Prof. Howard Weiss, retired from Temple U., shares his thoughts monthly.
A recent issue of The Philadelphia Inquirer presented two compelling examples of quality management—or, more accurately, lapses in quality management—within the service sector. These cases illustrate the difficulty of applying quality principles to both healthcare and transportation.
Virtua Hospital. Two newborn infants were mistakenly brought to the wrong mothers. Each mother breastfed the wrong child before the error was discovered. The nurse who identified and reported the mistake to her supervisors was subsequently terminated. Hospital administrators justified the dismissal by claiming the nurse had failed to check infant ID bands at the beginning of her shift. The nurse stated she had never been informed of such a policy.
Your Heizer/Render/Munson text notes in Chapter 6 there should be “Employee empowerment: When employees see a problem, they are trained to take care of it.” This nurse did take care of the problem. Reporting it should have led to continuous improvement in the ward rather than her being fired. The result of firing an employee who reports a problem will mean that fewer employees will report problems. This, of course, undermines quality improvement.
Philadelphia International Airport (PHL). PHL ranked last in customer satisfaction among the 27 Large airports that serve 10-33 million passengers per year–the 5th consecutive year it was at the bottom of the rankings.
Chapter 6 notes that “The personal component of services is more difficult to measure than the quality of the tangible component.” Nevertheless, J.D. Power evaluates airports on a range of specific, measurable factors including facilities, services, and customer experiences.
Management of PHL is fully aware of the airport’s shortcomings and has taken steps to improve by adding new bathrooms, new restaurants and a customer service training program. Plans are also underway to improve the rail platforms, seating, carpeting and roadway signage. However, these improvements will not fix the major problem. The airport is too small and too old and there is no room to expand it. One other factor to consider is that unlike with products, the passengers at PHL may not have other choices for which airport to use.
Classroom discussion questions
1. Does your employer encourage the reporting of problems/ mistakes?
2. Why might passengers at PHL not have other options? (Hint-check out American Airlines).