| dc.description.abstract | In response to numerous competitive pressures, customer demands and ever -changing economic and
regulatory conditions, many organizations are fundamentally rethinking the way they do business. No
wonder then that even smaller organizations and NGOs nowadays strive to make strategic plans in
anticipation of uncertain future challenges within and outside their organizations. Organizations are
getting more concerned about their objectives, resources allocation, quality standards, and delivery
methods; all these focusing on meeting the ever-changing customer requirements. In Kenya, the need
to improve business operations processes cannot be overemphasized as major organizations register
losses year after year, due to poor performance. Most of them have now started the reorganization
process with a view to returning to profitability so as to spur the much-needed economic growth,
which would result in wealth creation and employment generation. There can, therefore, be no better
time than now, to look for ways of improving performance through innovative practices.
It is against these backgrounds that it was found necessary to survey the operations improvement
practices used by organizations, with a view to documenting the existing approaches and how changes
have been managed in these companies. The survey was conducted among 84 out of 128 ISO
9001:2000 certified organizations in Kenya, through data collection by means of questionnaires.
The survey findings show that many organizations (average of 71 %) were aware of most operations
improvement techniques even before they obtained certification, although few of them put them into
practice. After certification, the techniques were put in practice resulting in different levels of
achievements based on organizations' objectives. The dominant reasons why these organizations
adopted operations improvement techniques were to improve products quality / service delivery (36
%) and also to achieve operational efficiency by reducing time wastage and defects (20 %). The study
also shows that, change in staff attitude with a response rate of 80 % has emerged to be the main
obstacle during implementation of various improvement techniques. It is also evident from the study
that, most organizations prefer incremental approaches for operations improvement, although a few
embrace radical approaches. The study further shows that, other than periods of crisis, new operations
improvement approaches can be introduced even during periods of success through research, to come
up with innovative methods to stay ahead of competition. At the same time, a majority of the
organizations associated quality and efficiency with achievement of financial indicators such as
turnover, profitability and market share
In conclusion, the study shows that level of awareness of improvement techniques alone is not
sufficient for improvement of operational performance. The techniques must be into practice in order
to realize the desired results. It is also evident from the findings that, most of the organizations that
were studied have a very strong inclination towards incremental approaches. In managing changes that
come with new improvement methods, organizations should first and foremost deal with staff attitudes
if tangible results are to be realized. | en |
