Assessing Performance of National Quality Infrastructure on Cooking Utensil Products in Ethiopia
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Date
2019-11
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This study is focused on assessing the performance of national quality infrastructure (NQI) on
aluminum cooking utensil products in Ethiopia. The quality of cooking utensil products is
determined from each production process starting from raw material preparation, which is an
aluminum circle sheet until the end product that is cooking utensil products. However, this
product which is locally produced shows low-quality products, due to the lack of developing a
standard for it. Therefore, to achieve a good quality product of cooking utensils, NQI pillars
(standard, conformity assessment, metrology, and accreditation) play a high role. Hence, the
objective of this study is to assess the performance of national quality infrastructure on cooking
utensil products that are locally produced to improve the quality of the product and
competitiveness in local and global markets. To conduct this study both primary and secondary
data were collected from twelve manufacturers and different government offices. Primary data
was collected by observation and 73 persons were interviewed through discussions. Secondary
data was collected from different kinds of literature, articles, journals, and respective offices.
From the data collection, the findings of this study suggested the lack of developed standards and
these products are categorized under voluntary standard products due to that the way of quality
control in this sector is weak. And the researcher evaluated the aluminum circle sheet and cooking
utensil products manufacturing process concerning NQI pillar service on each production process
for both production process. However, from ENQI pillars service, nothing is practiced or
implemented in this sector, which means the relationship between manufacturers and ENQI
service is weak. As a result, the low-quality product was achieved that cannot be competent in the
local and global markets. Moreover, the health of a society can be affected because of a lack of
the tests of the chemical composition of the product. To solve the above problems the researcher
developed the NQI model for both the manufacturing process and proposed solution to improve
the quality of the product and competitiveness in the local and global markets.
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Keywords
NQI, Aluminium Utensils, Competitiveness, ENQI, Quality Infrastructure System