Awareness and Usage of Quality Control Tools with Emphasis on Statistical Process in Industries

Abstract: The present work is devoted to assessing the awareness and usage of quality control tools, with an emphasis on statistical process control in Ethiopian manufacturing industries. The semi-structured questionnaire has been administered to executives and technical managers of manufacturing industries of various sizes and specialties across the country. A stratified random sample method by region was used to select sample industries for the study. The samples used for this study are industries mainly from Oromiya, Addis Ababa, Tigray, Amara, SNNP, and Diredawa regions, proportional to the size of the available industries. The exploratory method and descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. Available documents and reports related to the quality control policy of the selected companies were investigated.

The number of manufacturing industries involved in this study was 44. Of the sampled manufacturing industries, about 60% are from the Oromiya and Addis Ababa regions. It has been reported that 100% of the respondents said that the importance of quality control tools is very important to their organization’s productivity and quality improvement (Figure 3). Quality control professionals were also asked to indicate the extent to which quality control systems are working in their industry, and the majority of the respondents (45%) indicated that quality control systems are working to some extent in their respective industries (Figure 18). Most of the quality departments of the industries did not fully recognize the importance of statistical process control as a quality control tool. This is mainly due to a lack of awareness and motivation among the top management, a shortage of manpower in the area, and other factors that together would make it difficult to apply quality control tools in their organization. In general, the industries in Ethiopia are deficient in vigor and found to be stagnant, hence less exposed to a highly competitive market, and they don’t adopt the latest quality control techniques in order to gain knowledge about systems to improve quality and operational performance. We conclude that the quality management system has to be established as an independent entity with real power, and hence the quality control department, which is responsible for the quality, can make an irreversible decision with respect to the quality of any given product. Moreover, the concerned bodies (the government and the Ministry of Industries) should give attention and work together with universities to ensure that these statistical process control techniques can be incorporated into the curriculum of the universities at higher levels in degree and master's programs. Furthermore, different pieces of training that could improve the quality and efficiency of their respective management systems should be given in the short and long term to the employees, including top and middle managers found in various industries relevant to their process.

DOI: 10.4236/iim.2016.86011PDFHTMLXML2,989Downloads 5,790ViewsCitations

Intelligent Information Management > Vol.8 No.6, November 2016; https://www.scirp.org/pdf/IIM_2016110915392721.pdf

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Keywords: Quality Products, Awareness, Usage, Statistical Process Control