Abstract
M.Tech. (Operations Management)
This study entails and discusses the concepts of quality and performance management in the postal and related services. Quality and Performance Management fundamentally form part of critical strategic objectives and goals every organization set itself to successfully achieve; the practice of quality has been around for a very long time and has become a widespread phenomenon interpreted and implemented differently in the industry while performance management emerged in the 1970’s and grew to be appreciated with time bringing measures to quantify individual and organizational results. This study was aimed at determining the current and past scenarios in the South African Post Office (SAPO) with regards to the organization’s Quality and Performance Management efforts with the view of recommending improvements to be adapted and implemented for strategic business growth. The study was conducted at Capemail and Securemail which are two of other SAPO’s operational divisions that processes and conveys large volumes in clients’ mail and parcels. SAPO is in the process of organizational transformation where a number of projects are being implemented including Change Management, ISO 9001:2008, ISO 14001:2004, Total Operations Management Solutions, Productivity Engineering and others where most of these projects failed to yield the intended value. The techniques deployed for the study involved conducting observations in both Mail Centres, conducting informal interviews and distributing questionnaires for data collection; data was further scrutinized and analyzed with Statkon’s consultancy and statistical techniques were exploited to analyze it into meaningful information. The actual statistical tools used for analysis involved descriptives, factor analysis, normalities, comparisons and correlations; these were suffice to produce reliable and accurate data for the results of the study. The objectives of the study was achieved in that management need to seriously pay attention on factors such as empowering employees, enforcing and emphasizing the culture of good quality practice, adapting advanced project implementation frameworks benchmarking with industry competitors, standardizing processes and activities, encouraging the culture of continuous improvement, provision of support to operational requirements financially and otherwise, upgrading technology, viewing performance management from a holistic perspective and linking it directly with day to day activities of the organization and objectives.