Investigation of Capacity Management Strategies and Their Influence on Service Quality: Case of Nairobi supermarkets.

Abstract

This study sought to determine capacity management strategies and their influence on service quality and the challenges in capacity management faced in Nairobi Supermarkets. The study was conducted using a descriptive survey design. It was based on the 50 supermarkets in Nairobi. Primary data was collected using self-administered drop and pick questionnaires. The questionnaires were semi-structured having both open- ended and closed questions. A content analysis and descriptive analysis was used to analyze the data. The study ascertained that the main method of contributing to achieving expansion objectives of supermarkets is price discounting. Moreover, the methods for achieving expansion objectives had been fairly useful on the return on investments and profitability, customer satisfaction, process time, response time and market shares. The strategies used to operationalize supermarket capacity requirements were; scheduling activities, a flexible workforce, remodeling of equipments and business process reengineering. Remodeling equipment majorly led to service flexibility and service time while scheduling of activities helped in achieving sendee flexibility and response time while flexible workforce was useful in achieving response time and service time. The usefulness ol storage facility was evident in increased sales and increased customers. 1 he stmly established that strategies such as benchmark, involving employees when introducing capacity changes and involving customers and other stake holders were rarely involved during capacity changes in supermarkets. On the contrary, ignoring change and maintaining status quo as a strategy was rarely or never involved. Capacity strategies such as remodeling equipments majorly led to customer safety, variable shift responded to quick clearance, subcontracting led to reduced complains and continuous service, whereas flexible workforce helped in meeting service time. However, business process re engineering strategy did not quite effective respond to customer needs, other than enhancing continuous service. The study established that there were two main challenges that supermarkets faced during capacity management initiatives; bottlenecks and inadequate finances. 1 he only action that supermarkets took to solve problems or challenges of bottleneck in operation was making corrections appropriate to the problem.