THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RAW MATERIALS INSPECTION AND PRODUCTION QUALITY OF MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN RIVERS STATE

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between raw materials inspection and production quality of manufacturing firms in Rivers State. Correlational survey   research design was adopted for this study as this study seek to determine the relationship between the two variables. The population of this study is thirty two (32) manufacturing companies in Rivers State which are registered with the Rivers state branch of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN). The study adopted the  census techniques. With  regard to the respondents of the study given  the strategic nature of the study, three  key managers (production manager, quality assurance unit manager  and logistics manager) were  chosen as respondents from each using simple random sampling,  of the  thirty two firms constitute the study subject. This gave us a total of ninety two (92) for the study.  Structured questionnaire instrument title” raw material inspection and production quality of manufacturing firms questionnaire “ was developed on five point likert scale . The result of the Cronbach's Alpha reliability test indicates .708 which is above .70 which implies that the items are reliable. Pearson product moment correlation was used to test the hypotheses using SPSS (statistical package social sciences). The study revealed that there is a significant relationship between visual inspection and conformance quality of manufacturing firms in Rivers State. There is a significant relationship between visual inspection and performance quality of manufacturing firms in Rivers state. There is a significant relationship between dimensional inspection and conformance quality of manufacturing firms in Rivers state. There is a significant relationship between dimensional inspection and performance quality of manufacturing firms in Rivers state. The study concluded that there is positive relationship between raw materials inspection and production quality of manufacturing firms in Rivers State. The study recommended that manufacturing firms should implement a comprehensive raw materials inspection process that includes both visual and dimensional inspections to ensure the quality and consistency of incoming materials.