The effect of ISO 9001:2008 certification on process quality: a case study of Kenya Power and Lighting Company

Abstract

Many organizations in Kenya and across the world are adopting ISO 9008:2001 in an endeavor to improve their processes and hence process quality. Process quality plays a key role in the performance and survival of organizations in the current competitive world. This is what informed the study. The study endeavored to establish whether KPLC achieved process quality improvements after ISO 9001:2008 certification. It also sought to establish the impact of the certification on process interactions. In order to study whether KPLC had achieved process quality improvements after ISO 9001: 2008 certification, one internal process, the new connections process, was selected and broken down into its sub-processes. These were design, quotation, wayleaves acquisition, construction, metering and process interactions. Six hypotheses were then tested with the use of one-tailed z-test at 0.05 significance level for a sample of 150 jobs done before and after ISO 9001:2008 certification. A paired t-test was performed on the mean differences of the sub-processes' quality in order to make a final conclusion on overall process quality. The findings of the study revealed that there were significant improvements in process quality in the sub-processes apart from the quotation sub-process which recorded a reduction in quality. The study revealed significant improvement on overall process quality at 0.05 significance level. Process interactions improved significantly after ISO 9001 :2008 certification at 0.05 significance level.