ABSTRACT
A question might be asked as to why I chose to study and write on the
production methods and problems of PRODA. I would like to point out the fact
that I was motivated to take up this topic so as to provoke mire academic
discussion as a way and means of providing a lasting solution to the numerous
and telling problems that usually, if not always, confront business
enterprises, more especially, in Nigeria. After due consideration I had the
feeling that not much has been contributed in this sphere of study, otherwise,
the much talked about production problems would have been minimized, if not
eliminated.
Moreover, any person who is aware of the general trends of the performances of
the business enterprises in Nigeria that engage in production would, no doubt,
see with me that their performance have much to be desired despite the huge
amount of resources invested in them and also when one considers the
inevitability of production to the economic, social and political survival and
development, of any country. Production oriented business enterprises
emancipation and social development, have more or less, contributed less. This
inefficiency, and ineffectiveness of these business enterprises, is
instrumental to Nigeria’s continued dependence on imported goods and services.
Consequent upon the aforementioned, the project development institute, PRODA
Enugu, was selected as a reference point to find out the methods and problems
it encounters in its production process with a view of making recommendations
and lasting solutions.
TABLE OF CONTENT
CHAPTER ONE
1.
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background of the subject
matter
1.2 Problem Associated with the subject
matter
1.3 Importance of studying the
area
1.4 The problems the study will be concerned
with
1.5 Definition of Important
Term
References
CHAPTER TWO
2.
LITERATURE
REVIEW
2.1
The Origin of the Subject
Matter
2.2
Schools of Thought Within the Subject
Area
2.3
The School of Though Relevant to the Subject
Matter
2.4
Different Methods of Studying the
Problem
2.5 Summary
References
CHAPTER THREE
3.1
Data
Presentation
3.2
Analysis of the
Data
3.3
Recommendation
3.4 Conclusion
References
CHAPTER ONE
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 General
Perspective! Background of the Subject Matter
One of the outcomes of industrial revolution is the increase in the size of
viable businesses.
This, in its wake has brought about a separation, of the traditional role of
the owner manager, the erstwhile sole proprietor, into shareholders, who bear
the risk of uncertainty and failure and the professional manager charged with
the day-to-day running of the business.
A further development is the segmentation of the management task as
the organization grows in size and complexity. Thus, in large organizations,
management is primarily segmented into production, personnel administration,
marketing and finance. Other differentiations are made as the need arises. But
one thing is clear. By whatever name it is known and by whom performed,
production management is basic to all organization, naturalistic or formal,
manufacturing or service and its activities are critical to the survival of the
system.
When we hear the term “Production Management”, many of us think factories
production such as automobiles and steel. Certainly, factories require
production management, yet other kinds of organizations, also engage in
production. In this book “Operations, management,” Barry Shore points out that
any organization which transforms inputs into outputs, is engaged in
production”. According to Hicks and Cullet, in their book, “Management”, in
analyzing the contention of Barry, put it thus!.
As we think about this statement, it becomes clear that almost any organization
fits this definitions adding that, for instance, a school takes students inputs
and process them through a series of learning experiences, transformation or
production and the outputs knowledge or attitude resulting from these learning
experiences.
1.2
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM! PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH IT.
It is a well-known fact or even truism that Nigeria is an undeveloped country,
though, to save face, we Nigerians claim that we are a developing, country. In
countries where productivity is high, we say that such countries have developed
economics whereas in countries where the reverse is the case, from which
Nigeria is not excluded, we say that their economics are underdeveloped.
A number of regulations exist to encourage and promote industrialization, but
so far, there has been no comprehensive national industrial policy. The
manufacturing sector’s contribution to the domestic product is still relatively
small, accounting for about 8 percent of the gross domestic product.
From year to year, government sets down policy guidelines designed to encourage
and enhance the economy of the country. Factors, which have, in the main,
received particular attention, have been inflation, income’s policy and
increase in local production. There can be no fixed policy guideline, but it is
important to accept as a fundamental objective, the need to create a favourable
investment climate. In the respect, a fiscal policy, which encourages, a
continuous plough-back of profit without the corresponding benefit, is
considered a destructive to investments. The year 1977 saw the promulgation of
the pressures, which had built up since 1968. Those pressure culminated in the
setting up of the promotion board, which was charged to advance and develop the
promotion of enterprise in which citizens of Nigeria should participate fully
and play a dominate role. Two principal objectives were indicated in a
government press release as the motivating factor to the indigenous
businessmen; and to raise the level of intermediate capital goods production.
Problems
of finance, management capabilities and other sociological problems hinder the
activities of these indigenous entrepreneurs. The attendant frustration
produces outcry for better conditions and for freedom from unhealthy
competition from foreign investors.
In defense of what is regarded as.
Their
undeniable right, they apply pressure on the government to legislate and
restrict other Activities of the foreign
counterparts to minimize Competition in their area of competence
Over the years, it has become quite clear that the approach to technological
education in the third world, particularly in Nigeria, would keep us stagnating
in underdevelopment. None of the educational institutions, particularly, at the
higher level felt the need or had the where withal to produce, practically
oriented, imaginative and innovative, technologists whose limitative and
activities could catapult us from, the miseries of under development, to the
heights at which we would be responsible for producing these fruits of
technology, that we enjoy very much.
Recently, there has been a greater awareness of these failings in the Nigeria
educational system and efforts have been made to correct the imbalance in
theoretical and practical content of our University education.
With
the establishment of the Anambra State University of Technology, whose bold
philosophy of producing locally trained engineers whose hands on experience can
be taken for granted as they leave the university, many more university, of
technology have sprung up all pursuing, the same goal of providing Nigeria with
competent highly trained technologists with production capabilities.
A glaring requirement in all of these Universities of technology, and in fact,
in most Universities teaching engineering, is a manufacturing or industrial
center which would provide teaching and training facilities similar to what a
teaching hospital provides to medical schools for the training of medical
doctors. Ajumobi, in this book, makes a case for the establishment of teaching
manufacturing technological centers in Nigeria University. “Our educational
planners have lost sight of factors such as this in planning the technological,
growth of Nigeria. It could be for reasons of their not being technocrats or
simply because there has been obvious short sightedness in educational planning
in Nigeria. According to Ofodile, “The teaching manufacturing Technology Center
being explored is comprehensive and capable of producing fit-to-practice engineers
and technologists. These centers, according to him, “would hopefully also
maintain a close liaison with industry in order to keep current with industrial
practice”.
There have been lately a lot of talks about technology transfer, appropriate technology,
technology from within, advanced technology, international technology, etc. It
reads like poetry and there have been a little too many meetings, committees
and times consumed in talking about technology. The talks are interesting,
informative and make one to be aware of the situation but why not just do it?
What then is technology? It can be defined as the mastery of details and
methodical application of intelligence and imagination in the exploitation of
natural resources by man. It is the “utilization of manufacturing methods” and
the application of know-how to practical takes in industry. It involves a
combination of ingenuity and glowing creativity and it has to do with the
searching for, developing and perfecting a system or device in the desire of
man to re-create his world by exploiting his natural endowments. It is the
systematic application of scientific principles in achieving anticipated goals.
Thus, both the refinement of an existing process and procedures as well as
inventions may well come down purview. Unfortunately, technology development
has been severally and persistently postulated and perceived as an exclusive
prerogative of the industrial nations.
We have been perversely misguided through various illogical insinuations that
Nigeria can only survive as a nation, technologically, by either importing
technology from abroad or we humbly wait for the industrialized nations to pass
technology to us like an ancestral legacy.
But sensibly inquiring, is this perception not as preposterous as a customer?
Or have we forgotten that our forebears, before the birth of Western
Civilization, has fantastic habitudes upon which we can build for a better
today, and tomorrow?.
Even now, we can, at the risk of overt aggrandizement, point at a number of
technological feats that have taken place on our own dear soil.
In
the early, part of 1960 or thereabout, a Nigerian came up with wooden aircraft
in which he proudly flew around.
We also heard of Joseph Onyeokoro, who invented a multiple-circuit wires radio
set, capable of picking radio stations both within and outside Nigeria.
Perhaps, one spectacular thing about this invention was that the radio set
needs no batteries or electrical energy to function. It worked with the use of
local materials including local herb.
However, much as we should congratulate ourselves, for jobs well done, we still
must realize that we could have attained greater heights but for certain
impediments. We have been too impatient to refine the crudity of our local
stuffs. We feel that we cannot meet up and, hence, submit ourselves to the
forces of global exploitation, economic enslavement and the vicissitudes of
imperialists’ technology. Our out molded, belief in the “wooders” and the
pseudo-liberal overtures and national policies of industrialized nations as
well as our overt reliance on the goodies of imported technology have all
combined to make us almost impotent of initiatives. If at all, very little
opportunities have been created so far for scientific and industrial research
and as such, people with burning desires and innovative prowess have always
found their ambitions killed due to lack of adequate incentives,. The glaring obsession
with foreign products, our deep productivity towards articles to which our
contribution is either minimal or non-existent. This situation must have to be
reversed.
Instead we have been bewildered by the gimmick of technology importation as
manifested in the emphasis, placed on the philosophy of import substitution.
The result is obvious. We can now produce virtually any thing with imported
machineries, imported raw materials and perhaps, imported labour.
We have to tap our human resources for expertise, in technology, motivate the
people, provide needed financial support and let the people loose to design and
produce.
The statement of problem can hardly be complete without the following quotes
from the matriculation speeches of late Professor K. Dike, the then president
of Anambra State University of Technology.
“Enterprises required not only the training of high level manpower but even
more a greater output of technicians”.
“Industrialization throughout the world has nearly always been pioneered by the
indigenous people (I know of no country in history in which one people
transferred technology to another”.
The real problem is not whether there is the need and the necessity for
technology, the real problem is how do we set about expressing our scientific
theories in practical term”.
Our new University will have to develop differently from the traditional.
Pattern… The role of our new university is, broadly speaking, in the area of
applied high level manpower training. From the very beginning the new
university will engage in research and development projects relevant to the
problems of our Environments and in accordance with natural priorities.
“The hand grants Colleges enabled the American colonist, to adopt science to
the needs of their new environment, and in tackling the practical problems of
their developing society”.
“The emphasis is shifting away from education for its own sale towards a more
directed technological education which is aimed at providing Nigeria with the
technical base she needs for the take-off of her industrial advancement.
“There is no question that it is largely industrialization, that we can aspire
to become self reliant and able to protect our national interest.
Industrialization is an expensive, very slow and difficult process but is there
any worthwhile goal that can be achieved without sweat and tears.”
“In vain, we have been waiting for the originators of foreign technologies to
transfer their pool of knowledge to us. Understandably, those industrialized
nations had toiled for decades to get to where they are today and they now rely
on these fantastic feats to restore their economic strength, to further create
wealth and to further improve on the living conditions of their people through
international business transactions. Be that as it may, how rational then is
our expectation that such a vital source of their economic and political powers
can be disposed by so magically or tragically.
Most certainly, the industrialized in continually seeing us as a steadily
voracious consumer nation from generation to generation; ensuring that our
domestic markets readily absorb its goods and services; hoping that we
perpetually depend on them for all our requisite bolts and nuts.
This accounts for the reason why the licensing agreement, to commence
manufacturing modern garri processing machines did not materialize at a time
between the proposed licensor Newell Dunford of England on one hand and the
Federal Institute of Industrial Research (FIIRD); The metal construction (W.A)
limited on the other.
The
concept of technology transfer is more or less a product of ideological
mis-orientation and wishful thinking. We need not be told the success stories
of Japan, American or the Soviet Union. Succulently put in the words of
professor Babs Fafunwa, “Nigeria can acquire technology only through
self-reliance, self denial, experimentation and judicious use of her natural
resources and talent”.
India was conscious of this fact when her citizenry obliged to patronize the
only type of locally manufactured, car.
It needs be stressed, however, that the Industrialized nations have a way of
pretentiously manipulating us into believing in the illusive rewards of
technology exportation or technology transfer while they vigorously pursue
those actions that are aimed, overtly or covertly, at protecting their
insignia. In the opinion of Bade Onimole, “the international of foreign
monopoly capital is associated with the imperialist monopolization, of
technology”.
The multinational corporations maintain this technological, monopoly through
the system of industrial property rights consisting of patents, trademarks,
licensing, and so on. Hence technology transfer has been an illusion even in
joint ventures as they conduct their research and development activities in
their foreign headquarters and insist on expatriate quota for monopolizing
their industrial sectors.
Though, technology transfer may be justified considering our stage of
development and if we realize the truism that we cannot develop our own
technology in a vacuum.
It is possible for us to create a unique version of imported technology by
simply dismantling and studying the underlying scientific principles involved
in the creation of such technologies and adapting our own version to suit our
local environment through the application of our own ingenuity and innovations.
Our problem, as enunciated by DR. M. B. Musa of the university of Lagos,
include “the fact that in order to implement certain national policies, we have
tended to input technological gadgets which are either out of date or over
sophisticated and which are soon discarded for lack of spare parts or our
liability to operate or maintain them.
Moreover, we also have the problem of unsettled political climate as well as
lack of “patriotic political leadership” with a visionary outlook.
Further more, there is this “spill over” effect of the traits of our
conservative colonial masters and their overwhelming legacies.
As it was rightly put by Femi Adewara, in his analysis in the country, “those
who work for, or with the multinational corporation received neocolonial
education, became industrialist by the grace of multinationals, and therefore
had no alternative other than to serve the exclusive interests of those
corporations, which unavoidable, are always at variance with our national goals
and aspirations and more so that they must make use of capital resources mostly
raised and disbursed from the parent firm’s heads offices abroad.
Apart from imbibing neo-colonial orientation, it becomes impossible by Nigerian
in managerial positions, in these multinational corporations to lead the
crusade of other basic industrial inputs because these corporations were
deliberately pursing a policy of enhancing the development and promotion of
inputs in water to keep their home economies in sound shapes.
Ironically, too some well-placed Nigerians were being used as instruments to
ensuring that government perpetuated inputs substitution strategy to the
detriment of indigenous initiatives.
Consequent upon what was said in paragraph one of this statement of problem
section, there no gain saying the fact that this difference in levels of
productivity is a function of the difference in methods or land magnitude and
the nature of the problems encountered in the course of production.
In consideration of the aforesaid, therefore the researcher is of the view that
the third world countries, in which Nigeria is ground, are economically
back-ward, because productivity in these countries is very low and thus low
productivity may be, among other things, a function of their backwardness in
technology and the techniques of production.
1.3
SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY/IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING THE AREA.
The functions of production management have existed before since people began
employing organized effort to improve their life. The life style of early time
was simple as compared to modern society, yet the goals of production
management were basically the same.
Many early civilizations enjoyed a high degree of managerial skill. The
Egyptian pyramid, the Great wall of China and the Roman aqueous are some of the
many samples that illustrate organized production in ancient time. In all these
efforts, the functions of production management were performed. Product design,
methods of production, production control and materials handling were dealt
with by the production managers of those great projects. The modern production
manager must address similar question. The basic different lies in the degree
of sophistication methods and techniques.
A research into production is deemed necessary, because man’s existence on
earth cannot be assured without production. It is also evident that all the
advanced countries of the world came to their present levels of development
because productivity in those countries is high. Therefore, it would follow
that the fact that Nigeria and other third world countries are underdeveloped
or developing countries is because productivity in those countries is very low.
In view of the aforementioned importance of production, the researcher deems it
necessary to carry out an investigation of the methods and problems of
production with special reference to Projects Development Institute. (PRODA),
Enugu.
1.5
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY DEFINITION OF IMPORTANT TERMS
This
study is primarily descriptive in nature, and it is on the production methods
and problems of PRODA, Enugu.
Source of Data
As
this is an empirical research study, a considerable, proportion of the data for
the exercise was obtained from primary sources. Nevertheless, the above does
not mean and should not be taken to mean that the data got from secondary
sources are not substantial and significant- as good use was also made of them,
especially for the review of related literature.
A.
Primary Sources
Data
from these sources comprised responses to interview guide administered to the
production manager and production engineer and some other senior staff of the
institute. The questions required the respondents to give ensures which are
assumed to be what is obtainable, in the Institute. The nature of the question
did not only require ticking what they thought was the appropriate, answers but
rather the questions required some sentences to give answers to the questions.
B.
Secondary Sources
Data
were gathered from secondary sources, which consisted of both published and
unpublished articles. Majority of the data from these sources were used in the
chapter in view of related literature, Most of these were obtained from
text-books, journals and newspaper, articles from the university of Nigeria
library, Enugu Campus, the national and state libraries in Enugu as well as the
library at PRODA Enugu.
Method
of Investigation
Interview
guide was used to investigate the objectives of this study.
On
administering the question, the researcher personally visited all the
respondents and had informal talks with them. The researcher visited the
Institute’s head office and its branch where capital takes place several times
before she could finish administering the question to the respondents.
At any opportune time, however, the researcher had lengthened discussions with
the members of management of the Institute who expressed and expressed their
views and opinions on the problem of the Institute.
Department | Business Administration and Management |
Project ID Code | BAM0019 |
Chapters | 3 Chapters |
No of Pages | 83 pages |
Methodology | Null |
Reference | YES |
Format | Microsoft Word |
Price | ₦4000, $15 |
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Contact Us On | +2349067372103 |
Contact Us On | +2349094562208 |
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