Service quality delivery in the Food and Beverage Industry in the Western Cape

Abstract

The Quality Control laboratory in the South African Breweries (SAB) measures the quality of raw materials to final product to enable the plant to make process changes if required. The brewing laboratory also co-ordinates taste sessions, and maintains and calibrates equipment for the plant. They also have internal verification (Reference control) systems and validation (standards) systems in place to ensure accuracy of measurements. The Service Level Agreement (SLA) scores according to the researcher are low owing to staff cuts and ineffective time management.The aim of this research is to improve SLA scores and to investigate if using SLA scores is the best way to measure service quality in the Quality Control department of SAB. The researcher aims to use SERVQUAL as a measuring tool to measure service quality in conjunction with SLA‟s. Because the laboratory is a service department, it is expected by brewing internal customers that the laboratory provides the plant with quality data and equipment support in the virtual laboratories in the plant. Furthermore it is expected that the service provided will always be of a high standard, and that SLA scores will be of a high standard as well.The major issue with service quality in the SAB laboratory is the low level of SLA scores. The focus areas of SLA‟s currently are:  Quality Assurance (QA)/ Technical/ Production interaction.  Reference control.  Equipment support.  Routine analysis and ad hoc requests.  Trial support.  In process taste requirements.  Package product taste requirements (Routine, profile, trials and flavour stability). The low score of SLA‟S are mainly due to equipment support and reference control. The other factors also contribute to the low score; however the above mentioned two consistently return low scores. The results of service quality are not significantly improved through the use of SLA‟s calling for the requirement to improve service quality using the SERVQUAL instrument.