Mphumzi Lwana's journey with Scully Academy

Meet Mphumzi Lwana. Mphumzi, also known as Greenfield, is young, ambitious, hardworking, and intelligent. From modest beginnings in 2019 as a pizza delivery Rider in his hometown Kingwilliams Town, Greenfield has come far and his success story began when Cepheid approached Scully Academy as a partnership for impact, to explore using motorcycles and trained riders to reach customers in ‘hard-to-reach’ areas in the Eastern Cape. Fast forward to today, Greenfield’s partnership with Scully Academy has remained strong, and Scully Academy was able to secure Greenfield a possible full-time job opportunity and work experience at the Cepheid Laboratory in Johannesburg. Greenfield recounts his inspiring experience in the writing below. 

Cepheid Training - Mphumzi Lwana

On the first day of training at Cepheid in Culross avenue, I was nervous. I did not want to ruin the big opportunity to officially become one of their staff as I’ve been sub-contracting for Cepheid through Scully Academy for a full five years. Being granted such an opportunity made me look back on where I came from and how it all started. I remember how much I doubted the opportunity as I didn’t know where it would lead me, and that I would end up being self-employed and working remotely. 

Today my heart is full of joy and gratitude to the CEO and Scully Academy staff members who found me and believed in my ability to pilot their huge project all over the Eastern Cape where I was born and raised. Today I’m confident that this was the right platform and the correct direction that was purposely created for me, even though I understand it could have been anyone who might have met Scully Academy’s requirements for the job post. Even though there were over 100 applicants, none could have done it as I did, by using my 17 years of Riding skills combined with the BMW advanced driving skills, and the Scully Academy mantra that I live, survive & succeed with: 100 % Accountability, No Excuses, and No Accidents. 

I met up with Wade and Mark in the reception area at Cepheids Johannesburg Offices. Wade is the trainer, and Mark is a Lab manager from Dubai. Fortunately, (or unfortunately) for me, I was booked for training on the day Mark was in the country to increase productivity at the Cepheid repair center - now it has become more intense for me. Wade took me upstairs first to introduce me to Phumla, a nice, warm, welcoming lady who told me she had been looking forward to meeting me. I see she heard a lot about me. Phumla took me to the ICT Department and created Mark’s and Greenfield’s access cards and took our biometrics to access the building.

By the time we came back, Wade was finished with his Coffee, so then we accessed the repair center. A warm welcome was given from the staff and a nice introduction was exchanged between us. In the first part of the training, they gave me a task to decontaminate modules that would be used for the day. The decontamination was manually done. Wade requested for a three-phase of Sodium Hypochlorite applied to the modules, followed by a single phase of Ethanol. That was an ice breaker for me as I already knew how to decontaminate so I showed them what I used to do during site visits, which is what they expected.

The second day came and I was requested to decontaminate some failed modules that came from Frere Hospital in the Eastern Cape in East London, where my daughter Siphahle was born. It was nice knowing that I could still save my hometown’s lives even though I’m in Sandton. God’s ways are unpredictable. I quickly did what I had been asked to do and after all the tasks were complete I asked for instructions on the second step of the process that these modules go through. When they said it’s FI; I panicked as I didn’t know what that stands for, so I asked what that abbreviation means. Mark said it stands for Further Investigation. I ended up catching up and ran module tests on that very same day. 

I was fortunate to be trained by two LAB managers and also exposed to the changes made to simplify to avoid wasting time. I learned the word ‘Muda’; which means wastefulness, from a man I met who was from Dubai.

Wednesday came, and started in the decontamination room, passing via FI (Further Investigation) running test using retest paperwork on the system to validate the failure on the modules. I finalized my day by assisting the most experienced repair center technician Lebo, who gave me I-CORE to mount and assemble the module back in 2019 during my first training with Cepheid. That’s exactly what I reminded him of when I approached to reach out to him. I said to him now this is your chance to do what you did in my first training. We laughed out loud as he was the only face I am familiar with in the repair center.

He is such a humble guy with great experience in the field and didn't mind sharing his knowledge and tricks with me. I ended up assembling and disassembling the modules for him that he needed to fix. After this I let him do his thing (or our thing, because every technician has to know all of the processes to acquire a single repaired module). Of course, I can’t get into too much detail as a user runs a test on the company’s software, and the software detects the failure. This is interpreted by the technician who’s on the FI (Further Investigation)  process. At this stage, a code failure has to be interpreted into an action plan for going ahead with the actual “fix” to a module before retesting it and passing it over for calibration. Calibration includes stimulating the optic light via an empty cartridge that is injected, repackaged, and delivered to NHLS (National Health Laboratory Services).

We continued with the decontamination as three batches of modules arrived from Malawi and Nigeria. We had to unpack them from boxes, dispose of doors & ejectors then decontaminate them. After we finished with the decontamination, Mark took me to the FI workstation to run a test on modules after they have been repaired using ret standard option to validate whether the module operates as expected or if there are any errors remaining in the module.

On Friday (Trogen’s birthday) Mark bought us lunch. He told us that on Monday we would be starting with the repairs. Mark guided us, he showed us what to do and we followed his example. We managed to finish two modules on Monday. 

On Tuesday we started the repairs separately. At the end of the day when we combined the modules that we managed to fix, we counted that there were thirteen in total.

On Wednesday we started our day with thermal calibration. We selected our software on drive O under the folder s0118 ; changing the probes back and forth. We took the modules from thermal tests and made a warm-up after we finished; we started our six colour dye test on the folder s0119. We put the dye to stimulate the LED, then followed up with TXR, 532, CF1, 647,FAM & CF6. During the other processes, we put two measurements of dye on the cartridge and four for the BFL calibration. 

The following day I made FI with modules from Malawi and once Further Investigating was complete, immediately repaired the modules. . During the repair process I had to make the I-CORE configuration and upload a new motherboard to the system. This is how I could run a module test to confirm that the module is repaired successfully and it’s ready for RUN-in. Thermal calibration takes place after these processes and then moves for optical calibration.

Friday morning began with what would be the last day of the training. We started our day with daily management and went straight to the repairs of modules that were done with further investigation the previous day. We remained busy with repairs, running I-CORE tests, refurbishing the modules, running module tests and filling in the paperwork. 

We ended our day with a meeting. I was asked how I felt about the training, and I told them I had enjoyed the process and I was glad to work with accommodating staff like them.  Wade said he is pleased by the effort and dedication I had shown during the training and mentioned he would compile his feedback report to send to Scully Academy via email.

And so it was time to go back to the Eastern Cape. I was flown home by Scully Academy, leaving with Field Engineer and Field Technician’s skills that I had not mastered before the training. I now await Cepheid’s management and their decision on whether to bring me on permanently. I know that I am ready to work hard and save more lives. Should they give me an opportunity to use the skills I’ve been taught. If I need to move to Gauteng I am willing to do so; anytime, even tomorrow.