Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Technology: Quality, Durban University of Technology, 2010. / Over the years, organisations have been criticised for implementing the ISO 9000
Quality Management Standards purely as a marketing strategy without any commitment
to improving quality and customer satisfaction. This study aimed to investigate the
effectiveness of the ISO 9001:2000 quality management standard on performance and
customer satisfaction. The objectives of the study included determining the level of
effectiveness of the ISO 9001:2000 quality management with respect to enhanced
leadership, continuous improvement and customer satisfaction; ascertaining the extent
to which ISO 9004 and other business improvement approaches that were used to
improve the performance of the organisation and determining the level of customer
complaints before and after ISO 9001:2000 certification. This research investigation
involved the case study approach which utilised both the qualitative and quantitative
methodologies. The latter involved the analysis of the organisation’s production and
customer complaints data pre- and post ISO 9001:2000 certification as well as the
responses to the closed-ended questions in the questionnaire, while the former entailed
an analysis of the responses to the open-ended questions in the questionnaire and a
search of the literature to corroborate the findings of this study. Thirty-one of the fiftytwo
employees of the organisation completed and returned the questionnaire that was
administered. This represented a 60% response rate. The responses to the
questionnaire were influenced by the employees’ level of training, knowledge and
experience of the ISO 9001 quality management standard. Thus, the results cannot be
generalised to other ISO 9001 certified organisations. The pre- and post study revealed
that the level of customer complaints decreased following ISO 9001:2000 certification.
Analysis of the responses to the questionnaire indicated that the ISO 9001:2000 quality
management standard was, in most instances, perceived to be effective in ensuring
customer satisfaction, leadership and continuous improvement. For future research,
it is recommended that researchers investigate the impact of continuous improvement
teams and the introduction of appropriate business improvement approaches on
organisational performance and customer satisfaction in ISO 9001 certified
organisations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:dut/oai:localhost:10321/529 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Moodaliyar, Rajendran |
| Contributors | Jinabhai, Dinesh C., Singh, Shalini |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 145 p |
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