Quality Planning And Implementation Of Total Quality Management In Public Printing Firms In Kenya

Total Quality Management has advanced as an area of great interest to both researchers and practitioners. On a quarterly basis, the Government Press of Kenya, which is the largest of the four public printing firms in Kenya in this study, outputs an average of 10 million units of information products against a target of 12 million units. The top management has instituted quality management programmes in the public printing firms, including quality policies and they have appeared less comprehensive and lacking proper quality planning, vision and mission for workers to implement. Driven by this knowledge gap, the current study aimed at determining quality planning and implementation of total quality management in public printing firms in Kenya. The study was guided by the following objectives: To establish how top management commitment; customer focus; continuous improvement; employee involvement and the extent to which government policy moderates the relationship between quality planning and implementation of Total Quality Management in the public printing firms in Kenya. The study adopted the Deming‟s Theory of Profound Knowledge, Juran Trilogy, Systems Approach and Resource-Based View theories. The study adopted a descriptive research design. The target population for the study consisted of 390. The researcher employed probability sampling technique by applying stratified random sampling. The study sampled 117 respondents. Data was collected through questionnaires and analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression to test the hypothesis. The analyzed data was presented using tables, charts, graphs, percentages and frequencies. The study found out that there is a significant relationship between (top management commitment, customer focus, continuous improvement, employee involvement) and Total Quality Management implementation. This was supported by results from a correlation analysis conducted that indicated there was a strong positive and significant relationship between (top management commitment, customer focus, continuous improvement and employee involvement) and Total Quality Management implementation where employee involvement has strong relationship (r-value .885), followed by continuous improvement (r-value .675), customer focus (r-value .656) and then top management (r-value .616). Government policy was found to be an explanatory variable in explaining the relationship between total quality management implementation and quality planning. The study concluded that there was significant relationship between top management commitment, customer focus, continuous improvement, employee involvement and TQM implementation. The study also concluded that government policy had no significant moderating effect on total quality management implementation in public printing firms. The study recommended improvement in adoption of TQM implementation such as learning organization, teamwork and employee commitment, which have been implemented to a small extent.