Study-Unit Description

Study-Unit Description


CODE MGT1201

 
TITLE Service Quality Assurance

 
UM LEVEL 01 - Year 1 in Modular Undergraduate Course

 
MQF LEVEL 5

 
ECTS CREDITS 4

 
DEPARTMENT Management

 
DESCRIPTION The study-unit will allow practitioners to apply service quality assurance ideas and methods to the planning and movement to destination of goods and people via air, land, and water, and to the management of the related information and information flows

The study-unit aims to impart knowledge and develop skills set out in the study unit aims section with the indicative content described below

Service
The course will discuss the service economy, definitions of and the intrinsic nature of services. Differences between service delivery, manufacturing, and project work will be presented; services will be discussed as commodities that are frequently delivered simultaneously / synchronously, and that are intangible, perishable / cannot be stored. E-services will be shown to present departures

Quality: a contemporary view
Quality in the wider economy will be discussed, followed by quality in the service sector and quality in competitive and non-competitive situations Quality will also be discussed:
- in the consolidation and the growth cycle
- as thought and practice leadership
- as excellence, innovation, care, stakeholder satisfaction, agility and responsiveness
- as inclusiveness and personalization
- as consistent improvement of outcomes and perceptions
- as early insight into latent and emerging needs
- as predictability and trustworthiness
- as environmental sustainability
- as organizational resilience and business continuity
- in relation to risk management, and
- as delivery on time, within budget, and with the minimum loss in the wide sense, including monetary cost, loss to society; environmental, health and safety losses, etc.
Quality will also be discussed as protection of the confidentiality, completeness and accuracy of information, and as the availability of information and of services

Quality: history, philosophy and evolution
The post-WW2 history and philosophy of quality will be traced, and the contributions of some major thinkers on quality, such; as G Taguchi, S Shingo, K Ishikawa, P Crosby, W E Deming and J Juran will be presented
The evolution of this thinking from control to assurance; from downstream inspection to upstream planning, from emphasis on product to accent on process, from quality in manufacturing to quality of services will be discussed. Total Quality Management (TQM) and Company-Wide-Quality-Control (CWQC) will be presented
Systems thinking will be presented. The notion of systems and processes will be presented, and systems evolution in time will be shown to be a fruitful paradigm for service quality improvement. Service requests, their servicing, service description, turnaround time, throughput, average demand, peak demand, demand spikes, service availability, uptime / downtime, system bottlenecks, saturated resource, service levels, service metrics, MTBF, MTTR, and feedback will be discussed

Continual improvement of services will be discussed both as economically and socially desirable, and as technically feasible. Sound quality techniques may yield some of; service novelty, improvements in service levels, falling environmental impacts, improved health and safety and enhanced information security, sometimes concurrently and/or at falling cost

Quality Models
The course will discuss the EFQM Quality Model, together with some of; the CQI, the Singaporean, the New Zealand, the Australia Quality Model, the India CII Exim Bank model, the Ibero-american, the Japan, the Deming and the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Models

Management systems for service
The notion of QMS (quality management system) as a corpus of company process will be presented; the course will present the need for management and technical processes that are systematic, integrated and seamless. The use of electronic QMS delivery mechanisms – Intranets, Extranets, B2E, Workflow applications will be presented, with brief highlights of process automation – ERP (enterprise resource planning), SCM (supply chain management), CRM (customer relationship management) and the related electronic record keeping and traceability

The “ilities” of systems and services
The quality stance set out above, in “a contemporary view” will be formalized in terms of a number of desirable technical characteristics (“ilities”) of systems and services
The course will highlight some such characteristics, e.g. functionality, reliability, usability, accessibility, maintainability, serviceability, scalability, interoperability, etc. These are qualities that an organization’s IT / software applications need to capture and reflect

The “ilities” – data
Data and economic activity will be discussed as being inextricably linked, especially in the inherently information-rich service sector. Data quality will be discussed as an important facet of service quality

Like the systemic and service properties listed above, data quality has been formalized as sets of desirable characteristics of data. The course will discuss such data “dimensions” e.g. as in ISO 15489, as used by, for example, the OECD, and Eurostat. Example characteristics include; relevance, accuracy, credibility, timeliness, accessibility, interpretability, coherence and cost-efficiency

Content and processes of a QMS for services
The course will discuss the need for QMS procedures, frequently automated through software applications – for activities such as service research, design, delivery, distribution, marketing, servicing and maintenance. The need to project manage the introduction of new services, to tune / upgrade existing services, and to withdraw others will be discussed
Service quality planning, Service Charters and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) will be treated; market / stakeholder / opinion surveys, and complaint handling will be discussed as examples of VOC

Sound methods for the gathering of service data, and its use for ongoing corrective and preventive actions will be presented; the Pareto principle, root-cause / cause/effect analysis, Fishbone diagrams, FMEA (failure mode and effects analysis)
The planning of controls such as formalized; verification, validation, IV&V, review, testing, 1st party, 2nd party, and 3rd party audit, corporate audit policy, audit planning and audit programme management and accredited certification will be discussed

Controls may be on; policies, strategies, physical layouts, plans, SLAs, trends, budgets, schedules, routes, estimates, calculations, variances (e.g. actuals vs. estimates), designs, changes, projects, data/databases, specifications, software/applications, bids and proposals, costing/pricing, service input, intermediate products, and output, and technology deployments, among other

The design, implementation and maintenance of a flexible QMS will be presented as an undertaking requiring multidisciplinary knowledge and cross-functional experience; e.g. in market intelligence, customer relationship and supply chain management, economics, HR and organization, accountancy, engineering, IT, information systems and in management and technical standards and norms

Continuous service improvement
Improvement will be discussed in activities such as; planning, service design, scheduling, routing, estimation, sizing, procurement, supplier contact, support, servicing, maintenance, customer contact, complaint handling, etc.
The course will discuss the use of methods suitable for service quality improvement – targeting both substantive service novelty as well as fine tuning. Improvement objectives may also include; the reduction of variability, the elimination of waste, and the reduction of avoidable movement

Methods such as the mystery shopper (VOC), customer / employee opinion surveys (VOC), corporate and service benchmarking, balanced scorecarding (BSC), horizon scanning activity, and DMAIC approaches to improvement typical of Six Sigma will be discussed
These approaches will be shown to enable for-profit organizations to selectively target cost-reduction / revenue generation in their corporate strategies
Service quality futures?
This will be an open ended-discussion, and one that will evolve from year to year. A tentative agenda as at the time of writing is:
What will the direction and pace of change in quality discourse be?
Will change be evolution, or disruptive breaks?
What role will the Internet, miniaturization, wirelesses and mobility have on quality discourse?
What role will present and future emergent economies have?
How will the “ilities” above fare in the face of the need for ever more agility? … ever more security? What tradeoffs?
Will the above points dent the “contemporary view of quality” presented above, making it passé?

Note:
As ISO and BS standards are periodically revised or superseded, the course content will reflect normative developments


Study-unit Aims

Service delivery ranges from labor-intensive, knowledge-based, iterative, personalized interactions among humans, to standardized exchanges between a human and a machine, to programmed Internet-enabled technology exchanges between remote systems, software, etc. on the service-giver and the service-receiver ends. E-services in logistics and transportation include B2B, B2C, B2G / G2B and B2E interactions with global geographical reach on a 24x7x365 basis

The study-unit will deliver a broadly based discussion of service, quality, and assurance concepts and approaches that will be applicable to the range of service delivery scenarios traced out above

This study-unit content will interest organizations and employees in logistics and transportation such as in Regulators, Ports, Airports, Road and Rail, Shipping lines, Airlines, Postal operators, Warehousing companies, Agents/Intermediaries, and their service-providers, such as Call Centres / Service Desks, Data Centres, etc.

Students are encouraged to seek synergies and synthesis with insights gained from their work experience and from other courses on economics, transportation policy and planning, managing logistics and transportation operations, health and safety, sustainability in logistics and transportation, research methods, and quantitative methods

Learning Outcomes

1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to:

1. pursue further academic and/or professional study in the field
2. propose service quality assurance to peers as an organization-wide issue, a holistic top-management concern, and a permanent objective of all internal and external providers / individuals at all levels and in all activities of an organization
3. recognize service excellence as the organization, people, processes, and automation / technology that together cohesively deliver the mission of a service organization
4. describe service quality assurance as including responsive processes for the feasibility, conception, design, development, procurement, delivery and withdrawal of services
5. think innovatively about their workplace and its providers, taking back to their organization concepts, knowledge and management practices that promote trustworthiness of fast-reactive logistics and transportation supply chains
6. analyze and evaluate real-world quality issues in this conceptual framework

2. Skills (including transferable [generic] skills): By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to:

1. put forward a view on and for service excellence in management’s strategic envisioning and decision making
2. contribute to planning, review, V&V, audit, and service benchmarking activities, identifying improvement opportunities
3. depending on their work experience upon joining the course, articulate management documents of significant impact to the organizations and/or assume management roles in service quality assurance

Main Text/s and any supplementary readings

Main texts – Books

- De Bono, E. (1999) Simplicity, UK: Penguin Books Ltd.
- Goetsch, D. and Davis, S. (2006) Quality Management: Introduction to Total Quality Management for Production, Processing and Services, 5th Ed. Prentice Hall
- Kelley, T. (2008) Ten Faces of Innovation – strategies for heightening creativity, Profile Books
- Mackeown, M. (2008) The Truth about Innovation, Great Britain: Pearson/Prentice Hall
- Vorley, G., and Tickle, F. (2002) Quality Management Tools and Techniques, Quality Management & Training (publications)
- Wash, M. (2007) 54 Tools and Techniques for Business Excellence, UK: Management Books 2000 Ltd.

Main texts – Normative References

BS 7000-3:1994 Design management systems. Guide to managing service design

BS 7000-1:2008 Design management systems. Guide to managing innovation

ISO 9001, International Organisation for Standardization, Geneva

Supplementary readings – Normative References
ISO 20000-1:2005, “Information Technology – Service management” – Part 1: Specification, International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, Switzerland
(This international standard is related to ITIL – the IT Information Library)

ISO 15489-1:2001, “Information and documentation – Records management” – Part 1: General, International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, Switzerland

ISO/IEC 27001:2005, “Information technology – Security techniques – Information security management systems ¬– Requirements”, International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, Switzerland

Supplementary readings – Books

- Carmagnola, F. (1991) Luoghi della Qualita’ – Estetica e tecnologia nel postindustriale, Milano, Italia: Domus Academy
- Dorfles, G. (1996) Design – percorsi e trascorsi, Milano, Italia: Lupetti
- Hand, J. (2008) Statistics – A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press
- Managing Successful Projects with Prince 2, OGC – Office of Government Commerce, UK
- (2006) Oxford Dictionary of Business and Management, 4th edition, USA: Oxford University Press
- PMBOK – Project Management Body of Knowledge, Project Management Institute (PMI), USA
- (2003) Dictionary of Engineering, 2nd edition, USA: Mc Graw-Hill
- (2005) The BCS Glossary of Computing Terms, England: The British Computer Society and Pearson Prentice Hall

Journals on Quality
Managing Service Quality – An International Journal; http://info.emeraldinsight.com/products/journals/journals.htm?PHPSESSID=vjiipn81ucild4r9qgvonvusp1&id=msq

Quality World; http://www.thecqi.org/knowledge-hub/qualityworld/

 
ADDITIONAL NOTES Pre-requisite qualifications - Pass in Year 1 of Diploma

Pre-Requisite Study-units - Year 1

 
STUDY-UNIT TYPE Lecture

 
METHOD OF ASSESSMENT
Assessment Component/s Sept. Asst Session Weighting
Examination (2 Hours) Yes 100%

 
LECTURER/S Martin Testa

 

 
The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints.
Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice.
It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2023/4. It may be subject to change in subsequent years.

https://www.um.edu.mt/course/studyunit