CLASS : 4TH YEAR, 2ND SEMESTER

COURSE TITLE : TOTAL QUALITY IN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

COURSE CODE : BBM 445

TASK : CAT

LECTURER : MR. TONNY LUKOSE

SUBMISSION DATE: 16th JULY 2021

1. Quality management systems (QMS) is usually envisaged as a wedge that holds the gains
achieved along the quality journey and prevents good practices from slipping. Briefly explain the
benefits of having a QMS in small scale business (6 marks).
As for the benefits a small or micro business can expect from adopting the ISO standard, there
are several.

 It confirms you have put in the effort to improve and maintain your systems so as to meet
the regulatory standards. In a way, it tells everyone, including customers that your
business is trustworthy and can supply a consistent and reliable product or service.
 By maintaining the process and further reviewing compliance your business will provide
a higher level of customer satisfaction while improving overall efficiency and
performance of operations.
 Your personnel, staff and partners have an established plan to follow that keeps all
processes operating efficiently.
 It helps establish a formalized hierarchy and responsibility plan for everyone on your
team, allowing you to discern who is in charge of what and how.
 It helps when tendering new customers and increasing business opportunities; new
customers can see the certification building initial trust and rapport.
 It helps mitigate the risk of mistakes, as problems are recorded, tracked and handled
appropriately. When a new problem is encountered, it receives full documentation. Then
later, any problems that appear are resolved more speedily thanks to established
strategies.

There are more, but we made sure to discuss the most influential benefits here. This all ties back
into why a business would want to adopt or achieve an ISO certification, however. Overall, it’s a
move toward efficiency and improvement, and a promise to customers that you will follow the
appropriate regulations and standards.
2. Examine the various types of benchmarking that today’s organization should undertake so as
to remain competitive. (6 marks)

Internal benchmarking internal benchmarking is the starting point and should always be
considered before any organisation looks to the outside. If an organisation is just starting its
benchmarking program, internal benchmarking is an excellent way to develop the benchmarking
process and train people in how to use it. This approach is very effective in organizations that
have many small business units and/or relatively autonomous sites that are engaged in similar
activities. Internal benchmarking involves looking within the organisation to determine if other
locations are performing similar activities, and then defining the best practices observed. This
type of benchmarking is the easiest to conduct because there are no security and/or
confidentiality problems to overcome. In almost all cases, internal benchmarking should be
undertaken first, since it is inexpensive to conduct and provides detailed data. Even better, the
organisation can frequently borrow experienced personnel from other locations to help
implement the future-state solutions.

External competitive benchmarking External competitive benchmarking is an effective

approach in industries that are very competitive, industries whose competitors have very
different management philosophies and histories, and industries that are driven by emerging
technologies and processes. The reverse engineering and competitive shopping approaches that
are part of this type of benchmarking are very important to organisations whose output is hard or
soft goods. Organisations using external competitive methods need to be experienced in
benchmarking. Competitive benchmarking, which includes reverse engineering and competitive
shopping, requires that the organisation perform a detailed analysis of a competitor's products,
services, and processes. The most common approach is to purchase competitive products and
services, then analyse them to identify competitive advantages.

Compatible benchmarking compatible benchmarking compares the benchmark item with items
produced by the world's best organisations in a general industry category (for example, banking,
insurance, health care and electronics). In this case, the benchmarking partner's item does not
compete directly for the same customers. This type of benchmarking is used when organisations
feel they have something to gain by comparing their benchmark item with compatible items in
other organisations that are engaged in the same industry but are not direct competitors.
Organisations using compatible (external industrial) benchmarking should already be familiar
with the benchmarking process.

Trans-industry benchmarking Trans-industry (external generic) benchmarking extends the

benchmarking process outside the specific organisation and its industry, to involve dissimilar
industries. Many business processes are generic in application and extend across industry, for
example warehousing, supplier relations, service part logistics, advertising, customer relations
and hiring. Applying the benchmarking process to these generic items can provide meaningful
insights, particularly when the information comes from unrelated industries. Benchmarking
dissimilar industries enables you to discover innovative processes, not currently used in your
particular product types, which will allow your process to become the best of the breed.

Combined internal and external benchmarking the most frequently used approach is the
combination of internal and external (competitive, compatible or trans-industry) benchmarking.
This combination usually produces the best results.
3. African countries view quality issues in organizations differently as compared to Japanese,
Americans and European nations. With Kenya as a case study, critically analyze the milestone
Kenya has made in quality management and discuss the challenges to successful Total Quality
Implementation in Kenyan firms today. (8 Marks).

Companies are constantly moving ahead towards improving the quality of overall activities so as
to prosper and serve the market in a better way. But still there are challenges that halt the
purpose of quality management:

1. Constraints imposed by quality culture: The lack of genuine quality culture poses threats in
terms of resistance to change as it is reluctant to accept the techniques that makes a variation in
its present style of working.

2. Autocratic style of leadership: If autocratic style of leadership is adopted by the top

management, it creates an environment of fear. Because of which employees may not contribute
their 1oo% which degrades their productivity ultimately affecting the quality.

3. Lack of employee commitment: As employees are directly related with the production
process, a lack of commitment on their part can render the whole process of quality management
useless.

4. Improper Channel of communication: For getting the lucrative results of the plans it is
necessary that all the information flow in the organization at right time and in right manner. But
loop holes in the communication channel act as a barrier in achieving the quality results.

5. Quality certifications-viewed as beaurocratic exercise: Some companies treat quality

certification as beaurocratic exercise that enables them to conform to the client requirements or
contractual obligations and getting competitive edge in the market. 6. Problems in identifying
customer needs: Companies often fail in identifying the needs of customers may be because of
inaccurate data, improper survey, and wrong interpretation of facts etc. This may result in supply
of unwanted product to the customer and hence defeat the main objective that is customer
satisfaction.

Recommendations:
1. The organizations should focus on developing a conducive organizational quality culture that
provides a support in improving the quality of the operations or activities.

2. The top management should seek the participation of all the persons working in the
organization before taking the final decisions.

3. A sense of belongingness among the employees can motivate that to contribute their best
efforts for the results of the business.

4. A proper path for exchange of information should be developed. No piece of information shall
be concealed on the part of top management.

5. All the activities in the business are undertaken in the organization to serve the customer in
best possible way. The methods of research that can provide maximum information and nearly
accurate data about customers taste and preference shall be used.