Improvement of Operational Productivity of Maintenance and Engineering Activities Through The Use of Total Quality Management -A Case Study on Ethiopian Airlines
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Date
2006-12
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Total Quality Management (TQM) has become a frequently used term in the discussions
regarding quality. The international and national competitive environment is in a process of
constant change by the globalization of markets and increased interdependence of economic
agents. This process of change has brought increased demands on the organizations’
competitiveness and the customers have gained a central role in the organizations’ focus.
TQM is considered to be an important management philosophy, which supports the
organizations in their efforts to maintain satisfied customers.
The aviation industry is the most safety requiring industry where a single malfunction or fault
may lead to the fatal and catastrophic accident of life and property. Organizations engaged in
this industry should constantly monitor all tasks in order to assure the safety of flight and to
stay as a working unit in the competitive market and serve their customers. This will come
true when existing employees in these organizations are trained to acquire all the demands
placed on this technology and when they are satisfied with the environment in the
organizations to develop the sense of belongingness and inspiration so as to satisfy and
exceed their customers’ needs and aspirations.
In the aviation industry, operators need to be licensed by regulatory bodies to exist in the
industry. However, the major focus of these regulatory bodies is conformance to requirements
instead of system wise quality management. Hence a need has come for the airlines to
establish total quality achievement to be better competitors in the industry.
This thesis focuses on the improvement of operational productivity of aircraft maintenance
and engineering activities in Ethiopian Airlines through the use of TQM. A thorough
investigation of TQM implementation is conducted in the maintenance and engineering
division of the airline by assessing the accomplishment of the existing quality related
activities in relation to TQM philosophies. The results obtained by studying the
implementation of TQM in this division indicate that still a lot of effort is required to achieve
productivity improvement through TQM. The existing “TQM” department in this division is
actually performing quality assurance activities. This is more elaborated in this study and a
model TQM implementation is suggested later to actually obtain the benefits of TQM
implementation.
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Keywords
Ethiopian; Airlines