Reflective Essay: TQM for Supply Chain Quality in Nigeria Oil & Gas

This reflective essay explores the author's experience in writing a research proposal focused on supply chain quality in the Nigerian oil and gas industry, with a particular emphasis on how Total Quality Management (TQM) can be used to measure and improve quality across the supply chain. The author details the challenges faced in selecting a research topic, conducting a literature review, and choosing an appropriate research methodology. The essay highlights the learning process involved in understanding research philosophy, data collection, data analysis, and ethical considerations. The author reflects on the development of their knowledge of the Nigerian oil and gas industry, supply chain networks, and the effectiveness of TQM, as well as the enhancement of their research skills and personal development.

Running head: REFLECTIVE ESSAY
SUPPLY CHAIN QUALITY IN NIGERIA OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY-With emphasis on
how TQM (TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT) CAN BE USED TO MEASURE AND
IMPROVE QUALITY ACROSS SUPPLY CHAIN
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1
REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Writing a research proposal has been quite an enriching experience for me. With the help
of my guide, I leant and understood various aspects of research and its implications. In the
beginning, choosing the research topic was a challenging part. My guide helped with selection of
the research topic from the vast subject of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Total Quality
Management (TQM) and the oil and gas industry of Nigeria. I learnt the process of narrowing the
subject to choose the research topic as it is not possible to focus on a large subject. However,
after a thorough search of the previous literature, I narrowed down to my topic as I found that the
impact of TQM on the quality of SCM in the Nigerian oil and gas industry has not been explored
in an in-depth manner previously.
After the topic is selected, I was instructed to conduct an extensive literature review. I
understood that literature review is extremely helpful in understanding the subject of research.
There are various arenas under the above mentioned subjects and over the years, there have been
many research works, which contributed significantly in the academic world. By studying the
many literature papers on the relevant topic, I gained an extensive knowledge about the oil and
gas industry of Nigeria, and its supply chain network as well as about the total quality
management. The positive and negative aspects of these systems and their impact on the oil and
gas companies were thoroughly explored from the previous literature, which helped me
immensely to design the framework and the direction of my study. I learnt how to make the
conceptual framework for my study. With the help of the established theories of supply chain,
and measurement of its quality, I understood how to proceed with my study.
Once the literature review was done, another challenging part came up, that is, choosing
the correct research methodology. My guide helped me to understand what the research
methodology is all about and how to choose the correct one depending on the nature of the study

2
REFLECTIVE ESSAY
and desired outcome. However, it was still challenging for e as I had no prior knowledge about
research philosophy, research approach, and design. I had to read extensively to gather
knowledge about those and then finally had to pick the appropriate one for the study. I learnt
quite a lot about the data collection process, making a survey questionnaire, data analysis
techniques, and all the ethical issues about the research work. I got to know about the ethical
concerns while individuals are involved for primary data collection. Thus, it can be said that
writing a research proposal has been quite helpful for me as it not only increased my knowledge
about various subjects, such as, the Nigerian oil and gas industry, the SCM network in this
industry and the effectiveness of TQM, but also it helped me to enhance my knowledge about
other aspects of a research work as well as developed my patience, observation and interpretation
skills, which is beneficial for my personality development.