Efficiency factors and ecosystem framework in Malaysian halal food certification system / Nurulhuda Noordin

The halal market has grown tremendously due to the Muslims’ global demand of halal quality on products as prescribed by the shariah law. Halal is accepted as a quality standard and is applied to product supply and manufacturing encompassing processed food, cosmetics, pharmaceutical and medical products. Halal suppliers or manufacturers must abide to the halal quality regulation enforced by the public, semipublic and private regulatory bodies offering halal certification. These regulatory bodies play an important role within the halal supply chain as their operational efficiency may effect the efficiency and the competitiveness of the halal industry. This research is conducted to investigate the strategic approach on halal quality management to address operational efficiency of the halal food certification system using the Malaysian halal certification as a case study. The case study comprises of activities that investigate the factors that influence operational efficiency of halal certification before proceeding with a detailed and holistic description of the halal ecosystem as a strategic approach. A preliminary study that was conducted to gauge the relevancy of this work revealed that the halal certification enforcement is plagued with a diversity of issues centered on inefficient work process due to the lack of manpower, scarce use of technology and reliance of manual work process and governance structure that slows down the certification process. Two main studies were further conducted to investigate the perspective of the supply and demand sides of halal certification. The first study looks into the supply side where face-to-face interviews were conducted with representatives of halal regulatory bodies from the public, semi-public and private regulatory bodies followed by document reviews of the practice. The second study looks into the demand side where face-to-face interviews were conducted with processed food manufacturers to determine issues of halal certificate application. A qualitative analysis on each study was done to determine factors that influence the operational efficiency of the halal certification process. A further analysis using value chain analysis and work systems method were conducted to produce a new halal value chain, a new halal work system and a new detailed view of the halal ecosystem. From the halal ecosystem, a new halal governance structure is also carved out. The outcomes of this research contribute to the knowledge on strategic use of information systems where religous view is an important part of the organizational structure.