A research study submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration, School of Management

Research Studies Project Report (M.B.A.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2006

Cost, quality, reliability and delivery are the important factors that affect the competitiveness of any business enterprise. Quality has become the foremost among all these. Supplying quality products beyond customer expectations has become the objective of most world-class manufacturers. For supplying quality products, resources such as technology should be new and advanced, people should be committed and trained, the materials and machineries should conform to specifications and should be used in an optimal way. In this increasingly competitive, sophisticated global market dairy manufacturing companies seek to differentiate themselves from their competitors by offering goods of superior quality. Thailand is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The dairy and food processing industry in Thailand is growing faster compared to other industries. Companies in this industry are actively seeking to achieve competitiveness by having an efficient distribution system along with other practices like following ISO quality systems developed by the International Organization for Standardization. These practices assure product consistency to their customers worldwide. Practicing the ISO 9000 series of standards has helped the dairy manufacturers in Thailand to effectively target export markets outside Thailand also. In this research work major factors that affect the effective operation and maintenance of quality/consistency in the distribution warehouse of a dairy product manufacturing unit are identified based on observations from the Dairy Plus factory of the Dutch Mill Group. Recommendations and suggestions for formulating an effective strategy for the improvement and effective management of the distribution system are provided wherever applicable. Still, after extensive study of the distribution warehouse and the distribution system of the Dairy Plus factory, further scope for research can not be denied