T&F Engineering grows in leaps and bounds

Sindisiwe Sibanda, Sunday Life Reporter

LOCATED at Masotsha Ndlovu Avenue and JM Nkomo Street, Bulawayo-based manufacturing and distributors of school furniture, laboratory, shop fittings, ceilings and house renovations — T&F Engineering is making strides to position itself as one of the country’s leading manufacturing and distributing companies.

The journey started in 2014 with the company name operating on a small-scale manufacturing school furniture, hospital beds, office furniture, window and door frames, and ECD play centres. 

In an interview, the Production Manager Mr Tichakunda Zhou said the company has offered its services to many schools not only in Bulawayo but also in Matabeleland North and Midlands Provinces.

“As a company we deal mostly with schools and in the past years we have managed to supply quite a number of schools here in Bulawayo and we have gone as far as Binga in Matabeleland North and Mberengwa in the Midlands Province offering our services,” said Mr Zhou.

He added that they would like to open an institution that would not only train youths but that would make them better engineers.

“As a company we want to establish an institution that will train and help youths become better engineers so that they have a place in the world and a society as a whole,” he said.

He however, said financial challenges were affecting the operations of the company.

The major challenge we are facing is the shortage of funds as manufacturing of these products require original raw materials which are expensive.

“We procure our materials from Steel and Timber which are quite expensive and even if we get orders we are sometimes faced with challenges of purchasing materials for those orders which at the end of the day becomes a huge inconvenience for us and our valued customers.”

“Another challenge we are facing is that of not having a conducive working environment and we plead that the Government and the City Council to provide stands so that we get bigger and better spaces to operate from,” he lamented.

Mr Zhou said the company was working on making sure it gets a bigger share on the export market through producing goods that meet the required standard in the market.

“Our future plans are to make sure that we find a bigger export market in order to survive as a company,” he said.