva in 2003.

The idea of the programme was widely presented and discussed during Regional Forum on Productivity and Quality in Warsaw 2001, with a warm welcome from the President of the European Commission.

The E4PQ Programme stipulates that the macroeconomic effect - increased industrial productivity and quality of the economy, will be achieved by activities within enterprises, resulting in systematic improvement of their partial productivity factors related to: products, production processes, energy and raw materials, machinery and equipment, management systems, inter-organizational relations (incl. benchmarking).

The Programme is realised in co-operation with Polish Expert Teams of international rank. They represent Warsaw University of Technology, Wroclaw University of Technology and Institute of Logistics and Warehousing in Poznan. The area of expertise covers: Lean manufacturing, Rapid designing and prototyping, E-methods in logistics, Management systems for quality improvement, Inter-organisational productivity improvement.

The implementation of the programme commenced in December 2003. Its first phase, covering a Pilot Project in Poland has been accomplished successfully. As planned, the Portal on Productivity and Quality was developed and deployed in http://www.e4pq.org/ domain. Trainings on E4PQ methodologies were conducted for 157 participants form 58 enterprises. Lean Manufacturing tools were implemented in SMEs (on a pilot basis). The design of e-procurement system ready for software implementation was developed in cooperation with Polish Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association. Benchmarking of e-productivity was also initiated.

In its second phase, the E4PQ Programme is oriented mainly on activities in Eastern European Countries, to share with them the experience and methodologies verified during a Pilot Project in Poland. These activities should result in improvement of productivity and quality in the economies as well as in the establishment of the Regional e-Productivity and Quality Centre for Central and Eastern Europe Countries – a durable effect of the programme.

Since the beginning the E4PQ Programme was conceptualized as a regional one. A regional dimension is understood here as: cooperation, partnerships and integration at enterprise and institutional level among CEE/NIS countries and eventually other UNIDO member states. For a country level institution, partnership in the Programme means a possibility of participating in the 2nd phase of the Programme, shaping the level of financial involvement, as well as suggesting the enhancement of methodologies and areas of implementation. The participation of enterprises, both in trainings (seminars) and pilot activities of  implementation of productivity and quality methodologies is possible on cost-sharing basis.

Contact:
Jarosław PAPIS – Regional Programme Coordinator,
UNIDO,
e-mail : Jaroslaw.Papis@unido.pl
http://www.e4pq.org/