Quality competitiveness : an empirical investigation of Ethiopian manufacturing industries

Abstract

This thesis a result of extensive literature review, questionnaire survey, interviews, industrial visit and laboratory work has examined basic quality awareness, factors impeding product quality improvement, existing industrial practices to ensure quality and evaluated conventionally machined surface textures. Moreover, evaluated the status of TQM implementation and developed TQM implementation model besides to developing a framework for quality deployment based on the empirical evidences derived from the study. The study indicated that, although quality awareness is on the raise as manifested by the increasing number of companies working for ISO certification, compared to experiences of other countries in the region and Turkey, the on going efforts are insignificant. Ethiopian manufacturing industries were found with little idea of TQM principles and its implementation in particular and quality practices in general.<br />Product quality improvement challenges are more or less the same across all industries irrespective of company size and ownership except in few cases. It also discovered that most manufacturing industries are equipped with old and/or obsolete machines and use low quality of raw materials that can not provide the level of product quality required by trading partners. Moreover, the study revealed that the notion of improving market competitiveness through product quality improvement is not well conceived among Ethiopian manufacturing industries.<br />Furthermore, it ascertained that industries in Ethiopia are limited to the use of size tolerances, geometrical dimensioning and surface measurements are not familiar even among the metal industries.<br />In general, the study revealed that quality promotion in Ethiopian manufacturing industries is still in its infant stage that needs urgent attention by stakeholders such as companies, universities and responsible government institutions. It is believed that implementation of the developed quality deployment framework will enable companies to be more competitive in the global market and the developed TQM model could be used to study firms strive towards satisfying customer's needs and expectations.