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The impact of culture on the successful implementation of quality management systems

Thesis (MTech (Quality))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2009. / Irrespective of the nature of organisations, they all face a certain amount of
uncertainty and risk. In order to maintain resilience, competitiveness and
performance, organisations must have a system in place to manage the risks
associated to their organisations. The challenge is to determine how much risk and
uncertainty is acceptable, and how to cost effectively manage the risk and
uncertainty while meeting the organisation's strategic and operational objectives.
For many large organisations, quality or so called 'customer perceived quality',
has become an issue of survival. Furthermore, increased competitiveness is
necessary in order to become the obvious choice for the customer. Corporations must have long term goals and Quality Management Systems serve
as organised mechanisms to manage quality, effectiveness and competitiveness
involving everyone at all levels of the organisation. An understanding of culture
in organisations can thus offer insight into individual and group behaviour, and
leadership. Furthermore, it can help to explain not just 'what' happens in an
organisation, but 'why' it happens. Companies view culture as something to be
influenced to achieve organisational goals of productivity and profitability.
Attempts to change the culture of an organization, may meet with varied levels of
success. The emphasis on quality building products, have been the focus of the
construction industry in South Africa. As a supplier of extruded aluminium
profiles to the building industry, Hulamin Extrusions is also faced with typical
challenges representative of the industry and as a result, the following aspects
would be subjected to research scrutiny:
~ Introduction of a Quality Management System.
~ The challenges of organisational culture.
~ The need for change management.
~ Facilitating the implementation of the system.
~ Continuous Improvement.
The researcher anticipates finding ways to improve organisational culture, which
in turn would facilitate quality improvement within the organisation.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:cput/oai:localhost:20.500.11838/2217
Date January 2009
CreatorsLudidi, Vathiswa Lungelwa
ContributorsBester, A., Watkins, J. A., Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Industrial and Systems Engineering.
PublisherCape Peninsula University of Technology
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
Languageen_ZA
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Rightshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/za/

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