The Bureau for Industrial Cooperation (BICO) is known officially as the University of Dar es Salaam through the Bureau for Industrial Cooperation. It is under the College of Engineering and Technology (CoET) and therefore located within CoET, University of Dar es Salaam (Figure 1). The BICO office is located on the 2nd floor (Top) of Block S. From May 2020, the BICO Office Management team will move from the old office to a New Office which was extended and built by BICO herself
The Bureau for Industrial Cooperation (BICO) is a unit of the College of Engineering and Technology (CoET), University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) that coordinates the provision of Public Service to the Tanzania community in the form of Consultancy and Professional Services in Engineering and related fields. BICO also provides the accumulated body of knowledge to the community through short courses (Professional Development Programs). BICO was established in 1990 and is registered by the Engineers Registration Board (ERB) as an engineering consulting firm since 1999 and also registered by the National Environmental Management Council (NEMC) since 2017 to carry out environmental impact assessments. Also, BICO is registered by Architects and Quantity Surveyors Registration Board (AQRB) since 2019 to carry out quantity surveying. BICO draws its expertise from a pool of highly trained staff available at CoET, where the majority are registered by ERB as Professional and Consulting Engineers. Moreover, BICO has access to the Laboratories and workshop services available at CoET which are also registered by ERB as Materials Testing Laboratories.
Since its inception, BICO has registered a number of achievements in the areas of software development, restructuring of organisations, strategic management, engineering consultancy, and in professional development programmes. In recognition of some of these achievements, the International Selection Business Initiative Directions (BID) awarded BICO the World Quality Commitment International Star Award in Gold category for year 2002. The awarded prize is aimed at promoting public and international awareness for those firms, which are totally committed to quality. Specifically, the award has been presented to BICO as an entity, for corporate achievement, in recognition of prestigious innovation, quality, technology, and excellence based on customer satisfaction, leadership, continuing education and training, business results, compliance with ISO 9000 and Total Quality Management, amongst others.
On 7th February 2002, BICO was nominated as the National Linkage Institution by the Basel Convention Regional Centre, South Africa to work hand in hand with the Division of Environment within the Vice President’s Office (focal point) in matters related to hazardous waste management. In this respect, BICO was charged in Capacity Building to enable the country to manage the legal, technical, and institutional issues with regard to hazard management.
The expertise of BICO is so diverse and covers areas such as structural design as well as structural integrity assessment of existing buildings, construction management and supervision, land surveying including GIS, geotechnical soil investigation, transportation engineering, highway engineering, mechanical and manufacturing engineering, materials testing, energy engineering, mining and metallurgical engineering, chemical and process engineering, ICT, electrical engineering, strategic management including corporate strategic planning, business planning, industrial engineering, water resources engineering and management, environmental engineering, and textile design and engineering.
BICO is linked to the University Consultancy Bureau (UCB), which takes advantage of the depth and richness of the University’s reputable multidisciplinary research and consultancy base to provide solutions to many challenges facing our society. The major activity of the link is the registration of projects and provision of consultancy contracts that protect the University and project key stakeholders interests.
