CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background of the study
Competitive environment in the current market is changing
continuously as there are more competitors that offer the same products and
services to the customers. In order to compete with other competitors and to
dominate the market, a firm has to adopt and manage the whole organizational
strategies in more efficient and effective ways. In this regard, production
excellence through total quality management (T.Q.M) has been widely implemented
and produced remarkable results, such as improved product and service quality,
enhance productivity reduce cost and satisfy customer requirements.
Commitment of top management has been cited as one of
the most important factors impacting the success for implementation of total
quality management practice in a firm. According to Apieyi (1996) embracing
total quality management (T.Q.M) phenomenon is a drive to organizational
excellence. Total quality management (T.O.M) is an integrative philosophy of
management for continuously improving the quality of products and processes. TQM
functions on the premise that the quality of products and processes is the
responsibility of everyone who is involved with the creation or consumption of
the products or services offered by an organization.
In other words, T.Q.M capitalizes on the involvement
of management, workforce and even customers, in order to meet or exceed
customer expectations. T.Q.M is a comprehensive and structured approach to
organizational management that seeks to improve the quality of products and
services through ongoing refinements in response to continuous feedback.
Steingrad & Fitzgibbons 1993 defined TQM as a set
of techniques and procedure used to reduce or eliminate variation from a
production process or service-delivery system in order to improve efficiency,
reliability, and quality. According to Dean and Bowen (1994), T.Q.M is a
management philosophy or an approach characterized by principles, practices and
techniques.
T.Q.M which originated from the first world war was
introduced to correct the war effort that led to large scale manufacturing that
often produced poor quality goods. It was in a bid to correct this anomaly in
the production industries that Dr. W. Eduwards Demining introduce statistical
quality control (SQC). A theory that provided a statistical base for sampling
where it was not possible to impact every item, a sample was tested for
quality. The theory of SQC was based on the notion that a variation in the
production process leads to variation in end product. If the variation in the
process could be quantify in the end.
After the second world war the industrial
manufacturers in Japan produced poor quality items. In response to this, the
Japanese union of scientist and engineering invited Dr. Demining to train
engineers in quality process By the 1970’s, the notion o f total quality was
being discussed as company wide quality control that involved all employees
form top management to the workers, based on the results seen in Japan, the
knew wave of quality control became as
total quality management which was used to described the many quality for
focused strategies and techniques that became the centre of focus for the
quality movement.
Pz industries PLC, Aba is a member group of Pz
international amongst Pz pharmaceuticals, Pz Nigeria Themo cool and Pz cussons.
The Nigerian Branch was incorporated in Nigeria in August 1969 as Paterson
Zochonis & company (Nigeria) Limited and as a wholly own subsidiary of Paterson
Zochonis and co Ltd of Manchester England. The company changed to its present
name Pz Cussons in July 2007 with the change heritage of “PZ” is being retained
and added to the strength of the “Cussons” internationally recognized brands.
This is an amalgamation of the values that have carried the company through one
hundred years of Nigerian history with the dynamism of the Brand that are
responding to customer of Pz products. It is a multinational public liability
company with 60 percent of its equity share held by Nigerians and 40 percent
held by foreign partners. They are involved in the manufacturing of laundry
soaps such as Duck bar, Tempo bar and tab zip, tab canoe and Personal care and toiled soaps ranges
comprises of joy beauty soap, imperial leather, carex soap, premier, venus,
Roberts Detergents comprises of Elephant colour and Rex Detergent. Even “moro
interesting to note is the automation of most of their manufacturing processes
to reduce human labour reducing production time while increasing efficiency and output tremendously.
However, Pz industries spends huge sum of money on
finished product inspection, and product and services that most at time do not
meet customer requirements due to poor quality, relative to international
standard.
1.2 Statement
of the Problem
Quality management is the
responsibility of all aspect of the organization. The decision to implement
total quality management should be strategic in Nature. Management acts as a
deriver of quality management implementation, creating values, goals and system
to satisfy customer expectation and improve an organizational performance.
In Pz industries quality management
is seen as the responsibility of production and quality control department of
the company. It is not part of the responsibility of the top management. Lack
of top management commitment is one of the reasons for the failure of total
quality management efforts and her inability to lead the market.
According to the management
research, the success of any effort targeted at changing the operational
philosophy of the organization is strongly linked with the top management the
behaviour of the members of the organizations without the support of top management
Ahire et al (1996). Change will only be
successful if, top management is committed to change. This is because employees
need to impress upper management in order to advance up the cooperate ladder.
The monopoly enjoyed by Pz
industries which was founded on low cost production through the use of cheap
labour and technology is being threatened by competitors due to increase in
quality awareness among them. As the number of competitors increase, it becomes
necessary for the Pz industries to remain monopolistic and competitive in the
world market. In order to achieve this,
the management should be committed on the improvement of product quality
instead of cheap labour. If the top
management is committed to quality, they should not only actively be involved
in total quality management and improvement process, but also strongly
encourage employee involvement in total quality management and improvement.
1.3
Objective of
the Study
The main objective of this study is to identify the
level of commitment of top management in improving production excellence through
total quality management in Pz industries with a view to improving in order to
enhance product quality and reduce cost in Pz industries.
The
study will seek to:
(i) Identify
the measures taken by the top management to improve production excellence
(ii) Measure
the effect of quality management on output of Pz industries
(iii) Know how
lack of top management support affects production excellence through total
quality management.
1.4 Research
Question
What are the measures taken by top managers of Pz
industries to improve production excellence?
(i) Does
effective participation of top management of Pz
Industries on quality management have any effect on output of the
organization
(ii) To what
extent does lack of support by management affect product excellence?
1.5
Hypothesis
From the statement of the problem and
objective of the study, the following hypotheses are formulated to guide this
research work.
Ho: The
decisions of top managers of Pz industries have no
negative effect on product quality in Pz industries
PLC, Aba
Hi: The
decisions of top managers of Pz Industries have negative effect on product
quality in Pz Industries PLC, Aba
Ho: Production Excellence Through Total Quality
Management is not affected by Lack of support by top managers of Pz Industries
Hi: Production
Excellence Through Total Quality Management is affected by top management of Pz
Idustries PLC, Aba.
Ho: There
are no measures by the top managers of Pz industries PLC to improve production
excellence through total quality management in Pz industries PLC, Aba.
Hi: There
are measures by the top managers of Pz industries PLC to improve production
execellenc through total quality management in Pz industries Aba.
1.6
Significance of the Study
Research of any kind is
embarked on, in order to provide a solution to a problem, improving on the
performance of an existing system, contributing to the existing knowledge
The
study is significant in the following ways
1. The
findings of the study will be of great benefit to the management students,
company staff such as the control manager, production managers, personnel
managers and other staff in the production line.
2. The
findings will give the management students the insight and what strategies
could be adopted to improve product quality in the production process.
3. It will help quality control managers as
well as top manager of Pz as it will reveal strategies needed for product
improvement
4. The
study will help personnel managers of Pz industries on people based improvement.
1.7
Limitation of the Study
The study covers only Pz
industries PLC Aba, Abia state. There
are a lot of problems which the researcher encountered in the process of carrying
out this research work, non-compliance attitude of workers in Pz industries PLC
to give out vital information was part of the constraints and limited time for
the study. It amid these problems the
researcher was able to carry out the research effectively
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APPENDIX
Department of business management,
Faculty of management sciences,
Dear
Sir/Madam,
PERMISSION TO ADMINISTER QUESTIONNAIRE
I
am a post-graduate student in the department of Business Management of Ebonyi
state university Abakaliki, and at present conducting a research on improving
production excellence through total quality management (T.Q.M) in PZ industries
Aba. For the purpose of this study, the attached questionnaire has been design
for data collection. Please feel free to complete the questionnaire as
precisely as possible, as every information will be treated confidential and
only for the purpose of this study and academic work.
Regards,
Yours Faithfully
NAME HERE
Section A
Instruction:
Please, complete or tick where applicable.
1.
Your department………………..……………………………….
2.
Position/rank………………………………………………………
3.
Sex: Male: Female:
4.
Age:
18-25
26-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 above 60
5.
your
educational qualification
FSLC GCE/SSCE NCE/ND BSC/HND MSc
PhD
6.
Your
year of service in Pz industries Pls
1-5
6-10
11-15
16-20
Above
20
Section B
Please tick (K) in the space against each column of
the following statements depending on your degree of agreement or disagreement.
The response categories are:
SA- Strongly Agree
A- Agree
D- Disagree
SD- Strongly Disagree
7. Do you
know about product excellence through total quality management in your organization?
8. Do you
see quality management as the sole responsibility of quality control department
of your department?
9. Are
there measures taken by the top management of Pz industry to improve production
excellence in your organization?
10. Does
top management of Pz industries plc, Aba, needs to improve on it’s commitment
on quality management in your organization?
11. Will effective
participation of top managers on production excellence through total quality
management has any effect on out put of the Pz industries?
12. Does
the decision of top management of Pz industries have negative effect on product
quality in Pz industries plc Aba.
13. Training
for production excellence does not involve other department apart from
production department of your organization.
14. Does
customer feedback on the organizations product channeled to the production
department of Pz industries
15. Do
production excellence through total quality management affected by lack of
support of top management of Pz industries plc Aba.
16. Does improve
product of your competitors affect sales in your organization?
17. Are
there relationship between quality management and customer satisfaction in your
organization?
18. Pz
industries PLC, Aba does not incorporate buyer’s feedback into the process of
quality management?
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