LEVEL OF COMMITMENT OF TOP MANAGEMENT IN IMPROVING PRODUCTION EXCELLENCE THROUGH TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN PZ INDUSTRIES



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.



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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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