Quality Management for Airline Operations - Essay Example

Lecturer Unit Quality Management for Airline Operations Effective quality and safety management systems with essential control structure is crucial for the aviation industry to make sure that passengers are safe and the airlines meet the regulatory compliance requirements. Latest findings of non-compliance and the ensuing penalties enforced on airline companies by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have underlined, need to improve quality and safety systems. Airline companies that fail to improve their quality and safety may suffer considerable damage to their brand image and loss their market share. This paper seeks to explain quality and safety in the aviation industry and the way these two aspects related to each other. Safety Sroter explains that safety means various things to different people (stolen 14). The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines safety as “the condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury or loss” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary). The way this definition is employed, partially, depends on the situation. For example, if you stay close to a nuclear power plant, safety will imply that whatever occurs in that facility, it does not harmfully affect your health and welfare. For those building the nuclear power plant, safety implies efficient control and management of the nuclear chain reaction, efficient operations and prevention of leakage of radioactive materials. To those air passengers, the word “safety” basically means that they reach their destination without being harmed or injured. Since passengers do get injured on a number of occasions, it is reasonable to conclude that they are ready to accept a degree of risk when travelling. Consciously or subconsciously, passengers understand that there is some possibility, even if very small, that they could be injured or killed whilst travelling. However, for safety professionals, the term safety means much more. As defined by FAA safety “is the condition whereby the risk of injury to people or destruction to property is reduced to, and kept at or under, an acceptable point through continuous process of risk identification and risk management (FAA). This definition relates to safety management, it acknowledges that safety cannot be reduced to zero; rather it can be reduced to acceptable levels. In addition, the definition asserts that safety of an activity is evaluated against the acceptable levels, and it is continuous process. (Belobaba, et al 36) For the viewpoint of air passengers, there are two aspects of safe travel in air. The first one is avoiding aviation accidents, bearing in mind that airplanes travel hundreds of kilometers per hour at thousand of feet above the land, and if an accident happens, it is simply fatal. The second reason entails preventing terrorists and criminal acts that could harm the passengers Thus, for safety experts, safety means regular measurement, assessments ad feedback into a system. And this entails looking at the statistics to understand the level of safety. Measuring air safety Under this measure, it is assumed that air passengers’ biggest fear is getting killed in a plane crash. Therefore statistics concerning the possibility of an accident occurring would be of big interest. However, the specific statistics that is most reflective are those that show number of accidents, incidents and deaths. From the analysis of the statistics, a level of safety is ascertained. Quality In every industry, there is room for improvement. Companies that endeavor to improve have to do so in a systematic, consistent and planned manner. Supposing a company fails to collect the correct data, quality problems may not be correctly identified, and this may lead to wrong solutions being implemented, meaning the real problems will not be resolved. Quality in aviation industry focuses on improving the customer experience and satisfaction when using the services of the airline companies. As explained by Stolzer there are a number of aspects or concepts that quality addresses (Stolzer, et al. 23). These include customer focus, Stolzer, et al. explains that companies depends on their customers and thus have to understand present and future needs of their customers (Stolzer, et al. 23). Companies should therefore meet these requirements and try to surpass the expectations of the customer in terms of quality. There are a number of well recognized tools that can be applied in problem-solving or for process improvement. As noted by Stolzer, et al. these tools have been in use for a long period now. Below are seven of these tools, also referred to as basic quality tools (Stolzer, et al. 66). These include flowcharts, Pareto charts, cause and effect diagrams, check sheets, control charts, scatter diagrams and histograms. Most of these tools are applied in quality control and not control assurance; this is because of their ability in tracking, monitoring and evaluation of data. Elements of quality include training; focus on employees, communication, process improvements, continuous improvements, teamwork, employees involved, customer satisfaction and management commitment (Ishikawa 76). There is need for the leadership of the airline companies to involve their employees in quality management process, so that whatever quality the company wants to be achieve, maybe attained. This also relates to team work. There are must be teamwork to ensure for the employees to work together towards the same goal. There is also need for regular and effective communication in quality management; this ensures that both the management and the workers are able to understand each other. Through these measures and much more companies are able to attain high standards of work quality. Another aspect of quality is continual improvement. To ensure high quality, companies have to continual improved their performance. This can be done through use of performance measurement and benchmarking (Ishikawa 77). which will allow the company to know which areas needs to be improved and in which manner. Quality ensures leads to the following, consistency, decrease in risk of failure, decrease in operating cost, reduced delay time, better customer perceptions of the company or the industry, customer satisfaction and increased profits. Standards like the ISO are used to measure the level of quality in an industry. Thus, to know the level of quality with the aviation industry, ISO can be used, where certain standards are set, and which the companies operating in the industry, are expected to attain and keep. Those companies that fail to reach these standards would be seen as low quality companies. Still, there are regulations from industry regulators like the FAA, which also set quality standards and which companies have to maintain, or be fined if they fail to maintain them. Relationship between quality and safety Safety functions uses the processes of quality assurance as well as internal assessment to develop processes of ensuring that risk is controlled and the moment these processes are develop, to ensure that they follow required conditions to continue being effective. Quality assurance and assessment as well offers the foundation for continuous improvement in terms of safety. As explained by Stolzer, et al. safety assurance measures apply many similar practices as those applied in quality management (Stolzer, et al. 79). Nonetheless, in safety management, the need is to ensure risk controls, after they have been formulated and implemented, perform in manner that continues to adhere to safety objectives. Safety management uses the basic quality tools widely through its safety assurance. One particularly used quality tool for safety assurance is the flowchart. Achieving safety calls for strategic measure of processes developed to evaluate control effectiveness, and the best approach to achieve this is by using flow charts. Another aspect of quality that is directly related to safety is customer perspective (Ishikawa 94). The customer perspective is basic principle of quality, and its important perspective of safety in aviation. Customer perspective centers on satisfying the customer receiving services from the industry. Though this area is so obvious, its importance to safety is normally overlooked since some aviation companies find it to evaluate customer perspective. Even though the precision achievable in evaluating customer satisfaction is not great, aviation companies have to establish the suitable objectives, evaluations, targets and initiatives, there is need also to find out leading and lagging signs of customer satisfaction. The identified lagging signs would be used resolved and in doing so, this would improve safety assurance. Conclusion From the above discussion, it is clear that quality and safety are important aspect in aviation industry; the two are related but not same. Safety means free from injury or harm. Thus, air passengers when using the travelling by the airplanes expects to be to reach their destination safely, without being hurt or injured in any where. There are standards to measure of safe the air travelling is and these standards are based on number of accidents and death occurring within a certain period. Other factors are also used in measuring safety. On the other hand, quality entails the Quality in aviation industry are set standards that determine the level of service provided by a company. Quality is meant to improve the customer experience and satisfaction when using the services of the airline companies. There are various aspects that quality addresses. However, these two aspects are related with one another, and high quality promotes better safety and vice verse. Works Cited Belobaba, Peter, Amedeo Odoni and Cynthia Barnhart: The Global Airline Industry: 2009 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA): Safety and Quality Assurance: 2010. 11/10/ 2011; http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/avn/safety [website] Ishikawa Kaoru: What is Total Quality Control? NJ. Prentice Hall. Englewood Cliffs.1985 Stolzer, Alan J., Carl D. Halford, John Joseph Goglia: Safety management systems in aviation: Ashgate Publishing.2008 Read More