Author: Kwansah Ebenezer Ofori-Ayeh
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (KNUST)
Email: ekwansah@yahoo.com
Abstract
Every organization must have some inputs and raw materials of some kind in order to serve its customers. Organizations exist for the purpose of serving its customers. In fact no business organization can exist without input which refers to anything that is put in, taken in or operated upon, and is transformed into something different and desirable by customers. All manufacturing organizations must have stock of raw materials, purchased components and sub-assemblies before it can produce finished goods. In today’s competitive corporate world where the customer is king and every product or service has alternative, businesses is faced with a lot of challenges including retaining its customers. In the process of finding solution to sustenance of customers to maintain competitive market, all organizations including the New Edubiase Government Hospital (NEGH) lay emphasis on areas such as marketing, accounting, auditing, customer care and public relation and relegate inventory management to the background. Lowe (2002) states that ‘inventory is a detailed list of goods’. It is impossible to offer any meaningful health service to the satisfaction of patients and clients without the availability of inventory. Quality health care essentially is dependent on the availability of quality inventory at the right time. In the absence of inventory, health service delivery is severally affected. People dying at the various hospitals in Ghana could be prevented and the pace of sick patients getting healed can be faster if inventory management is given the attention it needed in the various health facilities. The very recent accident that occurred on the Kintampo road involving a Metro Mass Transit bus that claimed the lives of over 60 people was partly due to non-availability of inventory. Sallah (2006) reported on GhOnetv that ‘the accident killed over 60 people because of lack of medical supplies and other essential first aid deliveries’. She went on further to report that ‘there was no oxygen and even common emergency drugs were not available, and the ambulance can carry only two people at a time’. The irony is that while there is shortage of basic essential medications and other basic inputs at almost all public health facilities, a large number of varieties of some expensive drugs go waste as a result of lack of best practices of inventory management techniques. This leads to a reduced customer service. Martin, (2001), noted that customer relationships value is present especially in the service sector, because services are intangible, and the time customers have to evaluate services before deciding to make a purchase commitment is non-existent. Service providers are the most tangible aspect of service and, the customers see them as the service itself. Customers’ view of quality of the relationship with the service provider goes hand in hand with the quality of the service itself because the evaluating services first before to making purchase commitments is difficult and cannot be quantified.
