Introduction
The maritime industry is an important portal to business, transport and communication as it connects the land through the seas and water (Kim, 2001, pg 95). There are a number of industries that depend entirely on the maritime industry since transport on water provides maximum efficiency on bulk cargo. It is the reason that the maritime industry has to be structured so as to deliver goods in time, in bulk and in the safest way and conditions possible.
There are strategies laid down that affect the supply chain in the maritime industry. The strategies are to ensure that water transport faces the list hitches in its operations. It is the reason that studies, innovation and technology is invested in the operations and even the physical aspects of the industry. This paper highlights the components of efficient maritime operations basing on management and supply strategies.
Total Quality Management
The assurance that a product or service accorded to a customer is of the highest quality determines the satisfaction of the customer (Business, 2014, pg 604). Products or services maintained by companies are expected to be of the quality preferred by the customer. This way, there can be satisfaction from the customer as well as the company. The company benefits through the profits enabled by the customers who buy from them while customers benefit by gaining the quality they require from the products and services.
There is need for a company dealing in products and services to first establish a quality in their endeavors. This way, it can control and maintain its products, customers and even the business aspects in its objectives. The quality is important in ensuring that the customer prefer the particular company. It enables one company to maintain a competitive edge over another company. Quality of the products or services determines the prices that the company can put forward. This way, companies have to do their best to ensure there is quality in the products and the services that they offer.
There are a number of principles that have to be maintained in order to realize quality. The maritime industry also considers quality assurance as a sure way to maintain its customer’s loyalty and improve the business continuation. Principles involved in meeting and maintaining quality in the maritime industry include employee involvement, customer satisfaction and continuous improvement. It means that the efforts to produce quality are determined by the business environment in the company. This includes the customers, the employees and even the management. They work together to determine and improve the industry services, culture, processes and the products (ASQ, 2016, web page 5).
Total Quality Management is an effective method of ensuring the customer is satisfied. It encompasses the utilization of data, strategy and effective communication in a bid to foster quality involvement in the company. The customer is the most important asset in the business, he or she has to be satisfied and be loyal to the brands of the company. This is the reason that the customer is at the center piece for push for quality of products and services.
Employee involvement in determining the quality of services in the maritime industry depends on the following aspects. Their fears have to be eliminated in order to achieve commitment and total compliance to the standards and regulation of the workplace. It means that the employees have to be trained to handle the various obligations of the industry. This way, processes will be handled in the best practices mode and a strict following of the laid down strategies.
Employee full involvement depends on the confidence and motivation at the workplace. This therefore involves the empowerment of the employees with the right environment. The environment at the workplace involves the working strategies and processes as well as good governance from the management. There is power in team work and this is one of the ways that industry processes can be effected in order to ensure employees are empowered to work together as well as achieve company quality goals (Daft, 2014, pg 320).
The participation of the employees through groups gives them an edge to self-management. This method is important in determining the working relationship of the employees and the goals of the company. This is the reason that the industry has to standardize their methods of operations in order to bring to terms quality to the employees. Employee’s working together on a ship for example one is working on determining the number of cargo on the ship and the other works on determining offloading are bound to work closely. The close relationship is maintained in order to ease their individual work. Another factor is that they depend on each other for reference purposes.
Close relationships between company departments helps the work to flow flawlessly. This is one concept that helps the industry to progress with the quality standards. You find that there is communication within the departments on the ways to achieve customer satisfaction. This becomes a routine and therefore quality or customer satisfaction becomes a norm in the particular industry. The departments integrate their practices where they aim to accomplish their tasks in an organized and timely manner and you find that quality is the main thing they target in service and product delivery.
Processes are other methods that the industry uses to determine quality. This is because processes are a step by step methods in which a company achieves its obligations. It means that the processes are determined in a conclusive manner before they are actually effected. This way, if the company aims to achieve quality standards, it strives to include the notion in its processes. Continuous observance of quality in the processes of operations therefore determines the final products or services.
Communication is an important aspect in determining the quality in an industry. Quality assurance through communication is done when there is a link between the customer, the products, the company and the various departments. This is because the various entities are interconnected in a way and therefore they have to learn from each other. The learning is done through sharing information and it is the reason that the departments have to be interconnected. Communication is vital in ensuring that every department does its job in an exceptional manner.
The best way that communication can be used in an organization is through consideration of tasks, products, time and even the satisfaction and customer preferences. The tasks in a company require communication which is done in a chronological manner. An example is when loading cargo on the ship, the storage department has to issue the alert of the storage space. This information is relayed to the loading department in order to give them the amount of storage space and the nature of cargo to be stored. This means that the loading department is given the exact number in weight, in quantity and nature of cargo to be loaded. This gives the department an easy time in transporting the goods.
Communication can help the industry to improve their services. This is through having information on the nature of cargo being transported. There are instances when certain types of cargo are transported than others, while there are some that maintain consistency. This way, a company knows how to subdivide the tasks and even the ships in terms of specialization. Getting to a specialized unit of operation means that the quality of the service is enhanced. This is because each department is mandated with a service that suits them best. This makes it easy to deal with a specialized service than general services. The more a department concentrates on a particular service, the better the output.
Process improvement is another method in which the industry uses to maintain quality. There is an advantage in dealing with processes especially in the maritime industry. The processes at most are the same on every mission and therefore they are bound to be improved as the missions continue to be undertaken. The most promising concept is that every process in the mission tends to educate the undertaker. This way, there is an importance studying the processes as they are effected and devising means to improve them. The company has to take a keen interest in the ongoing processes so as to devise better methods of operations as they continue to progress.
Quality assurance depends entirely on the customer (Shahin & Dabestani, 2010, pg 263). This means that the customer opinions matter a lot in determining quality of the products and services. The customer has to approve the satisfaction of a certain service in order for it to be considered viable. Approval comes in two major ways, which includes opinions and utilization of the service or product by the customer. The customer opinion has to be sought through a survey, study or through voluntary information dissemination. This is to mean that the company seeks information from the customers directly, it sends agents in the field to observe the behavior of the customers or customers drop their opinions about the quality of services.
Seeking information from the customers can be done through promotions, online surveys or even research strategies. The objectives of this venture have to be based on obtaining opinions on quality. Online surveys include questions on the practices of the company that the customers are interested with and the ones that need improvement or scrapping. This information is sieved through the highest and lowest number variables. The instances where field research is used can be through specific customers or even the suppliers. This is to mean that a customer is requested to feel out a form about the services. Those practices that are determined to have a low count from the customers can be scrapped or better improved.
ISO 9000
There is improved standards with the introduction of the ISO family. The International Organization for Standardization is based in Switzerland and it is a nongovernmental organization. This organization works to oversee and brand companies that maintain quality standards. It is a family of quality standards management that bases on products, services, processes and even the culture of an industry. The main focus of this family (ISO) is based on the processes that a company uses to operate. It is not concerned with the output of the company, to be certified also requires a voluntary gesture from the associated company.
The maritime industry requires certification in order to be in line with the needs of the customer. The certification of a company in the industry ensures that the customer develop trust in the particular company. This is the reason that the various companies strive to meet the requirements of certification.
ISO 9000:2000 requires that a company focuses on continuous improvement of its services (Kumar, 2013, pg 4). It means that production of a company has to base on regular improvement processes. This way the services of the company keep rising so as to attract more customers and fulfil their various needs.
Lean Production and Supply Chain
It is an elite supply chain that consists various players that work with a target to meet the supply chain objectives (Intrieri, 2015, pg 2). There are methods in which Lean supply can be determined and maintained in the maritime industry. Supply is important in ensuring that the manufacturer reaches the consumer. This is to mean that the manufacturer has to deliver the product to the consumer in order to fulfil the duty of supply. Supply means that the product moves from the supplier to reach the consumer in the best condition required.
Therefore, to ensure that supply is done in profitable way, the company has to set up a supply management team or strategy. This way the team has to look into the various metrics involved in supply that include reduction of wastes in the supply chain (Thompson, et al., 2015, pg 17), involve the use of technology so as to enhance supply, avail customer usage information to the suppliers, use Kanban and other pull systems in supply, use of variation reduction and throughput methods to increase velocity and also consider the costs of supply operations.
Reduction of wastes in the supply chain involves the elimination of complexities in the chain. This is bound to reduce the holdup time and improve delivery of products and services to the various consumers. The complexity in the system contributes to the holdup time which would need more time to clear in order to continue with the supply structures. The system complexities are brought about by unnecessary steps in the supply chain. There elimination is important to ensure that the supply goals are achieved at the minimum time possible so as to guarantee the objectives of efficient supply.
Technological improvement helps in efficient production as well as supply. This is because the processes tend to experience a boost from the slow pace of manual operations. An example of improved processing in the supply chain is the use of cranes in loading cargo to a ship. This entails the use of technology to efficiently achieve the supply chain demands by reducing the time spent on loading. Technology is important in giving the chain an edge through communication, software use in inventory determination, and storage of files in virtual clouds to be accessed by suppliers and producers and even ensuring safety of products through airtight storage facilities in the ships.
An example of a secure supply strategy has been upheld by DHL Company. The company has the characteristic of investing in temperature controlled technologies that aim to keep the goods on transit in their required condition. This is the best method to ensure that the quality of service is maintained. Temperature controlled logistics ensure that food, medicines and other fragile goods maintain their standards even when being moved from one point to the other.
The supply chain requires the involvement of the various partners. The partners have to share and access information on the various inventory. The inventory may consist raw materials, products being worked on, goods that are in transit, parts used in service and dead stock. This helps them to make decisions involving the quantity to supply, the preferred quantity and even the best markets for products. The ability of the supply partners to have visibility on the various components of inventory helps the supply chain to attain and maintain efficiency and eliminate the holdup time.
The agility brought by lean production terms the practice as high risk as well as a high return venture (Krafcik, 1988, pg 6). The process requires high precision in care and therefore management and the employees have to be prepared to deal with it. Any possible mishap leads to catastrophic failure that brings major loses. The process despite its ability to have a number of dangers in its failures has a tremendous degree of returns. This is because it bases on the processes of observing inventory and any traces of problems.
Lean production involves studying the production and progress of the company. The main indicators are based on flexibility of the company, the quality of products and services and its general productivity. Flexibility is based on the ability of the company to adapt to competitive change and innovation strategies in order to remain relevant. This shows that the company has to invest in studies to ensure that market information is collected and analyzed for the benefit of production. Productivity measure is focused on the quantity of a company’s output.
Productivity puts in effect the various resources placed at the disposal of gaining quantity. Productivity is affected by the materials, the processes and the resources that a company invests in the process. The materials are the raw materials needed for production which can be close to the company or far in the sense that they require to be supplied. The processes of production include the various departmental involvements which include the processing of raw materials into finer forms to the completion and packaging of the products. The resources are the skills, the human resources and machinery that help in production.
Lean production depends on various methods of operation. They include preventive maintenance which is a method of determining flaws in production. The flaws may be experienced before production is finished and therefore they have to be dealt with before they develop into major catastrophes. Preventive maintenance helps to minimize wastes which would be brought by inefficiency in the machineries. The machines have to maintained and serviced to avoid collapsing in the middle of production.
Lean production also requires the workers to be up to the point in processes. It means that they have to monitor the machinery and ensure they work efficiently to meet the intended goals. Kanban is a necessary method in production, it is a way of signaling the necessary or required process. Kanban is a pull system that considers displaying the ongoing production system, it can be a visual card or display color. The colors are arranged differently and are familiarized by the partaker of the job. It helps to reduce mistakes that may occur during production.
Conclusion
The quality of products and services is important in determining the business perspective of a company and the industry at large. Lean production and supply works to minimize the time and inefficiency experienced in production and supply. The importance of quality assurance is to save the business aspect of the industry and the supply chain. The supply chain has to be interlinked in order to work efficiently as stipulated by the necessary regulations.
Quality assurance is one method that determines the processes of a company. This is because quality shows the seriousness of the company to fulfil its customer requirements and achieve business goals. The involvement of the ISO 9000 family in industrial processes is to ensure that companies achieve quality standards.
Recommendation
The maritime industry requires a high level of precision in order to improve the standards of service. This is the reason that the industry has to embrace innovation and stringent measures to determine the quality of products supplied and services involved in the supply chains.
There is need to include research in determining the best practices in quality assurance and efficient supply strategies. The research should be aimed at gaining the customer preferences on products and services. This way, the continual determination of quality can be achieved.
References
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