TWIN-CITY BUSINESSES SCHOOLED ON QUALITY PRODUCTION (PAGE 25)

THE Sekondi/Takoradi Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Ghana Quality Organisation have jointly organised a one-day seminar on quality and productivity improvement for 102 people drawn from the Sekondi/Takoradi metropolis.
The seminar was aimed at promoting quality management and corporate best practices in the country.
The seminar, which was attended by managing directors, business owners, managers and supervisors of manufacturing, hospitality, health care, agro-business and service industries, also addressed the issue of a lack of quality management training and practices, which were said to be major reasons for poor profitability and slow business growth in the country.
It was organised to help participants to utilise quality management strategies to improve their business performance and increase their companies’ profitability.
Also, it was to enable them to understand and appreciate how quality management strategy could help their companies to compete successfully on the domestic and international markets.
In addition, it was to provide them with the leverage quality technology to grow their businesses through continuous quality improvement and innovation.
The Chairman of Ghana Quality Organisation, Mr Kofi Akuoko, in his presentation, stressed that the desire for quality products and services was universal, regardless of whether the consumer was a company, an individual or an organisation. "Everybody demands quality," he said.
He said quality was also about achieving excellence and perfection and, therefore, quality strategy could help the companies to move faster.
"Quality does not stand still, it changes.
"If we are going to hide behind traditional definition of quality, we will not move fast," he said, adding that "traditional quality approaches focus more on conformity assessment and conformance to standards, regardless of whether or not the product actually creates value for the customer. Meeting standards alone will not guarantee that your product is the best, if it does not promote continuous improvement."
Mr Akuoko said the traditional definition of quality had not helped the local industries to grow to become world-class companies, since the rate at which the local companies were improving was very slow, urging them to embrace quality and speed up national development.
Speaking on the topic, "Using quality management strategy to achieve customer satisfaction, productivity, profitability and business growth," Mr Akuoko said modern quality focused on designing into products, services and processes.
"It is also designed to promote the pursuit of excellence in products and services," he said, explaining that "21st century quality is focused on reducing variations in key characteristics of products and services if variations in key characteristics decrease and quality increases."
Quality, he emphasised, was the least capital intensive to achieve productivity, and if the participants wanted their industries to grow, then quality approach was very important. "Always, there is an opportunity to improve on what one is doing," he said.
Mr Akuoko said the Ghana Standards Board (GSB) played an important role in ensuring quality, but that was not what quality was all about.
He said if one started thinking about meeting standards, the quality of his/her products and services would not improve.
The Chairman of the Sekondi-Takoradi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr Ato Van-Ess, said the chamber was to become a leading trading organisation in the country.
He said the chamber had designed programmes that would enable its members to work hard to improve the quality of their products and services, since if they did not provide quality services and remained where they were, those who provided quality services would definitely overtake them.
"We want you to raise the level of your professionalism," he said.