Abstract
There are several manufacturing sectors across the globe that have implemented Quality Management Practices and they claim to be following ISO 9001 certification benchmark. South Africa is in the elementary stage of development and the quality of items produced by local manufacturers is still subpar; as a result, improving the quality of manufactured products is crucial to boosting macroeconomic growth. Even though the influence of Quality Management practices implementation within organisations is growing, product quality remains inadequate.
The overall goal of this research was to explore the impact of Quality Management Practices on the manufacturing sectors in South Africa. This research used a unitary approach to answer the question: it used quantitative structured survey questionnaires involving various experts from different manufacturing firms to identify flaws. To determine the outstanding performance in the South African manufacturing companies, there is a need to establish the impact of customer focus on manufacturing performance, a need to establish the degree which senior management's dedication influences companies’ performance, also, a need to identify the challenges facing the implementation of Quality 4.0 and to determine how technology improves the overall organisational performance, competency, collaboration, and leadership.
Deductive reasoning techniques were used to analyse the data gathered from the respondents. This case study was conducted in various manufacturing industries in South Africa, the Gauteng province in particularly. The respondents who participated in this study were selected using the convenience sampling technique. It has been discovered that Top Management under-value Quality Management practices implementation even though they are a primary enabler of manufacturing processes. According to the findings, the company does not provide opportunities for employees to advance their occupations through training and career development. Furthermore, after Total Quality Management was implemented, there was no improvement in lead time to delivery and no reduction in customer complaints.
It is thus recommended that Top Management and stakeholders involve customers when designing and improving the organisation's products and services. This can be achieved by conducting customer surveys regularly. Organisations should have
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standard training policies and invest more in employees' training and development, conflict management training, problem-solving skills training, and quality systems software training.
Employees must be involved much more in the organisation's decision-making committees. Involving employees in organisational development allows them to grow with the organisation and to be valued. Top management and stakeholders should be more involved in the customer's needs as stated in the regulations of the organisation. It is also recommended that organisations should advertise their products and services more often; this may assist in attracting new potential customers and to price their products more competitively to retain existing customers and to attract new customers.
Furthermore, an organisation must install the latest technologies and software and update the outdated software. Employees should be well trained for any new software installed. The benefits of the new technologies and software should be communicated to all employees and assure employees that software installation and implementation does not replace humans.