Fábricas de Productividad

Fábricas de Productividad, run by Colombia Productiva (Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism) with the Chambers of Commerce network and ACOPI since 2018, pairs firms with ~850 productivity experts (quality management, digital transformation, logistics, energy efficiency, commercial management) via 58 allied entities across all 32 Colombian departments.

By mid-2022 the programme completed 4,000+ firm-level interventions — about ten times its 2014-2018 predecessor's 129 companies — delivering 225,000+ hours of technical assistance. The Fedesarrollo evaluation (1,035 firms) found an average 32.8% improvement across productivity indicators, nearly four times the programme's original 8% target, with the largest gains in labour productivity (~99% on value-per-employee metrics) and smaller gains in energy efficiency (~26%) and cycle-time reduction (~30%).

The Fedesarrollo figures are self-reported pre/post comparisons rather than a randomised or matched-control design, and about 60% of interventions occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic — a period of unusual baseline volatility — so the share of gains causally attributable to the programme cannot be isolated with certainty. A separate Econometría-SEI evaluation for Colombia's National Planning Department (DNP) praised the programme's design standards while flagging that budget and staffing limit its reach.