Thesis Title One:

Empirical study of Critical Success Factors and Important Dimensions of New Product
Development and Innovation in Small and Medium Enterprise in Amhara region

1. Problem statement
New product development contributes a lot for the continuing success of a firm. NPD has been
an important issue because the number of new products launched has grown and the PLC has
shortened. Therefore, the study of new product development and innovation and the process
from which they emerge is very important. Now a days, the way in which new products are
introduced in the market is go through a major changes. These changes are the crucial factors
driving the NPD activities in an enterprise.

The development and introduction of new products to the market have been the challenging
activity for many years for many firms. It requires the integration of many resources and it is
very time sensitive.

In most Ethiopian SMEs, the same products have been producing since the establishment of the
enterprises. In other words, new product innovation is very sluggish. Even the majority of a few
new product that launch in to the market face a high failure rate. Despite the knowledge of the
much contribution of NPD for success of a business and the extensive researches made on how
to achieve success in NPD in other countries, enterprises continue to deliver products that fail
and therefore NPD is among the most riskiest and the most confusing task for most enterprises in
Ethiopia. It becomes shocking when one considers the magnitude of all resources wasted that
were allocated to NPD of failed products. Look how it is catastrophic for enterprises who are
strive for survive.

Enterprises are looking for a stable stream of successful and profitable new products to win the
competition. The challenge is to successfully manage the NPD processes from research and
development to product launch. The main NPD stages are, NPD strategy, idea generation,
screening and evaluation, design and development, testing and commercialization. The purpose
of this study is to model NPD process at each stage systematically and ranks the important
dimensions of NPD&I to improve their performances and to reduce the challenges while
developing new products.

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2. Objective of the thesis

General objective

The general objective of this work is to develop a framework that identifies the critical success
factors of each phase in NPD process, to propose metrics to measure them and tools and
techniques to evaluate each metric and determine important NPD&I dimensions for SME in
Amhara region.

Specific objectives

 To assess and analyze new product development and innovation initiatives SME in
Amhara region
 To assess internationally accepted NPD&I standards which is important to SME in
Amhara
 To evaluate and analyze the existing new product development and innovation process of
the enterprises
 To identify the most and the least important NPD&I dimensions
 To suggest a better new product development and innovation objectives and policy which
is flexible for rapid changing environment.
 To show the importance and spread up the notion of NPD & I for SME in amhara
 To formulate the NPD & I framework for the case studies based on predefined standards,
strategies and data obtained.

3. Research methodology

To achieve the stated objectives, the following methodology will generally employed during the
research process.

 Literature review

It is used to assess internationally accepted NPD&I standards, procedures and NPD&I success
and failure rates and different dimensions and characteristics of NPD practices in the world.

 Observation and assessment

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It is used to evaluate and analyze the new product development and innovation initiatives in the
enterprise and existing new product development and innovation process of the enterprise

 Questionnaire
The survey questionnaires is going to be prepared to investigate the overall view and attitude
of enterprises towards NPD&I.
 Interview
The questions are similar to survey questionnaires and is going to be prepared for cross
checking
 software
 SPSS software to analyze different questionnaire and interview results
 Edraw software to design and analyze QFD
 PDBPA software for gap analysis of NPD and I practices

Finally conclusion and recommendation will be made.

4. Significance of the study

The study is devoted to investigate the NPD&I problems of SME in Amhara region and the
framework is going to be applied to solve the problems. Currently, there is a gap in NPD&I
processes and practices between the international standards and scientific principles and SME in
Amhara region. The proposed framework is a suggested method for narrowing this gap and
improving the performance and reducing the challenges when developing new products.

The researcher believes the SME in Amhara will be motivated to incorporate the results the
study in their innovation program. SME located in other regions of Ethiopia and other interested
sectors would take essential concepts from the study otherwise they might implement by simple
modification according to their strategy.

5. Scope and limitation

The scope of this thesis is mainly focused on modeling a NPD&I framework especially NPD &I
processes and best practices for SME in Amhara region. The study will be limited only to this

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because of the difficulty in modeling framework for all sectors without any implementation
experience from selected sectors which might lead to unsuccessful framework.

Acronyms:

NPD New product Development

NPD&I New product Development and Innovation

PLC Product Life cycle

SME Small and Medium Enterprise

QFD Quality Function Deployment

PDBPA Product Development Best Practice Assessment

Thesis Title Two:

Model Development of Quality Management System for Bahirdar textile Share Company

1. Problem statement
Most Ethiopian industries perceive quality is regarded as a technical issue managed by only the
quality department. In other words, most of the industries don’t have a culture to support total
employees involvement in quality improvement. Bahirdar textile Share Company is one of them
which faces such a big problem. Currently, in the era of modern manufacturing where quality is
ultimately defined by customers and where customers’ requirement is changing dramatically,
quality is mostly at the stage of inspection at which the product after production is inspected and
passed to next step (if it is in the range of tolerance limit of the specification) or scraped or
reworked (if not qualify for quality requirement) which incurs loss for the factory. the company
is suffering from quality related problems. These problems include: poor performance of
products in the export market, low quality and insufficient raw material supply, incompetence in
the world market, customer dissatisfaction, low productivity, poor material handling and poor

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utilization of the resources. Because of these problems, the company is in a huge loss. It is only
profitable in 2007 E.C.
This research work mainly focused on how this loss and low market share of the company could
be reduced with the help of quality management system (QMS).

2. Objective of the study

General objective

To develop the appropriate implementation model of quality management system for Bahir dar
textile share company using latest quality management system methodology.

Specific objectives:

o To assess the quality related problems in the company and suggest the appropriate
solution.
o To assess different internationally accepted quality standards, textile quality standards,
quality management activities, which is important to the company.
o To suggest a better organization’s quality objectives and quality policies that considers
customer requirements.
o To create awareness about quality concepts and its importance in the company.
o To formulate the quality management system (QMS) for the company based on the
predefined standards, strategies and data obtained from the company.

3. research methodology
To achieve the stated objectives, the following methodology will generally employed during
the research process.
 Literature review
It is used to assess different internationally accepted quality standards, textile quality
standards, quality management activities
 Observation and assessment
Direct observation has also done by the researcher for collecting data and observing the
manufacturing process of textile products in company. Its documents such as profile of each

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 company, annual reports, and other publications will be used as an alternative source of data
in the study.
 Questionnaire
It is used to investigate the overall view and attitude of textile companies towards the concept
of quality management system, its implementation and QMS practices.
 Interview
The questions are similar to survey questionnaires and is going to be prepared for cross
checking
 software
 SPC software to utilize the seven quality control tools in analyzing different quality
related problems
 Correlation analysis software to analyze the correlation between different variable
 Arena simulation software to analyze the current performance of the material
handling system

Finally conclusion and recommendation will be made.

4. Significance of the study

As this study is dedicated to investigating the solutions to the quality related problems in
Bahirdar textile share company and proposing the appropriate model for implementing the
quality management system, therefore, the primary merits of the study goes to the Bahirdar
textile share company. The new proposed QMS helps to the company to be more competitive in
local as well as in international markets.

Other Ethiopian textile industries and other sectors might take some important concepts from this
new QMS model and modify based on their requirement

5. Scope and limitation

The scope of this thesis work is to focus on Bahirdar textile Share Company for modeling and
implementing quality management system so that overall activities of the companies (including
technical, administrative, and human factors affecting the quality of the products or services) are
under control and important factors in the process control, testing, and inspection of textile raw
materials and products are considered.

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The thesis work is limited to one case study because the researchers needs to take pilot company
for implementation of QMS first and then to have got experience.

Acronym

QMS Quality Management System

Thesis Title Three:

Uses and applications of quality engineering

Case study at

Bahirdar textile Share Company

1. Problem statement

Most of the Ethiopian industries have a short-term view on business which focuses on quantity
and profit rather than quality. However, they do not realize this, the main source of profitability,
is producing quality of products. Bahir dar textile Share Company (BTSC) is one of these
companies which face such a problem. The researcher selects the spinning process because it is
the stepping stone for other process. The raw material and manufacturing process contributes
more for poor quality of yarn. Raw material is external factor whereas manufacturing process is
internal factor. The company can fully control the manufacturing process. However, the current
manufacturing process of spinning department in BTSC is an inefficient use of time and
resources by wasting working hours, consuming energy and reworking defective cones. Based on
the performance tracking data, the inefficiency of the process leads to a significant financial
burden for the company. On average, it wastes roughly five minutes per hr down time resulted in
12 hours per day per six machines. In addition, there is yarn breakage at least in 10 minutes
interval at a machine containing 400 rotors. Furthermore, 20 cones per day have been returned
by weaving department for rework. Hence, the total cost is 200br per day which is 73000 birr per
annum, from this 45%, which is 32850br, is due to process related problems. In addition, at least
one cone is not produced in one machine per shift due to down time because of yarn breakage.
This costs 164,250 br per annum. Therefore, the total cost due to process related problems is
estimated about 197,300 br per annum. Hence, it makes the company less competitive and

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profitable. On this regard quality engineering issue should not be overlooked because planning
for quality and evaluating the quality are the quality engineering functions helping the industry to
get proper design for quality assurance and yearly saving can be redirected to new source of
revenues .The current study is to optimize the process parameters and to determine the
significant factor for the yarn breakage. In order to achieve this, process factors and their levels
will be identified and taguch’s design of experiment and analysis of variance (ANOVA) going to
be used.

2. Objective of the study

General objective: the general objective of this work is to show the uses and applications of

Taguchi’s method of quality engineering as a tool for quality improvement.

Specific objectives:

 To identify the existing quality problems of the company.

 To Apply Taguchi’s methods of design of experiment.
 To optimize process parameters of the company’s production process.
 To develop the implementation procedures of Taguchi’s method.
 To spread up the notion of quality engineering in BTSC.

3. Research methodology

To achieve the stated objectives, the following methodology was generally employed during the
research process.

a) Literature Review

It is used to understand about taguch’s design of experiment, its application area and limitations

b) Personal observation: here critical observation from the researcher are going to be done.
Production area of the company was critically observed.
During observation possible production parameters and output characteristics will be
identified by the researcher. Changes in production variables by operators were also
observed.

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c) Collecting secondary data: Here reported data will assessed and relevant information may
be taken depending on the requirement. Secondary data will be collected from the daily,
weekly, monthly and annual report of the company’s operational sections.
d) Discussion: discussion will be conducted with selected body in the factory. Individuals that
going to be selected for discussion will be from management (Quality management officer,
Production Manager), personnel around production area (Production core process head),
production planner, quality control supervisor and operators themselves. The discussion was
made on product/process development strategies that the company is using and other issues
related with quality.
e) Minitab statistical software version 16
It is used to analyze the factor with their corresponding response variables.
f) Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)
It is used to determine which factor is significant and which is not significant.
Finally conclusion and recommendation will be made.

4. Significance of the study

This study is dedicated to investigate the quality related problems of the spinning department of
Bahirdar Textile Share Company and Taguchi’s approach of quality engineering is applied to solve
the problems. Taguchi’s method of design of experiment is implemented to reduce the performance
variation of products and thus the primary merits of the study goes to the Bahirdar Textile Share
Company. The researcher believes that Bahirdar Textile Share Company will be motivated to
implement in other departments and may include taguci’s design of experiment as a tool to solve
related problems.

5. Scope and limitation of the study

The scope of the study is mainly focused on the application of quality engineering tools
specifically design of experiment (Taguchi’s method) to the process design of spinning
department of BTSC. The study was limited only to this because of difficulty in getting all
relevant information of other departments with time constraint and probability of not getting the
laboratory to do the experiment.