IMPLEMENTATION OF ISO/TS 16949 AND PERFORMANCE OF AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY IN KENYA: A CASE STUDY OF ASSOCIATED BATTERY MANUFACTURERS EAST AFRICA LIMITED, NAIROBI

The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between implementation of ISO/TS 16949 and organizational performance in the automotive industry. Specifically, the study focused on determining how leadership, resource management, staff competence and process monitoring affect the performance of the automotive related industry. The results of the study sought to benefit the automotive industry, international bodies like the international automotive task force (IATF), customers in the automotive sector as well as other scholars and researchers. The study involved extensive review of empirical literature of related studies for all the study variables to identify any research gaps. The study employed descriptive research design. The target population for the study was 482 staff at Associated Battery Manufacturers (ABM) East Africa Limited which is currently implementing ISO/TS 16949. During data collection, 145 staff working in the organization were sampled using stratified simple random sampling. Questionnaires were physically administered to the sample population. A pilot study was conducted to test the accuracy of the research instruments to ensure reliability and validity of research data. Data was processed and analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. Descriptive statistics including mean and standard deviation was used to analyse data. The relationship between independent and dependent variables was determined using regression model using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. Research findings were presented using graphs, pie charts and frequency tables. The research findings indicate that resource management explains 53.6 percent of organizational performance at ABM (EA) Limited and process monitoring explains 58.5 percent of organizational performance at ABM (EA) Limited. Both resource management and process monitoring explain 63.9 percent of organizational performance at ABM (EA) Limited. The research findings further indicated that leadership and staff competence did not have statistical significant impact on performance at ABM (EA) Limited. The study therefore concluded that resource management and process monitoring had positive and significant impact on performance at ABM (EA) Limited. The study further concluded that resource management had the most influence on performance at ABM (EA) Limited. The researcher therefore recommends that top management should determine the optimal resources needed and provide those resources for effective implementation of ISO/TS 16949. The researcher also recommends that automotive industries should continually improve on their process monitoring activities by carrying out regular audits on the manufacturing process and on the product. The researcher further recommends future comparative research on automotive industries to compare findings from different automotive companies