Following the crash of oil prices which caused the cost of buying US dollar for importation to increase by more than 100% before falling slightly, the running cost of production outfits in Nigeria has risen astronomically. Majority of producers in Nigeria cannot locally source the raw materials needed to keep their machines running. They import almost 85% of their raw materials and are being forced to do this at high cost. The implications of this increase in cost of production is that profit margin has shrunk. Please ignore companies who claim profit has disappeared. If it's true they would have shut down.
Because we have not fully understood what lean manufacturing is we wait for 'bad economy' to look for cost effective ways to run production operations. It is those companies who did not invest any dime into finding genuine ways of reducing costs without compromising quality that are struggling today to make ends meet. The rainy day which they failed to prepare for has come and has caught them unawares.
For such companies the first victim of their version of cost effectiveness is QUALITY. Reduce the quantity of active ingredient by 2%, reduce the weight of the product, do not carry out in-process tests or analysis etc are some of the instructions passed down. These are considered harmless with 'good reason'. How will you know if the weight of a pack of noodle that should weigh 100gms is not up to that? If you know, how will the market woman or Okada man know?
Companies compromise on quality and get away with it because of ignorance for the most part and low literacy levels. Ignorance because the literate ones who detect some of these compromises do not know where to channel their complaints to and low literacy level because one who can't read/write may have poor perception of Quality.
Many companies have QA department just to satisfy government regulators. Such companies do not have any budget for QA which means that reagents for analysis, cGMP kits (hand gloves, face masks etc), training are not provided/carried out. The QA department exists only in name for the purpose of inspections by govt regulators (NAFDAC). What do you think will happen to such a department if company profits reduce significantly like it is happening now? Your guess is as good as mine.
What is the role of Quality professionals in a recessed economy like Nigeria? To answer this question I will ask another question. Will you allow a product whose quality has been compromised to leave the line if you are sure such product will get to your children, father, mother or relatives? If your answer is sincerely YES then you have no role to play an you can stop reading this but if your answer is No you can read on to know the roles you have to play.
As a quality professional you have a responsibility to ensure that consumers are not shortchanged in any way. These consumers who you do not know and who do not know you have absolute trust in you to protect them, the way a child has trust in the mother for breast milk. This trust must not be deliberately broken. It has become imperative to have a unified body of Quality Management professionals backed by government law/legislation to administer oath to Quality Management professionals in the same manner for doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, engineers, accountants etc. It will be a step in the right direction.
As a quality professional you have a moral right to insist that the right thing is done at all times. You have to insist that standards are set and maintained at all times even in a receding economy. If you allow your company to cut corners because of 'bad economy' chances abound that even when the economy improves standards that have been lowered will not be restored. The company will enjoy its profits but hold you responsible when 'yawaa go gas' and govt regulators come calling.
In the event that you insist the right thing is done but pressure is mounted on you to lower standards, politely ask the person mounting the pressure to instruct you in writing, sign and date it. Inform this person that upon receipt of the written instruction you will release all the batch numbers of products produced on the authority of the letter so that he/she will be held responsible in case any eventuality occurs. The person is likely to run away. This approach has worked for me all the times I have used it.
Above all, the greatest role you have to play is what you do before a receding economy comes. Get the company you work for to establish R&D department and where it already exists ensure it becomes active. R&D, among other things, has a duty to seek ways of reducing production cost without compromising quality. It can look for cheaper variants of an expensive raw material and carry out tests to see if the cheaper variant will yield same level of quality in the product. This is one of many examples.
Presently, in the name of competitiveness companies have resorted to reducing quality e.g. filling volume, weight etc so as to avoid price increase. Have you ever heard things like remove the packet, or carton, remove the label or seal etc? No. Why? Because the are tangible things that can be seen and felt. Instead companies manipulate the quality parameters that are perceived and not tangible. As a quality professional you must stand up to be taken serious. That is your role in a receding economy.
