Browsing by Author "Ameha, Mulugeta (PhD)"
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Item Assessment of Service Quality Improvement Alternative Decision(Addis Ababa University, 2018-06-15) Endale, Alemayehu; Ameha, Mulugeta (PhD)Service quality is the ability of the organization to meet or exceed customer expectations. It is the difference between customer expectations of service and perceived service. If the service provider meets or exceeds customer expectation then customer satisfaction occurs. To insure the customer satisfaction, customer service plays vital role. Customer service is the interaction between the customer and service provider. Quality customer service entails providing efficient, quick and friendly service, handling complaints quickly and responding to customers' issues on time. EEU failed to meet its customer expectation, especially in its technical service (operation & maintenance) mainly unplanned service outage, new power connection and customer service. Leaving aside power shortage, technological and financial constraints dissatisfaction occurred due to lack of accountability & responsibility, poor monitoring & controlling mechanism, high bureaucracy, no transparency, and lack of motivation from its employees. EEU has outsourced (contracted out) it bill collection to private sector (Kifeya Lehulu) since two years back. Bill collection service have got a moderate satisfaction level from previous poor satisfaction level. This study shows EEU’s technical service (operation and maintenance) quality of service delivery can be enhanced by outsourcing this scope to the private sector. MCDM AHP & TOPSIS tools used to analyses sector expert’s judgements or opinion (primary and secondary data) & case observation were used to ensure the current service quality. From sector performance indicators (KPI), kept four criteria which are customer service, unplanned outages, safety & employees commitments. Weights of this criteria’s using AHP tools for better service delivery at EEU found unplanned service outages (34.63%), customer service (27.48%), employees commitments (20.64%) & safety (17.24) Result of preference from in-house and outsourcing service delivery by AHP & TOPSIS analysis gives 70% & 86.67% respectively, which indicates that EEU’s technical service (operational & maintenance), service quality level can be enhanced compared from current EEU’s current in-house operation. Finally recommendation is forwarded to deliver standard electricity utility service by contracting out the operation & maintenance in order to place EEU in competitive environment and effectiveness.Item Development of Service Quality Assessment and Improvement Approach of a Motor Insurance Company in Ethiopia(Addis Ababa University, 2019-06) Girma, Telila; Ameha, Mulugeta (PhD); Shimelis, Tilahun (Mr.) Co-AdvisorWith the increasing progress in insurance service in today’s global world, people experience prudent delivery of insurance service. This phenomenon has enhanced customer’s expectations. Besides this, pre- risk and post risk assessments has a great influence overall insurance service delivery at the time of loss settlements. This study was conducted on development of service quality assessment and improvement approach of a motor insurance company in Ethiopia and carried out at three branches and head office Claims directorate of the case company in Ethiopia. The researcher made this paper anonymous to protect confidentiality of the case company. Processes study was conducted on files that were available in the archive to find the root cause of customer complaints and found eight root causes. Five teams were created from experts who knows motor insurance service delivery process. The study performed to measure and to develop service quality assessment of motor insurance by using integration of SERVQUAL and KANO Models into QFD method. The standard questionnaire in English, Afan Oromo and Amharic of SERVQUAL and KANO model have been used. Customers’ perception and expectation was identified by SERVQUAL and Weak attributes categorized by kano model. The findings of KANO and SERVQUAL models show that five service quality attributes were chosen to be improved and inserted in HOQ to develop the plan of improvement. Through QFD method, five technical requirements were proposed to answer the customer needs. JIT information flow and updating company’s working guideline has the highest weight score and if they improved there will be almost 38.04% of improvement in service quality assessment processes. The correlation among technical requirements indicates that well clarification of policy to customers have a positive relationship with working guideline and just in time information flow. Creating experience sharing habit and adopting breakthrough learned lesson that have positive correlation could bring an improvement of motor insurance service delivery in 26.44%. The researcher forwarded the step that the case company should follow. Adopting process improvement implementation philosophy of Juran’s quality Trilogy is suggested that comprises quality planning, quality control and quality improvements stages. The case company could start with establishing quality goal at a minimum combined cost, develop methods to match the planned service as per customer needs and follow continuous improvement accordingly.Item Identification and Analysis of Causes of Poor Service Quality in Fleet Maintenance Facility in Ethiopian Construction Works Corporation(Addis Ababa University, 2022-02) Miftah, Shemsu; Ameha, Mulugeta (PhD)The construction industry in Ethiopia covers 70% of the capital budget and is ranked second after the agriculture sector for creating job opportunities for millions of people. Many studies showed that in construction company fleet availability and reliability takes a lot of share in the accomplishment of projects with planned cost, quality level, and within the scheduled time. The basic objective of fleet maintenance service is providing the service with high quality, reasonable price, timely delivery, and considerate service. Lack of continuous quality improvement program resulted in high maintenance cost spent, high downtime, high frequency of maintenance, and overall customer dissatisfaction and complaint as presented in the case company. Hence, this research aimed to structurally analyze the maintenance service quality factors in the fleet maintenance facility of a construction company for efficient and effective decision-making on fleet maintenance service quality improvement. The research isan applied research type that followed an empirical study design methodology and has taken the main/ central maintenance facility of Ethiopian Construction Works Corporation as a case company. Using the primary and secondary sources of data, the research has identified seven major service quality factors and nineteen customer service requirements. MCDM tools; interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and Fuzzy TODIM with the integration of quality function deployment tools have been used for the qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Based on the analysis, the result has shown that; “Maintenance facility layout and Ambiance”, “Machine and maintenance tools”, and “Spare part and material availability” are the most critical service quality factors and have high relation with the most prioritized customer requirements which are; “maintenance personnel with friendly & good behavior”, “willingness of the staff to give enough explanation & advise”, “a reliable and error-free maintenance service” and “reasonable and fair maintenance service pricing”.Hence,these quality factors need high consideration while developing fleet maintenance service strategies and policies because they havea high effect in meeting customer needs and for the improvement of service quality in the case company.Item Improving Operation Performance of Warehouse System in Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Service Enterprise(Addis Ababa University, 2020-11) Sisay, Moges; Ameha, Mulugeta (PhD); Shimelis, Tilahun (Mr.) Co-advisorTerminal operations consist of the motion of full and empty containers between gateways of the terminals. In this study the problem focus on loading/unloading operations, driver‟s waits due to customs clearance and other related processes, lack of technical and technological capacity as a result loading/unloading operation becomes tardy and causes labor productivity issues, operators‟ schedule reliability, and various types of equipment utilization decreases the service quality and customer satisfaction. The objective of this paper is to identify the current practices and challenges in the warehouse and to set strategies that optimize and improve warehouse operation performance using ARENA simulation. The scope of study is focusing on Kality dry port and terminal at Addis Ababa. The procedures include data gathering, model building, simulation, verification, and validation and performance analysis. Then the model is simulated using the actual container and warehouse operation through collecting data which include the daily empty and full in/out containers, service requirement, parameters, operation schedule and port machine breakdown. The output of the simulation is generated in a form of report. The results show that the percentage error of ARENA model is less than 5% as targeted. This research propose three major decision options(scenarios) to improve the system. The first scenario is changing level of resource at port operation with higher number of waiting. The second one is avoiding unnecessary duplication resource from processes with low capacity utilization to increase the operation output and capacity utilization. Lastly, third scenario focused on merge similar operations through reduced resource to 12 from existing 25 and percentage of productivity per operator for full-in: full-out operation and empty-in: empty- out operation is improved to 84.72% and 63.19% from existing 48.36% and 41.11% respectively. Finally, the research has recommended the enterprise use from creating different opportunities and overcome the challenges as well as the optimization of the dry port warehouse operation system.Item Intra-organizational Knowledge Integration System Design a Case of Yirgalem Addis Textile Factory PLC(Addis Ababa University, 2021-04) Miretu, Wubie; Kassu, Jilcha (PhD); Ameha, Mulugeta (PhD)Organizational competitiveness and decision-making capabilities today are very much reliant on the knowledge base, the stronger the knowledge base the higher chance of decisions making to address the complex and unpredictable competitive business conditions. Less production rate, late delivery time to customers and less quality product are the main problems behind the limitation of KI in the company. Therefore, the overall objective of this study is to explore the existing system of KI practice and to propose an intra-organizational knowledge integration that is suitable for textile industries, specifically YATF. To address the research objective mixed research (qualitative and quantitative) design methods were conducted. Out of the total 172 sample respondents, 5 key officials were considered as a sample respondent for interview through purposive sampling. For the remaining 167 were selected for the structured questionnaire questions through random sampling. Quantitative data’s conducted through questionnaires were processed, coded and analyzed using descriptive statistics with the help of STATA soft ware. All the data collected through interviews and open-ended questions were analyzed qualitatively. First data were stored in the spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel). Second, the data were categorized and stored by major topics. Then, summarizing followed on the indication of codes Finally, the collected data through the interview was described as of its representativeness. From both qualitative and quantitative analysis and observation, the result revealed that the existing intra- organizational knowledge integration practice in the company is not a good position. Moreover, there is no effort made in integrating organizational knowledge. The knowledge of the company is dispersed with in individuals and there is no centralized approach to achieve organizational goals. Consequently, the analyzed data were used as an input for the final system design through identifying knowledge resources needed in the company that can be processed, stored, shared and transferred. The proposed system design enables KI both at individual level (with in a department) and among departments to enhance the overall company performance which is the originality and core value of this study. Finally, the study recommended that the company top management should emphasize facilitating the knowledge integration process to sustain the organizations competitive advantage.Item Investigation of Kaizen Event Team Success Factors In Kessem Sugar Factory(AAU, 2018-10) Selamawit, Birara; Ameha, Mulugeta (PhD); Asefaw, Regassa (Mr.) Co-AdvisorKaizen event team practices have been used by different manufacturing companies to lower manufacturing costs and increase product value. Kaizen event team activities are one way that sugar factories can increase their competitiveness. The success of Kaizen event teams have important to identify factors that contribute to Kazan‟s successfulness. However, a few researches have been focused on the Kaizen event team success within the sugar industry or on the perceptions of employees within this industry regarding either the challenges during the event or the main factors that are affecting Kaizen event teams. The goal of this research is to identify and analyze the success factor of Kaizen event team. To accomplish this research goal, a case study approach was used to identify kaizen event team success factors. As part of this case study, literature review was conducted concerning kaizen event teams; questionnaire and interviews were conducted with employee, supervisor, team leader and kaizen staff departments at the company. An improved kaizen event team implement framework was developed to measure the perceived successfulness of Kaizen event teams at the factory. From the analysis team formation with group composition have very strong positive correlation and significant. Management support with problem scope has strong positive correlation. Also the challenges that affect the kaizen event teams were analyzed. Then employ six factors extract from those criteria. Using AHP, construct evaluation frame with twelve evaluated criteria composed of extracted factors. Then fuzzy-AHP prioritizes the success of kaizen event teams. As a result, management support, team formation, and decision makings are the factors that affect the kaizen events. Based on those analyses the main factors have been clearly showed. Finally an improved kaizen event team implementation framework developed for the success of kaizen event team to be followed by other factories.Item Lean in Industrial Projects: A Case Study on Sintec Ethiopia Industrial Projects(Addis Ababa University, 2019-06) Serkalem, Asfaw; Ameha, Mulugeta (PhD)The main purpose of this research is to identify the means of delay in industrial projects. In today’s global and highly competitive environment, to be stable in a global market, it is critical to preserve and grow for any firm need to be price competitive, time and quality, proactive and reactive and has to deliver a world rank new/better product to fulfill customer requirements. Nowadays to compute global market SINTEC Ethiopia Plc. has been struggling and suffering from a lot of challenges including delay of industrial projects. The major problems contributing for the delay of industrial projects are waiting for the missing parts and procurement of consumables & Argon gas. The main objectives of this study is to identify means of reducing the delay of projects in SINTEC Ethiopia industrial projects by value stream mapping Lean production reveals to meet the needs of the market demand by implementing Lean tools of value stream mapping to stable in the global market by eliminating wastes. In order to show where the focus area of the delay of industrial projects for SINTEC Ethiopia is used a value stream mapping tool. This study adopted a case study approach. For this study, the research methodology requires gathering relevant primary and secondary data. Primary data was conducted using interviews and observation to provide qualitative insights and company visits. Secondary data collected from recent literature and company records in order to examine the waste level. The collected data have been summarized using descriptive analysis method and analyzed by a statistical tool called bar chart. Moreover, value stream mapping was used to determine the strong point of incorporation of time, cost, quality and flexibility with the involvement of supplier and customer for the reduction of delay of projects. Based on the identified main aspects and the collected data, the level of wastes in SINTEC Ethiopia Plc. was assessed and problems were identified. Finally the study came up with the following findings: the incorporation of time, cost, quality and flexibility with the involvement of supplier and customer are strongly related with the means of reducing delay of projects. Furthermore, at the end of the study a constructive model is developed which gives a solution regarding to the problem mentioned for SINTEC Ethiopia industrial projects.Item Minimization of Defective Products in Abyssinia Tannery Industry(Addis Ababa University, 2019-06) Mahlet, Zebenay; Ameha, Mulugeta (PhD); Shimelis, Tilahun (Mr.) Co-AdvisorProducing quality product is one of the major determinants that enable manufacturing organizations to compete in the global market. There are many causes for the occurrence of defective products. Hence, to avoid any further problem corrective measures should be taken. The main objective of this thesis is to develop a continuous quality improvement model that integrate lean and six sigma, which coherently applies the principles to reduce the defect level in Abyssinia Tannery Industries. The case study is mainly based on primary and secondary data sources and the main secondary data sources are company record, reports and literature review. Data collected from primary data sources are process flow, cause of defects and type of defects. And frequency of occurrence of defect, amount of lowgrade level, defect, their impact, which defect affect the company most and cost encored to treat the defective one etc. were collected from secondary sources. In addition, both qualitatively and quantitatively methods used to analyze the data and by using lean and six sigma tool and techniques. The proposed structure is built upon the existing define, measure, analyze, improve and control structure, which is well renowned in the literature. There are multidimensional causes related to human, machine, material, method, process and organizational factors for the occurrence of defect. To solve the problems associated with these causes, proactive, organized and continuous quality improvement model is required. To improve the quality by reducing defect, Integrated Continuous quality Improvement model consisting lean and six sigma developed based on case study result. Six Sigma and lean are related and share common grounds in terms of striving to achieve customer satisfaction. The integration between the two approaches is lean within six-sigma type of integration and use design of experiment and future value stream mapping for improvement purpose. Their integration is concluded to be possible and beneficial for defect reduction in Abyssinia tanneryItem Modeling Technology Diffusion to Integrate Medium Scale Clustered Manufacturing Industries Development(AAU, 2018-07-16) Mehret, Getachew; Ameha, Mulugeta (PhD); Fitsum, Getachew (Mr.) Co- AdvisorDevelopment of manufacturing industries is an ever-growing concern for Ethiopian government. Medium scale clustered manufacturing industries are given more focus with an intension of substituting the domestic market with a quality local products and for the export market. Technological advancement of the manufacturing process is a critical landmark for these industries to be competitive. Adoption and diffusion of technologies inside the cluster is quite limited. Lack of technical knowhow and appropriate technology is the major constraint for industries development. This is due to low access of cooperation with supporting organizations (research institutions, industry extension, universities and financial institutions), lack of internal integration (inside the cluster) and the policy to get a loan. On literatures regarding technology diffusion models less emphasis is given for the concept of cooperation and integration. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to develop technology diffusion model that considers driving factors for accelerated adoption and diffusion of technology in industrial cluster in order to enhance integrated development. This research used both qualitative and quantitative methods and a combination of both primary and secondary sources of data. The research conducts an extensive literature review of technology diffusion models, industrial clusters and integration of industrial clusters. Under eight manufacturing subsectors, Leather and leather goods subsector is selected using weighting factor analysis by considering different selection criterions. Ethio-international foot wear clusters cooperative society Ltd is taken as a case. Primary and secondary data were collected from enterprises, research institutions, learning institutions, financial institutions and regulatory offices. From the primary and secondary data sources, internal and external factors affecting technology adoption and diffusion in industrial clusters are identified and prioritized using AHP. BASS diffusion model is implemented to understand the existing rate of technology diffusion in the cluster taking sample technology, Heavy duty stitching machine. Based on the prioritized factors, agent based model of technology diffusion is developed which includes Fuzziness on the adoption decision, a model which is the first of its kind for industrial clusters in Ethiopia. In order to validate the model, the existing diffusion pattern of the machine is simulated and an experiment of three scenarios are made on NETLOGO. As compared to the result obtained from Bass model, the simulation result shows reduced rate, from 6 years to 4 years with 100% adoption probability and 3 years with 80% adoption probability. It can, thus, be argued that external cooperation and internal integration are important technological advancement opportunities for industries.Item mproving Clinker Production Coal Utilization Using Six Sigma Methodology in Mugher Cement Factory(Addis Ababa University, 2019-07) Yemisrach, Belay; Ameha, Mulugeta (PhD); Daniel, Ashagrei (Mr.) Co-AdvisorSix sigma is the process improvement tools which can be applied in various sector for defect minimization and better utilization of resource using DMAIC methodology. A DMAIC methodology is used to identify which output parameter needs to be give more priority to get a better result.. Thus, in this research which focuses on improvement of clinker production coal utilization without affecting the clinker quality production, an integration of six sigma with design of experiment was performed. The tool integration major significance was, it provides a mechanism to narrow down the source of variation to be more explicit and for optimizing the responses. This research was conducted by first identifying the major response variable from quality & resource utilization. Therefore, from coal utilization perspective, coal consumption for the 3 line kiln and from quality point of view, C3S and free lime content was selected by first conducting a brainstorming session with company professionals .Thus, the identified factors which affect this variables were determined by conducting brainstorming session and with considering the highest coal consumption month ,which was August,2018 to study the potential causes .As a result ,from the root cause analysis, different factors were identified. Among them, kiln feed (proportioned raw material ) such as Lime Saturation Factor(LSM), Silica Moduli(SM) and Refractory Moduli(RM) were selected to observe their influence in coal consumption by considering their quality target range of each material obtained from the quality department of the case company . rd From the analysis result ,the optimized coal consumption was found at the setting of LSM=97,SM=2.4 and RM=5.5 which give a specific coal consumption of 116kg coal per ton of clinker production while the company average specific coal consumption during April,2018- March,2019 was 127kg to produce a ton of clinker. In addition to these, the quality level of the produced clinker, particularly the C3S and free calcium content were within the preset and expected quality target levels. Finally, based on the found improved setting, a controlling mechanism for sustaining the material proportioning target and uniformity was suggested. In addition, a guiding framework was proposed for implementation of continual improvement of resource and quality improvement in Muger Cement Factory.Item Operational Excellence towards Sustainability of Syngenta Flowers Ethiopia Cuttings PLC(Addis Ababa University, 2020-06) Dagmawit, Gizaw; Ameha, Mulugeta (PhD); Gezahegn, T. (PhD)Floriculture business is one of the major sources of foreign currency and creates job opportunity for more than one hundred thousand citizens in Ethiopia. EHPEA report showed, though the development of floriculture industry requires modern production techniques and infrastructure. The benefits derived from the sectors exceeds their costs and this is enough reason for attracting foreign investors in a big ways. however, the industry is accused for environmental and socio-economic problems. like high water consumption, application of inorganic fertilizers, pesticides, pollution and waste disposal are the major ones. Operational excellence management system gives a company the benefits of reduce production costs, increased efficiencies, less injuries, maximum sustainable returns on operating assets, and an improved competitive position. This study aimed to answer the following research questions; What are operational excellence assessment models and their applicability in flower industry? What are operational excellence dimensions and their impact in order to ensure long-term profitability and consistency? And how operational excellence factors influence sustainability of flower business? The study used a case study research design. The target population was Syngenta flowers Ethiopia cuttings Plc. Permanent employees. Stratified sampling technique used to address all level of employees. The primary and secondary data was collected using questionnaire, direct observation and document review. Questionnaire collected from 212 employees out of 283 sample size. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics using SPSS Version 20.0. The data was presented through percentages, means, standard deviations. From the findings, the study concludes that Syngenta flowers Ethiopia cuttings PLc. has adopted operational excellence initiatives to a great extent to sustain in the business. Operational excellence dimensions recognized in the study were, Health, Safety, Environment, culture, continuous improvement, enterprise alignment and result. Those are reflected in the case company to a great extent., and they are factors influence substantivity of the business. Some of the weakness seen in the company are, not meeting incident free targeted days, not adopting recycling system, operational excellence knowledges are not disseminated to all employees. Unstaining Bright Idea Program. The study recommends that the management team should organize training and workshops for their employees to be trained on the concept and technics of operational excellence and how well to implement it. Finally, the study recommended that similar studies should be done more on other farms with different perspectives and objectives, like implication of operational excellence tools and technics and implementation challenges.Item Production Performance Improvement by Simulation of a Footwear Manufacturing System in Tikur Abbay Shoe S.C(Addis Ababa University, 2020-10) Abail, Mulugeta; Ameha, Mulugeta (PhD); Daniel, Ashagrie (Mr.) Co-AdviserThis study deals with capacity utilization and performance improvement using simulation modeling. Simulation is a powerful tool for bottleneck identification and analysis of the production lines in the footwear manufacturing system. The major problems of the case company are low output, high cycle time, high work in process, high waiting time, and low capacity utilization. In this study, the Arena and POM software were employed to model and to analyze the performance of the existing production lines. A military shoe was selected for analysis and improvement as it has the highest demand and highest number of operations. For each operation, the researcher has taken 25 sampling observations using a stopwatch. Processing times, machine failure times, distance between workstations, and manning level data were collected. All the collected data were statistically analyzed using Arena input analyzer for statistical significance and determination of expressions. A standard simulation model was developed and run for 160 replications. The simulation results show that the production lines are operating with capacity utilization of 55.67%, 55.47 %, 52.92%, and 54.22 % in cutting, stitching, lasting, and finishing production sections respectively. The researcher has revealed that bottlenecks have a high impact on performance and capacity utilization of the production facility. In the course of action, different types of scenarios have been developed and the best approach has been proposed. Thus, the simulation results demonstrate that the application of the proposed model could increase production output by 11.09%, 16.4%, 14.16%, 13.2%; decrease WIP by 54%, 39.9%, 44%, 23%; decrease cycle time by 9.98%, 14.13%, 16.39%, 11.6%; increase capacity utilization to 62.4%, 64.6%, 63.27%, 61.4% in the cutting, stitching, lasting, and finishing production sections. The cost-benefit analysis has also shown the addition of resources to bottleneck workstations could generate an additional annual minimum gross profit of 1,918,160 Birr. The proposed model enables production and operation managers for measuring and improving capacity utilization and performance of production lines which is the originality and core value of this study. Finally, it is recommended that the addition of resources on bottleneckItem Quality Improvement of Healthcare Through Lean Six-Sigma: A Case of Yekatit 12 Hospital(Addis Ababa University, 2019-10) Tsinukal, Bezabih; Ameha, Mulugeta (PhD)Health care organizations are now facing different challenges that brought them to a decision to obtain efficiency improvement, quality and cost reduction. The growth in health sectors access and delivery in Ethiopia has been improved markedly in the last decade. Despite the improvement made in expanding access to health sectors, the disease burden is still high and the service utilization rate remains low. According to the study made by WHO patient satisfaction rate is 50% and average length of stay is 6-7 days and patients are forced to spend a prolonged waiting time in different service stations to get served. Uneven distribution of facilities, shortage of workforce and complicated path flows are among the causes of this prolonged waiting time in public hospitals. This research aims in experimenting the possibilities of process improvement opportunities in YEKATIT 12 hospital by utilizing lean six sigma methodology. In doing so qualitative and quantitative data collection tools and analysis tools have been used. A literature has been reviewed and hospital documents are referred as a secondary source of data. Based on the literatures Yekatit 12 hospital is selected as a case hospital and based on the preliminary data assessment laboratory service station is selected as a case area. Primary source data has been collected from patients, laboratory technologists and management personnel’s. Data has been analyzed by using the DMAIC framework of LSS. The DMAIC clearly shows the existing system and the bottlenecks are clearly defined. In addition to DMAIC arena simulation software have been used for analysis. Then a new process is developed by value stream mapping and it is simulated by arena simulation software. The results after improvement show that Cycle time of processes are reduced which directly reduces the prolonged waiting time within the laboratory department. Therefore, it is safe to conclude that Lean Six Sigma can indeed be applied for process improvement in Hospitals.