The topic of this Bachelor’s Thesis is Total Quality Management: A benchmarking study for improving sewage and portable water system in Lagos state Nigeria in the case of Helsinki Region Environmental Service Authority. The purpose of this research is to find a lasting solu-tion to the deterioration of the environmental service of Lagos state with a focus on the sew-age and portable water system through a benchmarking study of the Helsinki Region Environ-mental Service Authority’s administration.
The theoretical section of this thesis describes the main components of total quality man-agement (TQM), starting with definitions, different theories and historical views of TQM, and the principles of TQM. In addition, supporting methodologies and techniques, quality awards and excellence models are briefly discussed with an emphasis on process improvement, quali-ty assurance and benchmarking theories- as these factors form a strong basis for this re-search.
In the section on research methods, the development of the empirical research method is presented, with detailed description of the data gathering techniques used to access infor-mation. Much of the data was collected through interviews, brochures and information on the case company’s webpage. Qualitative research method was adopted for this study to ensure the authenticity, as the case company operates different department, hence quantitative ap-proach may not be adequate.
The empirical section illustrates the application of theory in the improvement of the case company. In addition, a general overview of the case company’s operation is described, show-ing the organization structure, strategy of operation and quality model. Finally, conclusions and recommendations for the improvement of the quality of the Lagos state environmental service are provided.
Findings indicated that the capital municipality environmental service was initially managed by 5 different companies, and in early 2010 the political decision was that this service will be managed by one company (Hsy). During this transition no major technical problem was rec-orded but administrative conflict on personnel orientation and management method to adopt emerged. Hsy planned to adopt the same system of environmental system in the capital mu-nicipality in the whole of Finland by 2014.
