The Impact of Value Analysis Implementation on Service Delivery at Kisumu Polytechnic

Abstract

In the age of increasing competition for financial resources, innovation and improved value across all industries and levels of government, Value analysis methodology has become useful in government, process design, construction, and manufacturing industries as a tool to optimize projects, administration, business and manufacturing processes, and to facilitate product development. The benefits of value analysis include decreasing costs, increasing profits, improving quality, improved speed of service delivery and performance, and enhancing customer satisfaction. Although it is the government of Kenya policy to ensure the delivery of quality technical training at low cost, it has remained elusive. Various interventions have been sought and implemented by the policy makers to improve on service delivery and performance. For example a series of management strategies have been designed and implemented, but still the cost of training has remained high, performance in national examination has remained poor, especially in engineering trades, laxity in service delivery speed, inadequate technological approaches and lack of operational coordination in most institutions. As a result of these Kisumu Polytechnic implemented Value analysis, though defined as process re-design and cost reduction strategy to address these problems. The main objective of this study was to establish the impact of Value analysis implementation on service delivery at Kisumu Polytechnic, the study specifically, sort to determine the impact of VA on the following variables; Cost reduction, examination result, speed and quality of service delivery, management system improvement vendor relations, enhancing customer satisfaction and improved operational coordination. The study was carried out using a descriptive research design. Respondents of the study comprised 345 respondents, distributed as follows; students 280, staff 45 and suppliers 20. Primary data was collected by use of structured questionnaires and interviews which were presented on the Principal, the deputy Principal and the Registrar. Descriptive statistics and content analysis was used to summarize the data. The results have been presented using tables. The study concludes that the staffs at Kisumu Polytechnic are aware of the implementation or operationalization of VA. The findings revealed that improvement on most services have been realized to a medium extent. The examination administration, cost reduction, technology (MS) have not reasonably improved. On the other hand the institution has done well on vendor relation, payment of cheques and generally procurement processes. The institution appreciated that proper coordination must be established and reliable teams must be put in place to oversee value analysis process, so that the desired improvement index can be realized. The study recommends that the quality of service delivery need to be improved to attract and retain customers (students). Top management should support the implementation of VA at Kisumu Polytechnic. Technology to be improved and that roadblock to collaboration between departments need to be addressed. Staff training and competence be encouraged and offered to the staff and finally practical training procedures for the students need to be i m p r o v e d a n d e n h a n c e a c c o r d i n g l y . T h e s t u d y s u g g e s t s t h a t f o r t h e s u c c e s s o f V A i m p l e m e n t a t i o n , s t a n d a r d V A i m p l e m e n t a t i o n s c h e d u l e o r p r o c e d u r e s n e e d t o b e f o l l o w e d t o t h e l a t t e r . T h e s t u d y r e c o m m e n d s t h a t f u r t h e r r e s e a r c h s h o u l d b e c o n d u c t e d o n t h e C h a l l e n g e s o f V a l u e a n a l y s i s i m p l e m e n t a t i o n o n s e r v i c e d e l i v e r y a t K i s u m u P o l y t e c h n i c a n d t h a t f u r t h e r r e s e a r c h o n t h e i m p a c t o f V a l u e a n a l y s i s o n s e r v i c e d e l i v e r y b e d o n e o n o t h e r c o l l e g e s , U n i v e r s i t i e s a n d i n d u s t r i e s i n K e n y a .