A descriptive study on ISO 9000 implementation obstacles within district councils

Abstract

The implementation of the ISO 9000 quality management system in local authorities is one of the requisite requirements set by the Malaysian federal government since 1996 to ensure improvement within the services of these agencies as a part of the strategies in trans forming the overall service quality in the public s ector. After more than a decade, the total number of local authority (LA) organizations, especially district councils th at have achieved ISO 9000 accreditation is very limited. This paper will determine and rank the implementation obstacles of ISO 9000 in district councils, since this type of LA or ganizations is seen as the majority that has failed to receive ISO 9000 accreditation. Study data was collected through a random survey with the use of a structured que stionnaire. The questionnaire forms were circulated among team members who are part of the ISO 9000 implementation in their respective councils. A quantitative approach was used to analyze the data and based on the analysis outputs, this study revealed that there are five main obstacles faced by the ISO 9000 implementation team during the ISO 9000 execution process in district councils. These obstacles are negative perception or attitude towar ds quality among employees, lack of involvement, cooperation and commitment from employees, employees’ culture to ward quality programmes, lack of human resources and lack of cooperation among internal departments.