The study “an Appraisal of quality control procedures in a manufacturing organization” a study of Juhel Pharmaceutical Company Enugu, sees quality as the totality of features of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy the customers perceived or stated needs(Khanna, 2012). This study made use of the following objectives; to identify the possible poor quality of the organizational products, to examine the processes of quality control in the manufacturing organization, to determine the various ways of mitigating quality defects in the manufacturing organizations. The study tries to find out the procedures through the following research question; what are the causes of poor quality products in the organization? What are the processes of quality control in the manufacturing organization? What are the various ways of mitigating quality defects in the manufacturing organizations? The study also test it’s significant through the help of some hypotheses. The researcher adopted some theories that helped in elaborating more on the topic. A question was use as a form of collecting the data used for the study. Frequency table were used to analyze the bio-data of the respondent, a descriptive table were used to check the importance of the adopted research question and a Z-Test were used to test the significant of the study. The study found out that there are some possible causes of poor quality product, some processes used for quality control were identified and there are effective ways of mitigating quality defect of some product in Juhel Pharmaceutical Company Enugu. The researcher then recommend that the organization should continually investigate its manufacturing procedures so as to identify possible causes of poor quality, the organization should also regularly check to ensure that the processes of quality control used by them is up to standard and they should have safer and better ways of mitigating quality defects in its products. Finally, the study suggest that further research should be done on the influence of quality on the buying behavior of consumers, the effect of quality on organizational profitability and the relationship between quality control and organizational productivity.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Backgroundof the Study

Quality is one of the competing priorities that many organizations adopt. Khanna (2012) defines quality as the totality of features of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy the customers perceived or stated needs. Quality of a product or service satisfy both actual and perceived needs of the people for which the products are designed and produced for.Banjoko (2009) defines quality as a measure of the degree to which a particular product satisfies the expectations of customers with respect to certain tangible and intangible attributes inherent in the design of the product or service and its performance under normal use.

High levels of quality are essential to achieve Company business objectives. Quality, a source of competitive advantage, should remain a hallmark of Company products and services. High quality is not an added value; it is an essential basic requirement. Quality does not only relate solely to the end products and services a Company provides but also relates to the way the Company employees do their job and the work processes they follow to produce quality products or services. The work processes should be as efficient as possible and continually improving. Company employees constitute the most important resource for improving quality. Each employee in all organizational units is responsible for ensuring that his/her work processes are efficient and continually improving.

Top management should provide the training and an appropriate motivating environment to foster teamwork both within and across organizational units for employees to improve processes.Ultimately, everyone in a Company is responsible for the quality of an organization’s products and services.(Manghani 2011).

In business, engineering, and manufacturing, quality has a pragmatic interpretation as the non-inferiority or superiority of something; it's also defined as being suitable for its intended purpose (fitness for purpose) while satisfying customer expectations. Quality is a perceptual, conditional, and somewhat subjective attribute and may be understood differently by different people. (Nanda, 2016).

The quality of product or service ensures that proper designing process is followed. This designing process needs to be backed by appropriate process design supported by a suitable technology which confirms to requirements of customers. Quality control ensures that defects and errors are prevented and finally removed from the process or product. Therefore, quality control should include:

Planning
Designing
Implementation
Gaps identification
Improvisation

Quality control (QC) is a procedure or set of procedures intended to ensure that a manufactured product or performed service adheres to a defined set of quality criteria or meets the requirements of the client or customer. (Rouse,2015).

Sometimes the problem with a product is not that it fails to perform to specification but rather that it does not meet the requirements of the customers. A manager in any organization must therefore have technical knowledge and competence about their products, best control procedures to be adopted and the best way of implementing them effectively.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The Nigerian market is constantly being flooded with sub-standard products and this can be traced to the lack of and/or minimum use of proper quality control procedures by manufacturing organizations. The negative effects of substandard products can be:

Loss in potential revenue due to counterfeits
Increase in costs and loss in productivity of organizations.
Substandard goods such as drugs, skincare products etc can be hazardous to the health of consumers.

Quality control cannot be disregarded if quality goods and products are to be manufactured and made available to consumers.Quality must therefore be controlled as well as other resources used in ensuring quality products. The success of our present day and future manufacturing organizations hinges on our ability to properly understand and utilize the best quality control procedures in each stage of the production process.To this end, this research is preoccupied with Juhel Pharmaceuticals (Nig.) Enugu.

1.3 Objectives of Study

To identify the possible poor qualityof the organizational products
To examine the processes of quality control in the manufacturing organization.
To determinethe various ways of mitigating quality defectsin the manufacturing organizations.

1.4 Research Questions

What are the causes of poor quality products in the organization?

What are the processes of quality control in the manufacturing organization?
What are the various ways of mitigating quality defects in the manufacturing organizations?

1.5 Research Hypothesis

H0: There are causes of poor quality products in an organization.
H1: There are no causes of poor quality products in an organization.
H0: There are processes to quality control in a manufacturing organization.
H1: There are no processes to quality control in a manufacturing organization.
H0: There are ways of mitigating quality defects in manufacturing organizations.
H1: There are no waysof mitigating quality defects in manufacturingorganizations.

1.6 Significance of Study

The significance of quality control in the manufacturing sector cannot be over emphasized. The beneficiaries of the study include:

Manufacturing companies especially pharmaceutical companies.
Business management students.
Other researchers.
Government agencies concerned with the enforcement and administration of quality standards such as NAFDAC, SON, and CPC council.

1.7 Scope oftheStudy

Quality control management is chosen as a topic of relevance to the manufacturing industry in Nigeria. Although quality control management is an activity relevant to all business organizations and employees of the manufacturing sectors. This research is restricted to the study of quality control procedures inpharmaceutical manufacturing organizations and its relationship withthe quality of products produced.

1.8 Limitations to the study

The limitations faced by this researcher include the delay experienced in collecting current information about my research work. Furthermore, the delay in my research at the beginning due to the lack of a laptop for my research.Also, there was the constraint of data collection for the research.

1.9 The Profile of the Organization used as Operational Place of Study

In October 1989, Juhel Nigeria Limited was commissioned as the first Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Company in old Anambra state, Nigeria by the then ruling Governor Col. Robert Akonobi. Beginning with a small range of products, it started continually expanding its operations, reaching a peak employment capacity of over 500 staff members at the time.

In 1995, the company forayed into its first non-pharmaceutical operation by building its first Petroleum Filling Station in Port-Hacourt. This small inititive spurred the creation of an entire subdivision, leading the way for an array of Filling Stations throughout South-Eastern Nigeria and creating Juhel Petroleum along the way.

In the year 2001, facing rapid expansion, the company then moved to its current Headquarters, a much larger location Emene, Enugu State. With this expansion also came the possibility of additional growth. The product range expanded quickly, adding antibiotic capsules and syrups to our growing product cache. The staff count consequentially expanded to 1,800 in order to keep up with the growing product range and increased operational requirements. The company’s water and beverage manufacturing plant was also built on further expansion of the site.

Commissioned by then President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria GoodluckEbele Jonathan on the 15th of October 2010, its Parenteral Drug Manufacturing Plant was established as the largest Parenteral Drug Manufacturing plant in West Africa. It was built as a required response to the unnecessary importation of parenteral drugs in Nigeria, creating a local source of highest quality intravenous medicines, ear and eye drops.