Factor Analysis of Cost of Quality to Determine the Adoption of Economics of Quality as a Measure of Quality Management Performance in South African Companies The current disruptive business environment forces companies to constantly search for improved ways of meeting customer requirements. South African companies are not excluded from daily business challenges. This research assesses the adoption of cost of quality practice as the measure of quality management performance. The study uses the snowball sampling approach to identify the target sample members. It collected information from 45 companies around the Johannesburg area. The convergent validity and discriminant validity were used as the measure of study construct validity. The study identifies preventive cost and appraisal cost as two costs of quality categories which receive high attention from South African companies. The failure cost was identified to be in third place. The opportunity cost was identified as the ignored cost of quality (CoQ) category. Hence, it was recommended that the companies start to pay attention to their opportunity cost and it was also recommended that further research should focus on identifying the challenges experienced by companies in the implementation of cost of quality.

The Effectiveness of Rolling Stock Maintenance on Quality Assurance at the Largest South African Rail Company This paper presents the results of the evaluation of the effectiveness that rolling stock maintenance (RSM) has on quality assurance (QA) at the largest rail, port and pipeline company in South Africa, as a case study conducted at its Koedoespoort depots and factories. Using a quantitative approach descriptive in nature, the researchers aimed to gain an insight into the research problem and to investigate the effectiveness RSM has on QA at freight rail company. Data was collected from a sample of 30 employees randomly selected at the engineering division. The evidence collected shows that the engineering division does not have a criterion to monitor the effectiveness of the current maintenance plan, the division does not have a maintenance system that is well understood by the artisans as well as technicians. The recommendations emphasized on a continuous training program on quality planning and implementation for the whole engineering division to ensure that the proposed maintenance strategy delivers as expected right the first time.