Supply chain management practices and performance at Kenya Medical Supplies Agency

Abstract

During the last 20 years, an era of expanding public health challenges and decreasing resources,the health care industry and the field of supply chain management (SCM) have both experienced significant changes. Health care systems, on a global scale, have due to decreasing resources and increasing demand been forced to find new approaches and concepts in order to improve quality but at the same time lower costs and increase value. The study aimed at evaluating the supply chain management practices and performance at Kenya Medical Supplies Agency. A case study design was chosen as it enabled the researcher gain an in-depth understanding of the study. The target population of interest in this study consisted of staff members at KEMSA representing the top, middle and low level management. Data analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 17.0 and presented in the report in the form of tables, bar charts and graphs. The findings revealed that the major challenges that were identified by the respondents include: Poor infrastructure, Bulky materials to be transported and uncertainty in terms of demand. Lack of cold chain maintenance and lack of qualified personnel were considered as the least supply chain management challenges at KEMSA. However, the respondents were not sure on whether special materials to be transported,Poor order request form filling and late arrival of order request form are some of the supply chain management challenges at KEMSA. The major limitation of this study is that data was collected from a small convenient sample of the staff at KEMSA and hence cannot be generalized to the health sector. A bigger study involving more firms in the sector will have to be done for generalisability.