Framing manufacturing processes resource requirements in underdeveloped countries: A study on industrial investments in Africa

Africa is becoming an attractive destination for private investors, though the opportunities it offers are not being fully exploited. There is widespread evidence that industrial settlements play an important role in a country's economic development, however, adopted approaches and strategies seem not to be adequately structured to meet the challenges. For this reason, manufacturing companies need recommendation to penetrate one of the fastest growing consumer markets in the world, to easier settle production sites and consequently achieve greater investments effectiveness. Conversely to recent progresses, significant obstacles owing to political instabilities, conflicts, poor infrastructures and geographical diversities persist. Under such circumstances, a crucial driver to success is the ability to lead the industrialization according to process requirements and impacts within a certain underdeveloped territory. Notwithstanding obvious need, to date no framework based on the strength of these features seems to exist. Consequently, it is necessary to design guidelines on developing countries manufacturing processes opportunities, providing companies an extensive and responsible vision that will positively contribute to both industrial settlements competitiveness and Africa development. Recent research on investment dynamics and industrial development in Africa have highlighted the need to identify main input and output categories that characterize all industries in a developing country. More precisely, this classification will assist private investment in the choice of the type of industry given the production resources, notably factory utilities and raw materials availability. This objective is achieved through in-depth analysis of different industrial processes, identifying and describing specific process requirements and results, per industry type. Afterwards, the identified categories compose a framework which has been applied to two different industries. In particular, the result shows the framework applicability and its potential to understand production resources availability and manufacturing development opportunities.