AfricaPress-Tanzania: MOST manufacturers and services providers in Tanzania and in the region may miss growth targets for failure to certify their management systems leading to high production costs.
The management system certification can help manufacturing companies put systems and controls in place to ensure fewer defects and more profitable business.
A culture and track record of management systems certification is proof that the company is committed to enhancing performance while remaining cost effective, increasing employee and customer satisfaction as well as facilitating continuous improvement.
The companies that approach the certification process with the end benefit in mind are usually the ones that succeed and penetrate the wider regional and global markets.
The recent Bank of Tanzania (BoT) report shows that Tanzania’s intra trade with the East Africa Community (EAC) increased by 12.7 per cent to 752 million US dollars in 2018 on account of the increased exports and imports.
Trade balance was 142 million US dollars, lower than the 193 million US dollars in 2017, as imports outweighed the exports.
Tanzania recorded trade surplus with all EAC member states except Kenya, whose exports declined by 26.7 per cent and imports increased by 23.9 per cent, leading to a trade deficit of 35.8 million US dollars compared with a surplus of 90.2 million US dollars in 2017.
Traditionally, organizations have focused on establishing management systems that demonstrate compliance with each process requirement individually, often in isolation of each other and sometimes even in conflict.
The Head of the Tanzania Bureau of Standard (TBS) Management System Certification Department, Stella Mrosso said systems certification is a procedure that helps manufacturer to follow procedures in making goods with quality standards.
“For consumers, conformity of products and services to international standards provides assurance about their quality, safety, and reliability,” she said.
It is a challenge to satisfy the requirements of several management systems while running a business but achieving this can be beneficial to your organization’s efficiency and effectiveness, as well as reducing the cost and disruption of external audits.
Consequently, manufacturers and service providers have been incurring heavy costs in the production process. This makes most of them to fail reaching the production targets set by the institutions.
For those who managed to certify their management systems have lowered operation costs and access wider regional and global markets.
But those who have not yet certified their production systems are advised to do so in order to reap immense benefits associated with the initiative.
She said the certification process gives assurance that all goods pass through different procedures during management process.
When production systems are not certified its hard for the manufacturer to get quality goods at the end. Certification programmes set standards of quality that teach companies an effective quality management system.
Once a business implements the quality standards, it can then become certified, showing its customers that its practices and products conform to a higher level of quality.
Management systems certification should help the organization improve its business processes to reduce waste, increase sustainability and efficiency, and maximize your profits.
For example, when manufacturer use raw materials which are not in the quality system it’s hard to discover raw materials which are substandard and that can lead to poor quality products.
For that case, certification of the management system helps manufacturer and service providers to follow procedures and reach the company’s goals.
Certification, as defined by International Organization for Standardization (ISO), refers to the issuing of a written certificate by an independent organization that has audited a company’s management system and verified the system conforms to the requirements specified in the standard.
The auditing body then records the certification in its client register, making the business both certified and registered.
This means the quality management of a company has met the standards set by the international community. ISO certification is recognized and holds a lot of weight throughout the world.
She said the international standards used to certify management systems are ISO 9001 for system quality certification, ISO/IEC 22000 is a Food Safety Management System.
HACCP-science based and systematic identifies specific hazards and measures for their control to ensure the safety of food.
HACCP is a tool to assess hazards and establish control systems that focus on prevention rather than relying mainly on end-product testing, ISO 14001 for environment management and ISO 45001 for certification/ occupational Health and safety.
Ms Mrosso said the international systems certification can be done to any company of different sizes.
The response of manufacturing companies and service providers to certify their management systems is high and most of them have started to reap immense benefits.
TBS has a system called ISO 9001 that sets out the criteria for a quality management system and is the only standard in the family that can be certified.
“This is the standard that can help a business to certify its management system and if a company wants to acquire the standard then it should get awareness on what is really needed,” she noted She said TBS is providing trainings on various standards to give business people understanding of the procedures and what is needed in order to meet the ISO 9001 standards.
For a company to acquire the international standards ISO 9001 has to write a letter to TBS that will then provide three-day trainings on the standards.
Manufacturing businesses that become certified don’t always continue the certification practices needed to increase their quality.
It’s a day-to-day challenge that has to be part of a long-term plan. The short-term thinking that leads back to business-as-usual is a problem and counterproductive in terms of quality management.
One particular challenge with quality management is to put an organization together that responds to problems quickly.
This is important because quality problems can impact deliveries and customer satisfaction. Another important practice is buying higher-quality materials from suppliers which are leading to better quality throughout the supply chain, all the way to the end product.
In manufacturing the emphasis should be on rigorous quality management that includes defect reduction, process capability and control, and other tools to ensure manufacturers deliver impeccable quality in a consistent and timely manner.
The idea is to put systems and controls in place to ensure a zero-defect culture, which leads to lower costs from waste, higher profits, improved safety, and better customer satisfaction.
