Analysis of Production System Management of Ghana’s Food and Beverage Industry: Empirical evidence from Spare Parts Inventory Control, Production Quality and Maintenance Modeling

Abstract

The production systems of various industries have increasingly become a strategic business management function that drives differentiation and competitive edge. Production plant maintenance is therefore an integral part of an entire production system management function, which should encapsulate spare part inventory control systems, total quality assurance, improvement measures and cost control measures. This project sought to understand the production process of firms in Ghana’s food and beverage industry, assess the spare part inventory management practices, production quality control practices and maintenance management strategies implemented in order to recommend a maintenance optimization modeling system towards ensuring an optimal operation cost and production quality. Using both the inductive and deductive research approaches, the research project was exploratory and explanatory in nature. Three major players in Ghana’s food and beverage industry: GIHOC-DCL (Ghana Industrial Holding Corporation Distillery Limited), Heathy-Life Ghana Limited (Healthy-Life) and Parlays Ghana Limited (Parlays) were purposively sampled as industrial case studies to generate data from documentary secondary data and survey based sources. The functionality tools available in MATLAB/Simulink software assisted in formulating the maintenance optimization problem, modeling, analyzing and deriving solutions. The study found that the food and beverage processing business in Ghana has a positive correlation with the main agricultural produce of the country and involves a series of activities including processing and preservation of meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, starch products, bread and sugar. Spare part inventory management and quality control tools mainly applied include Statistical Control Charts and Check Sheet rather than optimization models and software.