Role of Total Quality Management and Continual Improvement Application on Service Company and Their Effects on Food Industry

Abstract

The aim of this research –focusing on catering section / ground handling directorate at Sudan Airways (Sudan air) as a case study on the total quality management, by investigating Sudan Airways’ catering drawbacks and its dimensions which reflected in reduction of resources (Human and finance), low productivity to analyze the causes of low level of productivity and overall deterioration, after studying and measuring passenger satisfaction and employees performance which, will help to determine the causes of the deterioration of services, low productivity and company's losses to identify the impact of the application of total quality management on the development of catering productions and services in Sudan Airways as an attempt to answer the main question of the study; What is the impact of the application of total quality management on the development of Sudan airways’ catering.. Field study concluded by a questionnaire to interview passengers arrival from the arrival terminal of Khartoum International Airport, using the analytical descriptive method and applying the program of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) through a variety of statistical techniques such as mean, percentages, the validity was confirmed by coefficient of Cronbach's Alpha, while the hypotheses verified by chi-square. The study revealed many results, most notably that if we increase passenger satisfaction we will increase the opportunity for selecting Sudan airways. The study also found that if we raise workers efficiency we will promote passengers service. The study also showed that, Sudan airways’ passengers negatively affected by both low level of punctuality, lack of modern aircraft fleet and bad treatment by the employees.

The neutral viewpoint of passengers about the in-flight services and quality of the meals and the suitability of meals of Sudanese taste to above of the middle for selecting Sudan airways in spite of the other positive variables such as suitable ticket fare, free excess baggage. The study also revealed that weak implementation of total quality management in Sudan Airways significantly impairs its ability to retain old customers and attract new ones. The study also revealed the impact of the negative company image in the mind of customers, which makes them negatively hesitant to choose Sudan airways, where their decision influenced adversely by the opinions due to a previous bad experience. The main recommendations are

1) The company’ top management be aware of the quality of services and passenger satisfaction are as important as the flight safety, if not higher in impact. The company should also define its mission, strategic objectives and clearly define is it a service or a profitable public sector company, or both together. 2) The company starts establish the Customer Relations department as a nucleus of total quality services to play an effective role in passengers feedback , handling complaints and contributing actively in market research and strategic decision-making as it is mainly a backbone of applying customer focus principle.