The Development of Demonstration Companies (DMP) Program is an APO initiative to establish role models within its members to showcase the practical impacts of productivity enhancements at the organizational level. On 9 August, a DMP project on Productivity Improvement in Manufacturing SMEs was concluded by the National Productivity Secretariat (NPS), Sri Lanka and APO Secretariat. Three companies, JAK Plastics (Pvt.) Limited, Kiyota Coffee Company (Pvt.) Limited, and Roo Prabha (Pvt.) Limited, participated in the project under the guidance of a Japanese resource person.

A dissemination conference was held in Colombo, attracting 150 participants from various ministries, agencies, associations, and SMEs, including the Secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Foreign Employment and APO Director for Sri Lanka R.P.A. Wimalaweera, and Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Foreign Employment and APO Alternate Director and NPO Head for Sri Lanka K.D.R. Olga. An online session was also arranged with Cambodian Chemical Supply Co., Ltd., an APO demonstration company from Cambodia, to share the impacts of previous APO DMP projects and their ongoing initiatives to sustain the benefits, fostering an exchange of success stories and strategies between Sri Lanka and Cambodia.

Implemented since December 2023, the project has helped the three companies identify and address key issues in their factories using productivity tools such as 5S, kaizen, and lean manufacturing. This has led to significant improvements including reduced waste, damage, and defect rates; enhanced product quality; optimized equipment effectiveness; reorganized factory layouts to streamline operations and reduce labor effort; and expanded markets. As SMEs are crucial to Sri Lanka’s economy, these success stories are expected to set benchmarks and inspire other SMEs to adopt similar productivity practices.