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1. INTRODUCTION. This report is a study on a selected Quality Improvement practice/ function/ system taken or about to be implemented by an organization in Brunei Darussalam. The organization we have chosen to analyze regarding the practice of Quality Improvement is TNT Worldwide Express. The research and survey on TNT was done on Monday, 20th October 2003. In the report we will analyze the QI practice/ function/ system of a particular process and evaluate its effectiveness. In the report, we will firstly elaborate the company’s background and what kind of services they provide. TNT stands for Thomas and Transport in which one of the services they provide is delivering services. The process that we will analyze for this project on this company is their delivery service that encompasses air, land and sea deliveries. We will evaluate our findings by relating the findings to what we have learned such as referring to the quality Guru’s ideas, Kaizen, the Japanese 5-s model, etc. Furthermore, we will evaluate their problems and weaknesses in their QI practice and provide recommendations to such problems as to whether it needs changes or improvement in their actions. 2. BRIEF BACKGROUND 2.1 THE TNT – WORLD-WIDE EXPRESS SERVICE TNT Express is one of the world’s leading providers of business-to-business express delivery services. They provide on-demand, time-definite and day-certain door-to-door delivery services for documents, parcels and freight. Established in 1946 TNT Express is now a global integrator and offers a range of unique international express delivery services between more than two hundred countries. Markets leading national express delivery services are also provided in many of the major countries in Europe, Asia and Australia. TNT Express employs more than 40,000 people and have a fleet of 43 jet freighter aircraft together with 20,000 road vehicles organized by a worldwide network of nearly 1,000 company owned depots. Their extensive resources also include numerous state of the art sortation centres and all these efficient facilities enable TNT Express to provide the fastest and most reliable door to door transit times in the industry. 2.1.1 TNT Express: mission and vision TNT’s mission is to be the fastest and most reliable provider of express delivery services, and their vision is to become the most successful global business-to-business express Delivery Company. 2.2 BEE SENG Company (TNT’s shipping agent) Bee Seng shipping company was established by the late Pehin Datu Temanggong Dato Paduka Awang Lim Teck Hoo in 1958. It was the first locally established shipping company in Brunei. Experience accumulated through the years has enable the company to expand its scope to other areas of shipping including shipping agency services for cargo liners, oil tankers, dry bulk carriers, transporting rice and cement clinker, quarry barges and cruise vessels calling at Brunei’s commercial ports and oil terminals. Then, through wholly owned subsidiaries and infrastructure, the company also provides other logistical related services such as freight forwarding, warehousing, inland haulage and courier services. Currently, the company is an ISO9002 accredited company for providing shipping agency services to vessels in Brunei. Types of vessels that are handled in Brunei include: · Liner/Containerized vessels · Dry bulk/Special Project Cargo Vessels · Crude Oil Tankers · Cruise Ships · Ro-Ro Car Carriers · Livestock Carriers · Navy Ships 3. DESCRIPTION OF A SELECTED QUALITY IMPROVEMENT PRACTICE. The process that we will analyze is TNT delivery service- air, land and sea. Before analyzing these processes, we will first give a description of these 3-delivery services and how it works in Brunei. 3.1. AIR DELIVERY PROCEDURE: When a customer wants a package to be delivered, they will first have to visit the TNT office where the personnel at TNT will take that package and collect the relevant information from the sender such as his/her name, the recipient, address, etc. by filling in what they call the consignment form. The consignment form has a serial number on it, of which this serial number will be used to identify and clarify the package when it reaches its destination. Once the information has been collected, the package will be processed. Firstly, the package will be measured for its weight, height, length and volume. Then it will be put in a special TNT parcel. An airway billing form needs to be filled in next. Without the airway bill, the parcel cannot be sent out of the country. When the said procedures are done, the parcel will be taken to the airport where further checks and clarification would be done by TNT personnel before the parcel is brought into the plane. From Brunei, the parcel will first be sent to Singapore, because Singapore acts as a transit point before the parcel is delivered to its respective destination. The reason why TNT in Brunei chose Singapore as its transit point is that Singapore Airlines travel to more destinations around the world compared to Royal Brunei Airlines. Moreover, it will be cheaper combining delivery parcels from Brunei and Singapore before being delivered to their respective destinations. Once the packages have arrived to the country of destination, they will go through custom checks at the airport, which will be done by the local TNT personnel. There, TNT personnel will confirm the arrival of the package through their respective serial numbers, and make sure that there are no “over-landed” or “under-landed” packages, which means the number of arrived packages must coincide with the information the TNT personnel have, i.e. no extra packages or no deficits. If these problems occur, they will inform back the home country of the parcel and there, they will do what they call ‘tracing back’. If there are no such problems, the parcel will be delivered immediately. 3.2. LAND DELIVERY PROCEDURE: As for land delivery, the procedure is more or less the same as air delivery. TNT in Brunei has a joint venture with the Brunei Post Office. This has resulted in the formation of the “PosGagas” service, in which this service has the advantage that all deliveries will be made within three hours. If the three-hour mark is missed, a portion of the money will be return back to the customer i.e. the sender. And if the parcel is lost, or never reaches its destination, a full refund will given back to the customer. However, there is one problem with this “PosGagas” service for it only takes place within the Brunei-Muara District and not to the other three districts.
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