Application of Implementing Quality Management System - Essay Example

? QMS (Quality Management System) Table of Contents Introduction 3 Excellence Award 3 Transport Certification Australia (TCA) - Overview 4 Vision 4 Mission 4 Function 5 Specific Excellence Award at TCA 5 QMS 5 Specific Excellence Award and Criteria 6 Performance Measures 8 Quality Issue 12 Conclusion 15 Reference 17 List of Figures Figure No. Name of the Figure Page No. 1 ITS Excellence Award 7 2 IAP Key Players 9 3 Performance (Speed) Report 10 4 Performance Measure Framework 11 5 Quality Principles 12 Introduction Excellence Award In many parts of the world, respective quality assurance organization has introduced quality excellence award in order to recognize the effort of companies to improve quality. Quality excellence awards across different countries can be briefed as; Europe- EFQM Excellence Model is used to determine the receiver of European Quality Award, USA- , Baldrige National Quality award is given to companies who have exceptionally performed when it comes to ensuring quality, Australia- Australian Business Excellence Awards is given to companies performed exceptionally well to improve quality of production. Research findings of various research scholars such as Van der Wiele et al. (2001) shows that quality management system or quality excellence awards emphasizes on large set quality dimensions such as risk management, ensuring diversity, performing social responsibility, sustainability of the process, resource management, environmental safety, service delivery to customers, knowledge management, good governance etc. Valls and Vergueiro (2006) defined four types of benefits which can be achieved by implementing QMS or achieving quality excellence awards such as better customer service, reduction of error in process modelling, better financial result in terms of increase both in top line & bottom line growth and enhanced learning from environment. Meeting the 8 quality criteria mentioned by ISO can also help a firm to earn excellence award, these criteria can be summarized as; 1- Customer focus- meeting or exceeding customer requirement, 2- Leadership- engaging employees and participants in internal environment to ensure quality, 3- People- optimal utilization of human resources in order to ensure 100% involvement from them, 4- Process- optimal utilization of resources in order to improve the process flow, 5- System Approach- identification and control of interrelated processes, 6- Continual Improvement- continual growth and learning of the organization, 7- Factual Decision- taking decision on the basis of facts and information and 8- Mutually Beneficial Relationship- providing benefits to suppliers and other important stakeholders (ISO, 2012). As the study is narrowing its scope from general quality management system to quality assurance and excellence award in transportation field hence the study has decided to consider the case of Transport Certification Australia (TCA) as basal plane in the paper. Transport Certification Australia (TCA) - Overview Transport Certification Australia Limited (TCA) is founded by government agencies, territory and Australian government and representing states (Transport Certification Australia, 2013a). The company works under the Corporations Act (Cth) regulation and serves as quality assurance organization in the field of transportation in Australia. Vision TCA has the vision to serve as a leader in the field of quality advice to transportation agencies, providing accreditation & administrator services in order to improve mobility with the means of sensor solution, communication and information integration. Transport Certification Australia Limited provides the quality assurance to users with the help of its quality management system which specializes in identifying, delivering and deploying quality mechanism (Transport Certification Australia, 2013a). Mission When it comes to formulating a formidable and sustainable mission statement, TCA emphasizes on three verticals such as identifying quality needs, delivering quality assurance and deploying resources as safeguard for quality measures. Under the umbrella of quality identification, TCA has the mission to find out current and anticipated measures for deploying state of art quality measures which can improve the grade of overall quality assurance requirement for government. Under the deliver perspective, TCA offers well informed quality advice to stakeholders and government. Under the deployment mission, TCA offers accreditation services and customization of business model which can improve overall quality criteria (Transport Certification Australia, 2013a). . Function TCA works as a multifunction organization and offers of range of services such as, auditing and managing the quality criteria to certify a particular transport entity, certify or cancel the quality certification of IAP Service Providers, communicating and co-coordinating information of IAP, monitoring the technology integration and development in the field of quality management, liaise with Australian government regarding quality certification, implement or audit public-purpose road-transport reform certification and manage public-purpose transport projects (Transport Certification Australia, 2013a). Specific Excellence Award at TCA Discussion about quality excellence award is incomplete without defining quality management system which is designed to control or measure quality. Hence, before going to the discussion about quality excellence award at TCA the case will shed light on nature of Quality management systems (QMS). QMS According to Rusjan and Alic (2010) Quality management systems (QMS) is an useful process which helps companies to maintain and control quality in the production process. Martinez-Costa and Martinez-Lorente (2003) argued that ensuring quality in the production or transportation process has hardly any relationship with process standardization. Martinez-Costa and Martinez-Lorente (2007) defined quality management system as systematic framework which helps companies to reduce error margin in production process. Terziovski et al. (2003) and Jang and Lin (2008) showed that companies try to take help of International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards in order to ensure quality in production system. Van der Wiele et al. (2001) pointed out that companies try to improve the quality in production process in order to gain quality certification such as ISO 9000 or ISO 9001 from the respective organization. Gotzamani (2007) raised the pertinent question that apart from marketing reasons of internal drive for improving quality, there can be hardly any reason behind a firm’s willingness to implement quality management system. Specific Excellence Award and Criteria TCA has won several awards in the field of road transport, logistics, and environmental safety. For example, in 2012, TCA was the winner Transport and Logistics Excellence Award which was given by Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport Australia (CILTA) (Transport Certification Australia, 2013b). The award is given to those transport agencies which has performed exceptionally well when it comes to protect environment through improvement of quality in logistics & transport. TCA won this excellence award for its operation in terms of Intelligent Access Program (IAP) which has helped the agency to reduce carbon footprint in logistics and transportation activities (Transport Certification Australia, 2013b). TCA was also the winner of Environmental Excellence Award in 2012 and the award is given by Supply Chain and Logistics Association (SCLA). The company has won this award due to its National Telematics Framework which helps the agency to monitor transport activities on the Toowoomba to Port of Brisbane corridor (Transport Certification Australia, 2013b). Due to implementation National Telematics Framework, TCA also won the Leadership in Logistics Operations Environment Award in 2012. There is no doubt that conjoint impact of IAP and Telematics framework has significantly helped TCA to improve the quality of road transport and environmental sustainability. Apart from this excellence awards, TCA also won the ITS Excellence Award in 2011 for its excellent work on quality with the help of integration of National Telematics Framework in order to improve the road safety and transport monitoring in Port of Brisbane corridor (Transport Certification Australia, 2013b). National ITS Award memento can be depicted in the following manner. Figure 1: ITS Excellence Award (Source: Transport Certification Australia, 2013b) The researcher will use the specific criteria for excellence award mentioned Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport Australia (CILTA) in order to understand why TCA got Transport and Logistics Excellence Award while others fail to grab the award. According to official publication of CILTA, assessment criteria for the excellence award can be depicted in the following manner; The organization needs to make substantial amount of contribution to reduce the amount of carbon footprint, green house gas emission and other environmental pollutant in the logistics and transport activities. Any kind of application implemented by the organization needs to demonstrate and specify how it can adopt and implement environmental sustainability program. The organization needs to provide measurable account for its effort to reduce carbon footprint in the transport and logistics activities (Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport Australia, 2012). According to report published by CILTA (2012), Department of Transport and Main Roads QLD and TCA worked under a strategic partnership in order to decrease environmental impact in transportation. Combining On-Board Mass (OBM) with IAP helped TCA to ensure required regulatory assurance for meeting PBS or performance based standards needed to transport 2B freight vehicles through Port of Brisbane. TCA improved the efficiency level of 100% by increasing its payload capacity for containers. With the increase of payload capacity, TCA has become able to carry twice the load and decrease number of vehicle trips to perform equal amount of freight task. Reduction in transport movement has subsequently helped TCA to decrease fuel usage and environmental emissions which has ultimately resulted in enhancement in supply chain productivity and improved safety measures (Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport Australia, 2012). Upon reading this far of the case study, readers might question how TCA meets the assessment criteria designed for excellence award and what performance measures it takes to meet those criteria? Well, next section of the case study will try to answer these questions. Performance Measures There is no doubt that TCA heavily uses telematics in order to provide array of transport solutions to clients for example assisting drivers to drive in the right direction in the road, tracking vehicles, loading items in truck. TCA has defined its national telematics framework as the integrated system which has the capabilities to integrate communication, information and sensor programming in order to help transport vehicles to reach destination without deviating from the route (Transport Certification Australia, 2013c). TCA has invested significant amount in order to develop its national telematics framework. Although telematics was private initiative by TCA to improve its transport performance but Intelligent Access Program (IAP) was actually an Australian government initiative (Dang et al., 2010). TAC integrated the IAP with its telematics framework in order to accurately monitor the freight transport and loading in vehicles which enables the transport partners to maximize the road infrastructure performance. Australian government has given the authority to TCA to administrate the IAP and TCA has strategically used this allowance as an opportunity to improve performance in transportation. Now, as part of IAP, TCA uses geo-positioning system or GPS facility to monitor performance of transportation in terms of temporal, special, mass, speed and types of environment. Performance measurement framework can be depicted in the following manner. Figure 2: IAP Key Players (Source: Dang et al., 2010) TCA works as administrator of IAP located in the core part of the system and other three players such as jurisdiction authority, transportation authority and IAP service vendor works as boundary member. Jurisdiction authority handles the legal issues which may cause by IAP intervention while transport authority enrol particular IAP programme offered through jurisdiction authority. Interesting fact is that prior 2010, TCA took help of third party telematics company for accessing the IAP Service but recently it has developed own telematics capability monitor transportation of heavy vehicles under the Intelligent Access Conditions (IACs) guidelines (Transport Certification Australia, 2013c). Apart from technical specification, there are other reasons why TCA implemented IAP to improve performance. In such context, the study will use the theoretical argument of research scholars such Heaver (2001) and Young and O’Byrne (2001). According to these research scholars, any logistic performance measurement has to address the economic and customer benefits in order to ensure sustainability. TCA has also taken into account the cost benefits associated with the newly implemented transportation performance measurement system. Following sections will discuss the performance measurement verticals for TCA. Speed TCA introduced IAP and calibrated it with configurable speed threshold which restricts vehicles from crossing a speed limit in the road and the mechanism was designed in order to improve road safety (Dang et al., 2010). In any vehicle exceeds the speed limit then IAP automatically generates a NCR report and deliver it to jurisdiction authority. Then the jurisdiction sends the report to transport operator and the operator now takes action against the vehicle which are continuously breaking the speed limit. TCA also used the roadside cameras and human observation in order to measure behaviour of heavy vehicles and prepare the report. For example, suppose a vehicle operates in a 12 hour shift from 8am to 8pm and jurisdiction committee has decided its speed limit to be around 105km, now suppose that the vehicle exceeds the speed limit for 5mins of less during driving. Hence the performance report might look like the following diagram; Figure 3: Performance (Speed) Report (Source: Dang et al., 2010) According to the above model, TCA will use this frequency report in order to warn transport authority to monitor irrational driving of heavy vehicles. As a result of the entire process, drivers get cautious about irrational driving behaviour and subsequently no. of accidents decreases in the road transportation. The above examples are showing that how TCA has improved its performance measures regarding road safety while the same measures has helped the company to achieve National ITS Award for quality excellence. Figure 4: Performance Measure Framework (Source: Dang et al., 2010) According to the above model, TCA has improved its performances in terms of road safety, environmental safety, improvement of quality of road infrastructure etc by creating data driven decision checkbox. The agency heavily uses telematics system in order to identify the optimal capacity of vehicles or decrease the road accidents. Conjoint framework of National Telematics design and IAP helps TCA to generate performance data on every activity and the data helps the agency to identify performance discrepancies and take corrective measures to improve the performance. The above model is also showing that, TCA works in line with jurisdiction authority and transport authority in order to improve quality of transportation in Australia. Using Wide Area Network (WAN) has also helped TCA to interchange the performance data in responsive manner. Quality Issue 8 principles of quality have been mentioned in the previous section from the viewpoint of ISO but British Quality Foundation has modified the quality concepts to by adjusting all the 8 principles of quality. British Quality Foundation (2013) decides the excellence of service offering by giving equal importance on above mentioned 8 quality concepts. Figure 5: Quality Principles (Source: British Quality Foundation, 2013) All of these 8 criteria can be linked with the above mentioned performance measures and their impact can be understood by identifying three phases such as before, during and after meeting the criteria of the excellent award. 8 Quality Concept Before During After Adding Value to Customers TCA fails to provide service supports such as road safety infrastructure, calculating optimal capacity of freight vehicle. During implementation of Telematics framework, TCA was able to provide support at small scale. Chance of Accidents in the road decreased and enhanced loading capacity of vehicle has reduced transportation cost. Sustainable Future TCA was unable to decrease the carbon footprint in the transportation. As part of testing, TCA increased loading capacity of vehicle to 50t GCM. Heavy vehicles can carry up to 79t GCM which alternatively decreased number of transportation trips. Decreasing transportation frequency also decreased carbon emission and ensures environmental sustainability. Organizational Capability TCA had limited knowledge about telematics and IAP. Negotiating with government to gain access to IAP. Capable of providing both regulatory and non-regulatory telematics solution. Innovation Following traditional mechanism to ensure quality in road transport. N/A After meeting the criteria of excellence award, TCA has successfully connected jurisdiction authority and transport authority in order to improve quality of road transport. Leadership TCA was a mere transportation body prior achieving the award. N/A After achieving excellence award, TCA achieved the leadership position when it comes to accrediting environmental and road safety to transportation in Australia. Agility TCA was not responsive enough to decreasing no. of road accidents. Started working on NCR report automation process. TCA is able to prepare NCR report on the basis of discrete events and can readily communicate with transport authority through WAN. People Very few officials had the idea about training and development in TCA. Project wise training regarding the usage of telematics facility was given to employees. TCA is regarded for its talented engineers and technical support teams who have the knowledge level and expertise to support client. Sustainability TCA used its third party vendors as the supplier of tracking system. N/A TCA started working with its third party vendors for telematics system and Australian government for IAP system in order accomplish transportation projects by ensuring mutual benefits. (Source: Dang et al., 2010) It is evident from the above table, that TCA has taken the help of technical support facility in order to improve the quality of environment, road infrastructure and transport safety. Research scholars such as Kahraman et al. (2003) and Holguin-Veras and Thorson (2003) have also stressed on the fact that technological integration in the transport system is a must requirement for ensuring quality. Hence, it can be said that TCA uses systematic and scientific approach to ensure quality to achieve excellence award. Conclusion It is evident from the above discussion that quality excellence award is a good measure to encourage organizations to improve their process quality and also performance. Following the 8 quality principles has not only helped TCA to earn excellence award but also helped them to provide value to customers. Historical data analysis shows that TCA has achieved excellence award in the field of quality environmental safety and road transport safety. In both cases, TCA has emphasized heavily on state of art technologies such as telematics, electronic data interchange (EDI), Intelligent Access Program to control and improve quality. The case is also showing that there is scope to conduct sensitivity analysis which might reveal the quality improvement by TCA in quantitative manner. Implementing telematics or any other technological applications has also simplified the monitoring and accrediting practices for TCA. Simplification of process has decreased steps in monitoring system and as a result, cost of the whole process has reduced. Hence it can be concluded that, achieving excellence award has not only guaranteed leadership position to TCA but also helped the agency to earn economic benefits. Reference British Quality Foundation., 2013. Fundamental Concepts of Excellence. [online] Available at: [Accessed 19 June 2013]. Cai, D., Dang, J., Karl, C. A. and Koniditsiotis, C., 2010. Australian’s Intelligent Access Program (IAP): Enabling Improved Road Safety Outcomes. [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 19 June 2013]. Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport Australia., 2012. CILTA National T&L Industry Excellence Awards 2012. [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 19 June 2013]. Gotzamani, K. D., 2007. The contribution to excellence of ISO 9001: The case of certified organisations in Cyprus. The TQM Magazine, 19(5), pp. 388-402. Heaver, T. D., 2001. Handbook of Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Perspectives on Global Performance Issues. Oxford: Elsevier. Holguin-Veras, J. and Thorson, E., 2003. 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