Fundamentally quality is the goal for every organization to achieve excellence. Quality management is much broader than the organization. These days quality incorporates government legislation and pressures from international communities concerned with protecting the environment and people health & safety. Quality is not just product acceptance by customers. It penetrates through the functional divisions of the organization to integrate product reliability, environment protection and people health & safety. Quality management is a business strategy that can jointly promote an organization and the products and services they offer. The Integration of Quality Management and the Competitiveness of PG Bison Manufacturing is a business strategy that encompasses a combination of product brands, product application, environment protection, health & safety and lead times to create an awareness of the effect quality will have on the entire business. Adopting and embracing the quality philosophies and some of the models proposed by American and Japanese quality experts will revitalize business excellence. The pressures of the external environment cannot be ignored when incorporating quality in a business. Political, economic, social and technology factors influence the quality progress of an organization. Concerns of fluctuating exchange rates, inflating fuel prices, imports, HIV and AIDS that influence the GDP and CPIX are important considerations of quality management within an organization. Knowledge of the environment should include the social enlistment of people where their basic needs are seen to by government’s social programs. The political spectrum that impact on organizations is sanctions imposed on a country or promoting a country by awarding sports events like the 2010 soccer world cup to be hosted in South Africa. The findings of this research indicate that customers are willing to support PG Bison in their endeavors to protect the environment and to promote health & safety. Many customers are unaware of the product application support PG Bison offer thereby using toxic adhesives for product applications. The importance of product branding was demonstrated by customer responses whereby they indicated that the product brands Formica, Deccon and Melawood are premier brands. However the brands are not well expressed in the market. Some market share could be lost due to the lack of branding. Many customers are dissatisfied with the 11-15 days lead times they are quoted for some of the products. They point out that they would purchase competitor products or they would look for an alternative product if the lead times were too long. The Integration of Quality Management and the Competitiveness of PG Bison Manufacturing stimulated meaningful manufacturing and warehouse process improvements including better storage and packaging systems to promote the health & safety of people and environment protection. Integrating quality management will enhance business performance and will make organizations competitive globally. Some of the models identified can be incorporated in any organization to promote the forthcoming ISO standards and to improve business performance in marketing, operations, distribution and other functional departments. The study proved successful in that PG Bison’s cost savings will escalate while the proposed structures in manufacturing and warehousing will be better organized than before. / Dr. A. Stephanou
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:2061 |
| Date | 22 May 2008 |
| Creators | Ally, Feizel |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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