Variety Reduction Practices and Materials Control in Level 4-6 Hosptals in North Rift Region of Kenya

Abstract

Organizations are focused on satisfying their customers, suppliers, and units by providing them with a variety of products to choose from, thus ignoring the aspect of variety reduction. Consequently, due to a lack of variety reduction practices, many organizations suffer from several costs, including storage, handling, quality, and dead stocks. These include sections in the hospital such as; clinics, wards, surgical theatres, and pharmaceutical departments. Material control in these sections has not been effective due to overstocking and idle equipment. The objectives were: to establish the extent of implementation of variety reduction practices, to test the significance of the difference in variety reduction practices on material controls between levels 4-6 private and public Hospitals and to determine the effect of variety reduction practices on material control among level 4-6 Hospitals in the North Rift Region of Kenya. The resource dependency theory (RDT) was the primary theory, which was supported by two other theories, transaction cost theory (TCT) and strategic choice theory (SCT). The study's design was guided by the descriptive cross-sectional design, where a census of 26 heads of procurement and supply officers from the 26 level 4-6 hospitals (private and public) in the North Rift region was done. The study did obtain primary data using structured questionnaires issued to the study respondents. The coded data was then analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive findings revealed that variety reduction practices are not widely used in hospitals. The inferential statistics show that there is no significant difference in material control between public and private hospitals either performing or not performing standardization of the products, and variety reduction practices have a positive predictive effect on material control. The study concludes that variety reduction practices such as reduction of the types of materials, product resizing, merging of products, and standardization of the products and materials were found to benefit the hospitals material control. The study provides insightful contribution to academicians and policymakers in developing strategic procurement and supply procedures and decisions that factor in variety reduction as part of their studies and practices. Future studies need to be conducted in other organizations especially manufacturing and industrial sectors to fill the current limitations of the current study.