Features
How standards promote business
The production of any commodity begins with the use of raw materials from its early stages to the finishing point when such raw materials are shaped into the desired products needed for the production of specific products to satisfy consumer needs.
At the raw materials stage, applicable standards guide producers to choose suitable raw materials for the production of goods. A woman who is preparing a certain type of soup in this country does not go in for just any kind of ingredients such as tomato, garden eggs, pepper, etc but rather goes in for quality ingredients that will help it come out quality and tasty soup.
QUALITY FRUIT JUICE
Similarly, if we are bent on producing quality fruit juice, we would not just go in for rotten pineapple or pawpaw but rather those types that are in very good condition and are good enough to give us tasty juice. This is what all industries do to ensure that the outcome of production is good enough to satisfy consumer needs.
Thus, the early stages of production require that we make use of raw materials that are good enough to assist in the production of quality products. It is said that “garbage in, garbage out”. What this means is that if the input in form of raw materials is of inferior quality, what will come out as a final product would also be of inferior quality.
RELEVANT STANDARDS
The implication here is that right from the beginning, we need to be guided by the relevant standards needed to make it possible for us to come out with quality product that satisfies consumer needs. In other words, appropriate standards guide us to select and process the most appropriate raw materials for the production of quality products. It is these standards that guide us to produce the most appropriate raw materials and at the same time help to produce reliable and quality-oriented finished products.
Apart from guiding us in the selection of quality raw materials, standards also help us in the processing of the products midway to the finished end. The production process may be of different types but a particular type of processing scheme may be selected all in an effort to ensure that what comes out eventually is of high and acceptable quality. This is why we say that applicable standards help us in choosing the right process for production.
RELEVANCE OF STANDARDS TO PRODUCTION PROCESS
If there is any particular production process that is unsuitable, the use of standards will help us to know that there is the need to avoid such process. Thus, when we make use of relevant applicable standards, such standards help us to avoid unsuitable production processes.
When particular production processes are unsuitable, they negate the purpose of production which is to help come out with consumer products that will satisfy the interest of all targeted consumers whether locally or in foreign countries. In other words, applicable standards provide guidance in the selection of production processes for the purpose of meeting customer needs.
STORAGE AND TRANSPORTATION
The production process does not only involve selection of suitable raw materials and relevant production processes but also storage and transportation of what is produced. The style and quality of storage and the conditions under which the products are stored are all very important. If the storage is not done under an appropriate temperature, products of high quality may go bad after production. Storage is, therefore, important. In the same way, the transportation of such products must be carried out in appropriate vans or vehicles and kept under the appropriate temperature. Medicines constitute a good example here. Also, Fan products like those from FanMilk must also be transported appropriately otherwise they will go bad and disturbed the stomach of consumers who take them in.
Appropriate storage and transportation are carried out or done according to applicable standards. It is these standards that will give an indication regarding the size of the van for carrying the products and also the temperature that must go with the products. All this helps to show that the use of relevant standards help us to avoid unnecessary mistakes when transporting goods from the factory to the consuming centres.
In other words, standards guide and help producers to carry out procedures and processes that are appropriate, thereby helping us to avoid any trial and error in the storage and transportation process of goods that are intended for the consuming centres.
END RESULT
When the production process from the raw materials stage to the storage and transportation stage are all carried out appropriately in line with relevant applicable standards, the end result will be quality products that will meet the first class taste of consumers. This means that only quality and satisfactory products would emerge at the end of the entire process. When this happens, we will be able to enter local and external markets and make more profits for the company.
Thus, companies in Ghana that want to take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) would have to take advantage and apply standards to what they intend producing for the large African market.
In conclusion, therefore, standards help manufacturers and producers to break into local and international markets. This is possible because such companies, through applicable standards, are able to meet the demand for quality products in line with rising customer demand.
Contact email/whatsApp address of author:
Pradmat2013@gmail.com (0553318911)
By Dr. Kofi Amponsah-Bediako
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
Join our WhatsApp Channel now!
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBElzjInlqHhl1aTU27
Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
Join our WhatsApp Channel now!
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBElzjInlqHhl1aTU27
