CHAPTER I: Introduction
1.1     Background of the Study
 

Philip Crosby in his book “Quality is free” summarizes the effect of inspection in the following statement:

“A prudent company makes certain that its products and services are delivered to the customers by a management system that does not condone remake, repairs, waste or non-conformance of any sort. These are expensive problems, they must not only be detected and resolve at the earliest moment, they must be prevented from occurring at all”.

Product quality as a strategy for competitiveness has become the focus of going concerns today, be it a manufacturing or a service industry. Be that as it may, quality product or service goal in any organization will be difficult to realize without the watchful eyes of inspection. Materials outsourced or insourced as the case may be either as raw materials, components, spareparts or maintenance repairs and operation items, must be subjected to thorough examination to ensure that they are the right materials of the correct quality according to agreed standards and specifications. This is because the slightest deviation from standards, oversights of any defect in in-coming or insourced materials results to numerous and serious consequences on the life of the organization. As a result of these consequences, organizations are forced to set in place a system to ensure that only materials of quality are allowed to come into the organization. This is achieved always through the mechanism of inspection.

The responsibility for inspection in an organization differs from organization to organization depending on the nature, make up and policy of the organization in question. The purchasing or procurement or materials department however plays an important role because they are responsible for the sourcing of the materials used by the organization.

Inspection depicts the general idea and concept which signifies the ascertaining and determination of quality or conformity of sourced materials or services to established standards and specification. This, therefore brings to mind the fact that inspection and quality can hardly be discussed separately without reference to one. It is a major tool for the determination of quality. This study therefore, shall focus on specification, standardization, inspection and quality control and assurance.