MODULE ON QUALITY CONTROL IN MUNICIPALITIES

1. Quality Management System

All organizations, large or small, have an established way or system of doing business. A quality
management system is about how an organization manages its business activities which are
associated with quality of service. Quality management system helps an organization to build
systems which enable it to provide quality service consistently. It may be clarified that
characteristics of the service(s) and their standards (norms) are defined in the respective service
standards, and not in the quality management standards. Therefore, quality management system
standards are not alternate to service standards. In fact, they are complementary to each other. The
use of service standards together with quality management system standards help in not only
maintaining but also continually improving quality of services, which may result in enhancing
customers' satisfaction and competitiveness.

Quality management systems standards take into consideration eight quality management
principles, namely, customer focus, leadership, involvement of people, process approach, system
approach to management, continual improvement, factual approach to decision making, and
mutually beneficial supplier relationships, which are relevant and applicable to all organizations
providing service.

Quality management standards promote the adoption of a process approach when developing,
implementing and improving the effectiveness of a quality management system, to enhance
customer satisfaction by meeting customer requirements.

For an organization to function effectively, it has to identify and manage numerous linked
activities. Set of inter-related or interacting activities which transforms inputs into outputs is
termed as process. Often the output from one process is the input to the next process.

The application of a system of processes within an organization, together with the identification
and interactions of these processes, and their management, can be referred to as the ‘process
approach’.
An advantage of the process approach is the ongoing control that it provides over the linkage
between the individual processes within the system of processes, as well as over their combination
and interaction. In addition, it highlights the value addition at every stage.

When used within a quality management system, such an approach emphasizes the importance of

• Understanding and meeting requirements,

• The need to consider processes in terms of added value,

• obtaining results of process performance and effectiveness, and

• Continual improvement of processes based on objective measurement.

2. Understanding Services

Services have come to occupy a major share of the world economy. Over the past decade we have
seen the spectacular increase in IT enabled services transacted across continents. Even traditional
services such as banking, telecom services have undergone exceptional changes, the chief driver
being inflow of global service companies setting world class standards as benchmarks. A
significant indicator of growing consciousness of service standards is the increasing adoption of
ISO 9001 Standard by the service sector in recent times comprising a host of industries such as
healthcare, hospitality, financial, education, construction, transportation and many others. Some
of these developments have influenced sectors rendering public service and we have seen even
government agencies subjecting themselves to the discipline of quality management.

Over the years several attempts have been made to understand services as distinct from products
so that that can be standardized and controlled with the objective of, meeting customer
requirements and improving quality. The combined work of several researchers determined that
there are fundamental differences between products and services and therefore they have to be
treated differently. However, services rarely come in isolation. The overall product is generally a
combination of goods and services, where there respective content keeps varying with the nature
of services.
3. Service Quality

The ISO 9000 definition of Quality is Degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfils
requirements.

This definition applies both to products as well as services. However due to typical attributes of
services such as intangibility, customer involvement, simultaneous production & consumption,
difficulty of testing before delivery and irreversibility, the quality of services have to be understood
as distinct from products. Service quality differs from product quality in 3 aspects:

 Service quality is more difficult for the consumer to evaluate than goods quality. It is hard
to find precise and measurable variables of service attributes.
 Quality evaluations are not only based on results of services but also on the manner of
delivery.
 Service quality perceptions result from a direct comparison of consumer’s expectations
with actual service performance

Service quality is therefore a function of the gap between the customer expectations and the
customer perceptions. If expectations are greater than performance, then perceived quality is less
than satisfactory and hence customer dissatisfaction occurs.

While customer perceptions are based on direct experience (sometimes based on experience of
others), Customers’ expectations are built from various sources. These include:

• Word of mouth communications from other customers

• The personal needs of each individual customer

• The customer’s past experience of the service

• External communications by the service provider – the expressed and implied messages in
advertisements, brochures etc.

• Services offered by the competition

It is logical that any measurement of service quality therefore must examine the difference between
expectations and perceptions. The overall difference or Gap in Service Quality is built up from
several aspects within the organization that contribute to it.
4. Service Quality Dimensions

When considering dimensions of service quality, it should be realized that customer’s perception
is the only valid perspective. While management and employees should strive to understand the
quality requirements, their own beliefs or judgement of quality dimensions cannot over-ride the
customer’s expectations, neither should they attempt at measuring quality achievements only
thorough internal means, as these would invariably leave major gaps. Consumer expectations of
quality are varied and encompass a whole lot of considerations or dimensions. Several attempts
have been made to standardize the dimensions. A general consensus has emerged in standardizing
5 basic dimensions of Service Quality which incorporate 5 additional dimensions within them.
The following are the five dimensions of service quality:

• tangibles associated with the service that bear on the quality of service being delivered. These
relate to appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication aids

• reliability, i.e ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately (including
security, that is freedom from danger, risk or doubt),

• assurance, which includes credibility of service provider (trustworthiness, believability,

• responsiveness i.e. willingness to help customers and provide prompt service, accessibility of
relevant personnel and methods of communicating with the customers

• empathy which is the human element associated with the service delivery and includes the need
of being heard and attended with dignity and understanding. It is the caring, individualized
attention which the service firm provides to its customers and a conscious efforts at understanding
the special needs of customers

It can be seen that the above 5 (including additional 5) dimensions of service largely cover all
services including public services. Some of the important features of public services such as
fairness and equity are covered by the dimension of ‘Assurance’, timeliness is covered under
‘responsiveness’, service outcome under ‘reliability’, etc. The measurement of service quality is
in fact done on these five basic dimensions spread over the relevant activities and outreach of the
organization.
5. Building Service Quality

ISO 9000 defines Service delivery as ‘The organization’s activities, including those at the
customer interface, necessary to provide the service.’ As the definition indicates, the service is
dependent on a number of activities, some of them taking place at the service provider /customer
interface.

Since service evaluation is based on the experience of the transaction which lasts only for a finite
duration, it is essential that all components, all building blocks should be synchronised perfectly
to contribute to the attainment of the service objectives. Numerous examples exist where the
absence of a form, a person, or a piece of information leads to delays or complete service failure.

Within an organization, services are classified as Primary services and support services. Primary
services are mostly rendered at the Supplier/ Customer interface e.g at the counter or in the front
office or when a public inspector visits a site for checking compliance. In situations where the
organization has registered members such as Bank account holders or income tax assesses, or
telephone subscribers, the interface with the customer is of a continuous nature, as at every point
of time, the customer is being serviced in some manner, e.g processing or holding information
relating to customer, maintaining his account. The service experience in such case is passive and
becomes active only when there is a physical encounter. In such cases customers draw their
perception over a period of time based on the overall impact of their encounters and the outcome
of the services being rendered.

Primary services are also rendered during interface with customer’s possessions that takes place
at the back office (not visible to the customer) e.g offsite repair services, handling of baggage by
airlines, testing of samples. As a general rule, primary services are those that directly address the
consumers.

Support services are those that are performed to make the primary services possible. These are
located behind the interfaces. While some support services are directly connected to the primary
services, others impact them indirectly. For example updating of Information in a computer
network that is used for client servicing is a direct support service. On the other hand, maintenance
of the computer hardware lends indirect support.

Supporting Services include

• Maintenance

• Purchasing, inventory management

• Inspections

• Information processing

• Technology management

• Customer research and

• planning for these

In order to ensure the quality of service, it is important that both primary as well as supporting
delivery processes need to be effective and efficient and therefore all actions needed to identify
them, determining their interactions and to monitor them need to be taken.

The responsibilities of service provider will include;

1. Planning and providing the input resources which are

 Human resources
 Equipment
 Information / Training to persons
 Facilities / Environment
 Finance
 Other resources such as Technology / Software

2. Controlling the processes. The service provider is required to

 Ensure timely availability of input resources

 Ensure conformance to service standards