KENYA INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT

DIPLOMA IN PURCHASES AND SUPPLIES MANAGEMENT

COURSE CODE: DCM 202

COURSE TITLE: QUALITY MANAGEMENT

TASK: ASSIGNMENT

PRESENTED BY: NANCY G. KAMAU-KILISWAMKS/01431

PRESENTED TO: DENNIS MARUBE

DATE: 12TH FEBRUARY 2012

In your own words define quality management and exhaustively describe why it is a

challenge to micro and small scale businesses.

QUALITY MANAGEMENT DEFINITION

Quality management is the process of ensuring that the company meets the customer’s

expectations by providing them with goods and services that are consistent. In a manufacturing

company this can entail providing goods that have little or no defects and in the service sector it

may mean providing services that will enhance customer loyalty and hence customer retention.

Quality management is a method for ensuring that all the activities necessary to design, develop

and implement a product or service are effective and efficient with respect to the system and its

performance (Deming, 1986).

Quality management therefore uses quality assurance and control of processes as well as

products to achieve more consistent quality. It is related to improving quality of goods and

services in order to satisfy the customers’ ever changing needs.

Why quality management is a challenge to small scale businesses

The challenges that affect the successful implementation of quality management practices in

small scale businesses:

Financial inadequacy

Most small scale businesses have difficulties with finances and hence they are not able to put in

place infrastructure and facilities that will support quality management. This may include not

being able to train their staff or hire qualified staff, put in place proper procedures for quality

control and quality assurance.

Top management commitment

The top management in small scale businesses are concerned in making profits and therefore

may not be fully committed to quality management requirements as this will seem to consume a

lot of resources with no major short term returns. This is because quality management results are

long term and may take a long time to be realized and therefore top management will in most

cases channel their resources to other activities which will give them returns in the short run.

Employee training

Well trained and informed staff are an essential element of the Quality Assurance approach. It is

important to recognise that any system is operated by people. It is people who manufacture a

food product and ensure that it has the right quality. People working together ensure that the

information, materials and equipment are all correct to allow the production of a product. People

also store the product and deliver it on time. All therefore need the necessary training and skills

to complete their tasks correctly. They need to know what their own responsibilities are in this

quality chain and where they fit into the overall system. Quality management requires the

business to know what are the customers' needs and then ensure that staffs have the skills,

materials, and information needed to deliver the promises that are made. This requires an

investment in training people to ensure that the quality assurance system controls the essential

steps in the whole manufacturing and distribution process to satisfy customer needs.

Employee participation

Most small scale businesses are centralized and decisions are made by the top management and

do not involve the employees in major decisions of the firm. Business owners must not regard

communication as a one-way process. The information they send to workers must also be

modified by feedback from the staff. This feedback is then used to come up with strategies that

will improve the company’s performance. Failure to involve employees in major business

decisions always lead to poor quality management and hence poor business performance.

Customer focus

Most small scale businesses do not have the necessary skills, time and money to conduct market

research on customer needs and expectations. This research assists in coming up with products

that suit the customers’ needs and hence gain customer loyalty and retention. The small scale

companies therefore produces goods and services which do not meet the customers’ expectations

and hence end up losing business to competition.

Using an example of an existing business entity, describe in details how the use of quality

management for its products and services has either made them succeed or fail.

THE UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI

The University of Nairobi has succeeded in using quality management practices. This can be

seen by the quality of the educational infrastructure, the cadre of qualified tutors and other

resources they have in place, and the quality of teaching and learning (Unesco, 2003). They have

used quality management to increase productivity, and deliver higher quality services to their

customers

The University of Nairobi records the largest number of student admissions for degree courses

per annum. Quality infrastructure has been regarded as critical operational issue for the

University of Nairobi to achieve its desired goal of becoming an international centre of

excellence. There are very many quality certifications. Thus the University of Nairobi has

applied quality management to a great extent.

The University of Nairobi has continued to rehabilitate the existing infrastructure. The

University has also continued to expand and strengthen its Information and Communication

Technologies (ICT) infrastructure by establishing and equipping computer laboratories for

students and staff. This, no doubt, has contributed to the improvement of its ranking that is

number 17 in Africa in January 2012.

The University of Nairobi to a very great extent has ensured that the Quality Management Policy

is appropriate to its purpose; and it provides the framework for establishing and reviewing

quality objectives which are used to guard against any erroneous outputs from its services and

activities.

The University of Nairobi's has to a great extent defined its processes to ensure its

academic/educational products meet the Commission of Higher Education regulatory

requirements; implemented actions necessary to achieve planned results and continual

improvement of their educational processes; and lastly communicated the importance of meeting

customer as well as statutory and regulatory requirements. And to some great extent defined its

processes to ensure its academic/educational products meet customer requirements.

The University of Nairobi makes use of a quality manual which is well documented to ensure the

effective planning, operation and control of its processes. A proper documentation of every

process aspect an entity is very important. This is because it acts as a centre of reference and

corrections can easily be made in case of any diversion from norms.

The University of Nairobi takes a corrective action to ensure conformity of the product, when

planned results are not achieved, measures and monitors processes to demonstrate the processes

ability to achieve planned results; it also conducts internal audits at planned intervals to

determine whether the QMS conforms to the requirements of the ISO 9001:2000. The University

of Nairobi applies suitable methods to monitor and, where applicable, measure the quality

management's system processes.

The University provides training or take other actions to satisfy competence needs, they ensure

personnel are informed about the relevance and importance of their activities and contribute to

the achievement of the quality objectives. The university’s teaching staffs are well trained and

this can be shown by the number of publications they have published.

CONCLUSION

The University of Nairobi has to a great extent succeeded in improving their performance by

applying quality management to their operations.