Abstract

Developing countries are facing growing challenges imposed specially by large-scale multinational companies. Syria has to prepare itself for the such challenges (partnership with EU, Arab Free Trade Agreement etc.). This requires above all products complying with the new quality standards such as ISO9000 (so far adopted by more than 51 countries).

Meeting such standards would be an efficient tool in transferring technology and improving quality as well as competitiveness. This is crucial for local producers to maintain position in local markets and enter foreign markets. This in turn requires national manufacturing standards and regional and international cooperation in this field.

According to the lecturers, the customer considers quality as the most important among other factors. It shows the quality development stages (1:customer inspects at receiving, 2:Inspect before shipping, quality department uses SPC, 4:operators use SPC, 5:TQM). ISO9000 package has made it easy for companies to build their own quality management systems.

Though there had been regulations concerning products control, the real focus on quality in Syria began in the 1990s (seminars, training courses etc.). Between 1996 and 1999, 61 Syrian enterprises acquired ISO certificates. Syrian industry is still in the second stage, with only few companies in the third one. In 1999, their main reason to acquire these certificates was to improve reputation. Whereas, in 1998, it was to reduce wasting. Generally, these companies look after this certificate as a promotion tool rather than a tool to improve quality.

Locally, the benefits obtained from such certificates are employees’ acceptance, improvement of document checking etc. Increasing of profitability had the least importance among benefits, which requires more efficiency through the improvement of machines, return, and quality.

The lecture mentions difficulties encountering Syrian companies trying to get ISO9000. The most important difficulty is the employees’ passive attitude vis-à-vis the implementation of ISO9000. This means that forcing such a system without the employees’ involvement leads to negative results.

All companies with ISO9000 comply with internal auditing. 90% of them apply sample inspection, 70% lack information to apply the relevant methods. Only 14% apply TQM. More than 50% lack information about quality costs.

The obstacles threatening the quality systems implementation in Syria consist of strategic, macro and micro ones. Strategic obstacles concern the absence of policies defining future perspectives. Macro obstacles include cultural, economic, and social dimensions. Cultural obstacles concern the weakness of general culture, the limited knowledge of international scientific and technical developments, poor understanding of ISO9000, weakness of educational curricula etc. The economic obstacles include old fashion company structure, absence of competition due to protectionism, low level of living standards, tax evasion, customs complexities etc. The social ones concern the absence of loyalty to the company, dysfunction of syndicates and social security.

The micro obstacles contain cultural, economic, social and organizational ones. Cultural obstacles are related to absence of mutual trust between the employee and the employer, employer does not believe in training because of low returns etc. The economic obstacles concern the expensive quality system compared to the profitability, weakness of incentive systems, salaries gap between public and private sectors etc. Social and organizational obstacles means that the positions are not allocated depending on qualifications, lack of loyalty. In brief, no efficient quality system can be achieved without social stability.

Syria need a nationwide quality program supervised by the Prime Minister. This program aims at building a competitive industry within ten years.