Order continuation and fulfillment processes

¶ … Quality Assurance Can Influence and Enhancing Flight Safety in the Airline Industry

One of the most effective means of enhancing flight safety in all regards is the implementation of a quality assurance program. A quality assurance initiative is an operational management method that utilizes strategic steps of evaluating all levels of the business' services in terms of current quality and areas where quality can be improved. When a quality assurance initiative is not implemented, flight safety suffers because essential components of a flight are not updated in light of external changes. Thus, safety is compromised and often time money and time is wasted in terms of the particular airline. Further, with the use of technology, most quality assurance initiatives can be standardized.

A. Defining Quality Assurance

Quality assurance can be defined as the activity of providing evidence needed to establish confidence among all concerned. Typically, this establishment of confidence refers to ensuring consumers that quality related activities are being performed effectively with the goal of ensuring the quality of the product, good or service. Any and all planned or standardized actions needed to provide this confidence are part of a quality assurance program. The purpose of quality assurance is to that specific effective procedures are in place in order to make an advanced assurance that expected levels of quality can be assured.

Quality assurance occurs at all phases of a product or service development, including the design, development, production, installation, servicing, documentation and use. It also pertains to ensuring the quality of raw materials, assemblies, product components, production services, management and the inspection process. As defined by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Regulation 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix B, quality assurance "comprises all those planned and systematic actions necessary to provide adequate confidence that the structure, system, or component will perform satisfactorily in service." Thus, quality assurance necessarily encompasses quality control, or the subsection of quality assurance actions specifically related to the physical characteristics of a material, structure, component or system that provides a means of controlling the quality of the material, structure, component or system as required.

Types of Quality Assurance Management Models

Shewhart Cycle/Plan-Do-Check-Act

One of the most popular quality assurance management models is the Shewhart Cycle, which is based on the Plan-Do-Check-Act method. This quality assurance model is based on the Scientific Method of Hypothesis (Plan), Experiment (Do) and Evaluation (Check). The Plan-Do-Check-Act method (hereinafter "PDCA") begins with the Plan, where objectives and processes necessary to deliver the specified results are established. In the Do phase, the process in implemented. In the Check phase, the process and results are monitored and evaluated against the objectives and original specifications. These results are reported as the Outcome. In the Act phase, actions are applied to the Outcome in order to achieve the necessary areas of quality improvement. In doing this, the Plan, Do and Check phases are reviewed, modified and again implemented.

The key to a successful PDCA cycle is repeated implementation as additional quality-based knowledge is gained. With each PDCA cycle, more knowledge is gained and thus the user is able to get closer to meeting its goal of complete quality. The benefit of the PDCA cycle as a method of quality assurance is that it is relatively simple to implement. However, it's reliance on the evaluation of a hypothesis can make measuring its results difficult. For these reasons, the PDCA cycle is often best used in association with a sizable project that involves many people, time and the need for managers.

Statistical Control

Another popular method of for maintaining quality assurance is using a statistical process control in order to bring a company to Six Sigma levels of quality. In summary, the statistical control process works so that the overall likelihood of an unexpected failure is confined to the six standard deviations of the normal distribution model.

The typical statistical process controls are utilized in manufacturing operations and are characterized by the use of random sampling and testing of a fraction of the total manufacturing output. Further, variances of critical tolerances are tracked continuously and the manufacturing processes are always corrected before any under-quality part is produced.

Statistical Process Control

Statistical Process Control (SPC) is defined as being an effective method of monitoring a process through the use of complex control charts. SPC is accomplished by collecting data from samples made at various points in the overall process. Any variations in the process that may affect the quality of the end service is quickly detected and corrected, thus reducing waste as well as the likelihood that the customer will experience any form of problems. Thus, in an SPC quality control system, the focus is on early detection and prevention of problems. It therefore has a distinct advantage over other forms of quality assurance that tend to focus resources on detecting and correcting errors at the end of the product or service.

Another major advantage of the SPC model is that it often leads to a reduction in the time needed to produce a service from start to finish. This is due to the fact that SPC creates a diminished likelihood that the final product will have to be reworked and its ability to quickly identify bottlenecks, wait times and other sources of ineffectiveness.

Six Sigma

Six Sigma is a variant of the traditional SPC process. Six Sigma was originally developed by the Motorola company in order to systematically improve processes by eliminating defects, or nonconformities of a product or service to its specifications. The foundational principles of Six Sigma include:

Continuous efforts to reduce variation in process outputs is the key to business success.

Manufacturing and business processes can be measured, analyzed, improved and controlled.

Succeeding at achieving sustained quality improvement requires commitment from the entire organization. This is particularly true of top-level management.

Six Sigma refers to its highly effective process of producing output within specifications. For example, any company that is able to operate with six sigma quality assurance is producing at a defect level of below 3.4 defects per one million opportunities.

Six Sigma quality assurance programs operate using one of two methodologies. According to the DMAIC method, quality assurance is done in five steps:

Define the process improvement goals that are consistent with customer demands and enterprise strategy.

Measure the current process and collect relevant data for future comparison.

Analyze to verify relationship and causality of factors. Determine what the relationship is, and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered.

Improve or optimize the process based upon the analysis using techniques like Design of Experiments.

Control to ensure that any variances are corrected before they result in defects. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability, transition to production and thereafter continuously measure the process and institute control mechanisms.

On the other hand, according to the DMADV methodology of Six Sigma, quality is assured by following these five steps:

Define the goals of the design activity that are consistent with customer demands and enterprise strategy.

Measure and identify critical to qualities, product capabilities, production process capability and risk assessments.

Analyze to develop and design alternatives, create high-level design and evaluate design capability to select the best design.

Design details, optimize the design, and plan for design verification. (This phase often requires the use of simulations).

Verify the design, set up pilot runs, implement production process and handover to process owners.

Both Six Sigma approaches are heavily data-driven and offer a systematic approach to problem solving with the primary focus on the end impact on the consumer. The biggest advantage to using a Six Sigma approach to quality assurance is that it was a pioneer in professionalizing the field of quality assurance. Before the development of Six Sigma, quality assurance was typically regulated to the production floor or internally within a service department. However, Six Sigma revolutionized this method by borrowing from the martial arts concept of ranking and cutting across business functions. In order for Six Sigma to create effective quality assurance, the business must implement numerous positions across the corporate structure. These roles include executive leadership, champions, master black belts, experts, black belts, green belts and yellow belts. Every individual role has a specific function in a company's quality assurance process, thus although there is a hierarchy, no one position is more important than another because the hierarchy is structured under the pyramid design.

ISO 17025

ISO 17025 is in reference to an international standard of quality assurance that creates a rubric for competence. According to this method of quality assurance, there are fifteen individual management requirements and ten technical requirements needed to ensuring quality control. These requirements state exactly what a laboratory must do in order to be accredited and provide quality assurance information to services and manufacturers.

Company Quality Approach

The company quality approach is a company-wide approach to ensuring quality assurance. Using the company quality method of quality assurance, emphasis is placed on four specific factors, or aspects:

Infrastructure and how it either enhances or places limitations on functionality;

Such elements as controls, job management, criteria for performance and integrity, adequate processes and the identification of records;

Competence, including being competent in knowledge, skills, experience and qualifications;

Various soft elements. For example, personnel integrity, confidence, organizational culture, motivation, team spirit and the overall quality of business and employee relationships.

According to this approach, if any one of these four aforementioned aspects are lacking or deficient in any way, even if minor, the quality of the service is placed at risk.

Hiring Contractors and Consultants

Since quality assurance has become such an important factor in operating a successful business venture, and because implementing and maintaining a quality assurance system is time consuming and complex, many companies have turned to using independent contractors and outside consultants to either develop, manage or both their corporate quality assurance processes. It is now standard business practice to use a consultant or contractor when a business introduces a new quality assurance practice or methodology.

There are numerous types of quality assurance contractors and consultants available. The vast majority of them have a firm grasp on the essential skills needed for implementing quality control initiatives, including Quality Management Systems, or QMS, auditing and procedural documentation writing. Specialist will also be highly trained and experienced in improving services and processes by implementing a quality assurance program that employs the latest cutting edge quality assurance activities as Six Sigma, Measurement Systems Analysis, Failure Mode and Effects Analysis or Advance Product Quality Planning.

II. Studying Quality Assurance in the Airline Industry

The problem to be examined in this study is the effect that quality assurance will have on increasing airline safety. It is this paper's prediction that the implementation of a multi-faceted quality assurance program will lead to increased airline safety at multiple levels.

A. Unique Issues of Quality Assurance in the Airline Industry

Much of an airline's quality assurance is dependent on its diverse workforce and its multifaceted areas of service. For example, in order for an airline company to operate a quality operation, it needs to do much more than fly from Point a to Point B. Instead, there are airport issues, in-flight issues and logistical issues, just to name a few.

One of the most influential actors in providing quality assurance within an airline is the human resources manager. Thus, this research project specifically focuses in on the role of the human resource manager and the human resource department in providing an airline with quality assurance measures.

The main challenges in human resources is recruitment, production and retention. In terms of recruitment, the human resources manager must be able to both go after and hire only the most qualified and capable individuals. In terms of production, the human resources manager must have a plan that successfully trains the hired individual in becoming a productive member of the employment team. Finally, retention requires the human resources manager to create a work environment that encourages the hired, productive employee to continue to be productive within the industry. The answer to succeeding at these three roles is both specialized pre-employment screening.

To understand how pre-employment screening needs to work in today's information age, one actually must turn towards the findings and work of several notable economists and the concept of asymmetric information and job market signaling as they apply to the human resources world.

Economist George Akerlof, Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz all received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for their joint research in asymmetric information. Asymmetric information is what occurs when the seller knows more about a product than the buyer. Although all three of these economist's work is technically economic in nature, their ideas and philosophies are applicable to the field of Human Resources. Thus, it is important to read their articles through a human resources outlook.

In the Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism, author George Akerlof discusses the situation that occurs when asymmetrical information is in place. The situation that occurs when the seller knows more about the product's quality prior to the sale is that a traditional market of infinite guarantees is terminated. Instead of a traditional free-market system, actual incentives are created to encourage the seller to pass off low-quality goods to the buyer in the guise of being a higher-quality good. The result is the existence of what is commonly referred to as a lemon product. When lemons become the dominate good in the market place, they eventually erode away the market for that used product, such as the market for used cars. In an attempt to prevent this situation, many nations, including the United States, have passed what are popularly known as Lemon Laws, or legislation focused on protecting the buyer.

In the article entitled Job Market Signaling, author Michael Spence discuss the theory of job-market signaling. According to this theory, employees signal their job skills to an employer by gaining a certain degree of education. In order to get this degree, and thus the ability to signal, the employee must pay for the education. To reimburse for this "business expense," the employer pays the educated employee more than an uneducated employee because of the greater skills they have. This works as an unwritten contract: The employer understands the inherent value of having an educated employee (in that it will save them money and create a larger profit in the long run) and thus agree to pay the employee back for their education.

In his Conference Papers, economist Joseph Stiglitz, like Akerlof, discusses the role of information asymmetries. Stiglitz is most noted for his research on screening, or the technique used by one agent to gain otherwise private information from another and thus throwing the balance of equal information off.

Taken together, the works of Akerlof, Spence and Stiglitz have created the field of Information Economics. Information Economics, the area most relevant to human resources, is a significant new direction. Instead of goods and services, information economics places information at the center of understanding business relations.

With the influx of an information economy, human resource managers will have to adjust their practices in to ensure security and compliance. For example, information creates a unique problem in that it is easy to spread yet hard to control. Thus, because anyone can create information, it is hard to trust. In other words, information becomes a lemon, threatening to dissolve the information market (which is, if not at least almost, the entire economic market).

First and foremost is the human resources manager's role in screening employee applicants for education. As Spence argues, the basis for ensuring good information is to ensure informed employees. A college degree acts as a basis for the screening process in that it signals to the human resource manager that the potential employee is informed and capable of learning on an as needed basis.

Unfortunately, as our society has transformed into an information-based society, the demand for higher education, in accordance with the signaling theory of Spence, has grown remarkably. The result is that the degree itself has become a lemon because all degrees are not of equal quality. For example, a degree from Harvard and a degree from an online university are clearly not equal. Further, because more and more individuals are going through higher education and receiving degrees, there is no way to distinguish the quality of the individual simply by a degree screening process. In a sense, the employer is in the same position of the person buying a used car. The student, or the seller, is the one who knows the true information as to their information quality and the employer is at risk of hiring a lemon. Thus, human resources needs to adapt be creating better screening processes.

Thus, using a screening process that takes into account these challenges will allow the human resources manager to better be able to find only the truly qualified employees to hire. Once these employees are hired, the human resources manager will want to implement a training program that quickly brings the newly hired employee into a position of leadership and productivity. Once this is attained, in order to ensure retention of this employee whom the company has invested numerous resources into, the human resources manager will have to empower the employee with leadership roles and responsibilities. In order to accomplish this, once an employee is trained and productive, the human resources manager should define their role as being one that works to:

To maintain open lines of communication with her directors.

To gather feedback from the people working under the director in order to gain proper and insightful evaluations.

To remove roadblocks and assist the director succeed in reaching both their own personal goals and the goals of the company.

To provide coaching to the director by emphasizing what they are doing good and what areas need to be developed.

These steps ensure that the employee is given a position is an essential component of the company, thus increasing the chances that the employee will stay with the industry for many years to come.

B. Overview of Objectives

The purpose of this research is to understand the relationship between quality assurance programs in the airline industry, like the ones listed in the previous section, and the overall safety ratings of the airline. It is believed that there exists a direct correlation between those airlines with implemented quality assurance programs and high overall safety and customer satisfaction ratings. On the other hand, it is believed that those airlines that consistently rate low in both customer satisfaction and overall safety are the airlines who lack any form of formal quality assurance program. Thus, it is believed that one method to significantly increase both customer satisfaction and safety within the airline industry is to adopt one of the aforementioned methods of quality assurance.

In order to reach these conclusions, this research will:

Measure current airline quality assurance programs.

Evaluate current state of flight safety.

Evaluate areas where quality could be improved.

Evaluate how quality assurance initiatives will improve flight safety.

Determine the most cost-effective and efficient methods to implement quality assurance programs.

Review several major airlines in order to provide an in-depth study of the various levels of quality assurance and how it pertains to flight safety. This will involve the use of a questionnaire distributed to a sample of one-hundred technicians working in repair stations and line maintenance.

By thoroughly investigating each of these bulleted aspects, a conclusion can be drawn as to whether quality assurance initiatives can influence the enhancement of flight safety. In other words, the main objective of the study is to determine whether quality assurance is an efficient and effective means of increasing flight safety. Based on the gathered data, this research will go one step further by investigating which type of quality assurance methodology tends to work best when applied within the airline industry.

As each of the aforementioned methods of quality assurance is dependent on the industry, it is surmised that one particular method will be most often employed by those airlines that consistently show high levels of customer satisfaction and overall safety as a result of an implemented quality assurance procedure. By understanding the type of quality assurance methods that best work within the airline industry, one will have a better understanding of exactly how quality assurance increases flight safety and thus be able to create a criteria of quality assurance policies and procedures to be implemented by airlines. The result of such research will be to better inform airlines about the benefits of having a quality assurance program and, more importantly, about the costs of not having a proper quality assurance program. The research will provide quality assurance and safety directors with a valuable insight of the airline industry in terms of current trends and areas where improvements can be made.

Overview of Methodology

This research will employ two methodologies. First, there will be a literature review of all articles and research conducted on the topic. The purpose of the literature review is to develop a thorough understanding of the history and current status of quality assurance in the airline industry and to better understand the research already done on this topic. The literature review will also assist with the development of the questions to be used in the questionnaire, the second method used to gather data in this research project.

The questionnaire addresses specific questions as to quality assurance in the airline industry. It was drafted based on the information gathered in the literature review and is addressed to airline human resource managers or, if they exists, quality assurance supervisors. The purpose of the questionnaires is to gather data regarding the status of quality assurance programs directly from the various airline companies. This data will allow the research to understand what methods are currently being used and why, thus allowing one to make a conclusion as what methods of quality assurance programs are most successful in the airline industry. Further, it will allow one to compare airline safety records with airline quality assurance programs.

The following questionnaire was sent to various airline representatives:

Quality Assurance Questionnaire

The purpose of this questionnaire is to gather information regarding the current state of airline quality assurance programs, specifically as they apply to managing, assuring and increasing overall flight safety. The information gathered will be used for the sole purpose of my academic dissertation being written on this topic. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me using the contact information provided.

Airline:

Position/Title:

Address:

Telephone:

Does Your Company Have a Quality Assurance Strategy:

If Yes, When Was This Strategy Implemented:

Is the Quality Assurance Strategy Overseen by a Specific Individual and/or Department?

If No, How is it Managed?

Does Your Quality Assurance Program Utilize a Quality Assurance Technology Management Program?

If Yes, What Program is Used?

Briefly Describe Your Company's Quality Assurance System, Specifically How it Is Managed, Implemented and What Its Goals Are. Also, if Available, Please Attach a Copy of Any Documentation that Describes or Outlines the Quality Assurance Program:

The literature review, on the other hand, provides the research and information necessary to apply the data gathered from the above cited questionnaire. The literature review essentially provides the foundation from which the questionnaire's data can be read.

The two separate fields of quality assurance and flight safety are two areas that have been the focus of much scrutiny, study and discussion. Quality assurance is an essential component to any successful business enterprise and thus ample research and data exists. Further, flight safety is another topic with increasingly important implications. Within the last several years, this area has undergone numerous studies, evaluations and updates.

The literature review portion of this research project will involve a critical review of the existing relevant literature on these two separate subject in order to develop a strategic understanding of how the two could benefit together. By conducting an in-depth review of the existing research and from it developing an awareness of the current state of knowledge on the areas, along with its limitations, the proposed research aims to not only expand on the existing knowledge, but to make deductions on how the two areas can interrelate for the benefit of increasing flight safety.

Specifically, the following resources were analyzed and reviewed in the course of this study:

Bethune, Gordon and Scott Huler. (1999): From Worst to First: Behind the Scenes of Continental's Remarkable Comeback. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Doganis, Rigas. (2005): Airline Business. Taylor & Francis, Inc.

Freiberg, Kevin, and Jackie Freiberg. (1998): Nuts! Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success. New York: Bantam Books.

Gittell, Jody Hoffer. (2005): Southwest Airlines Way: The Power of Relationships for Superior Performance. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Holloway, Stephen and Elma Van de Mortel. (2003): Straight and Level: Practical Airline Economies. New York: Ashgate Publishing, Limited.

By taking the information gathered from the literature review and comparing it with the results from the questionnaire's, one is able to come to a conclusion as to theory and practice. On the one hand, the questionnaires give credibility to the literature review. On the other hand, the literature review allows one to critically evaluate the quality assurance programs of the interviewed airline companies.

IV. Findings

Literature Review

According to the literature reviewed, it can be stated that the most effective method for implementing quality assurance in the airline industry is through the implementation of strategic quality assurance technology. For example, such products as the Q5 quality assurance provider uses software technology in order to monitor, and thus ensure, quality within all aspects of an airline.

1. Use of Technology for Quality Control

Such software-based products utilize a checklist for protocol standards, including FAA, JAR-OPS, EASA and IOSA. The purpose of the software is to conduct what is called a quality audit. The quality audit, which focuses heavily on operational safety, is a systematic method of reviewing an entire system for lack of quality. The IOSA quality audit is based on internationally harmonized standards and is designed to assist airlines reduce there areas of quality neglect and thus improve the overall level of safety.

According to Flight 2005: A Civil Aviation Safety Framework for Canada, Transport Canada committed to the implementation of an SMS quality assurance system. SMS stands for Safety Management Systems and is a popular method to provide quality assurance in the airline industry. At its most basic level, SMS works to improve the safety of the industry through the taking of pro-active management steps as opposed to reactive compliance steps aimed at meeting regulatory requirements. Thus, like IOSA, SMS is a quality assurance system that focuses on preventing lapses in quality before they occur by performing regular and ongoing quality evaluations at all levels of the airline business.

Specifically, a safety management system is a systematic, explicit and comprehensive process for managing all quality risks associated with airline safety. The safety management system works as a quality control system by establishing goals, planning strategically, and obtaining ongoing measurements as to levels of performance. Further, instead of acting as a separate quality assistance program, such systems as the safety management system is woven into the airline at all levels of the organization, thus creating a quality culture.

In this sense, the above cited quality assurance program is an adaptation of the aforementioned Shewhart Cycle of quality assurance. The SHS version of airline quality assurance is essentially based on the Plan-Do-Check-Act method. Further, the SHS model is based on the Scientific Method of Hypothesis (Plan), Experiment (Do) and Evaluation (Check). The Plan-Do-Check-Act method (hereinafter "PDCA") begins with the Plan, where objectives and processes necessary to deliver the specified results are established. In the Do phase, the process in implemented. In the Check phase, the process and results are monitored and evaluated against the objectives and original specifications. These results are reported as the Outcome. In the Act phase, actions are applied to the Outcome in order to achieve the necessary areas of quality improvement.

Thus, the result is that, by utilizing a SHS type approach to quality assurance, the airline is able to improve overall quality through assuring safer flights by simply taking a proactive approach to quality assurance. This Schewart type approach to quality assurance is essential for such service providers as the airline industry because any lapse whatsoever in terms of safety will have devastating effects on the airlines profitability. Because safety problems in the airline industry typically result in crashes and all-too often death, if such an incident is linked back to a failure of providing quality assurance, the airline is likely to loose its customer base and be forced into bankruptcy. For this reason, a quality assurance program for safety is a must.

Using the Schewart model for quality assurance in the form of the SHS system, the first step is to plan for safety. This planning must occur at all levels of the airline hierarchy as every employee somehow can effect the overall safety of the airline. For this reason, the human resources director must play an essential part in the quality assurance safety planning process. The key to a quality business is to have quality employees, especially when the employees play such a large role in providing a safe service. Thus, an essential part of the planning stage for quality assurance is how to recruit, hire, train and supervise employees.

The next step is the do step, which requires the airline to perform its services. However, the do stage must be run congruent with the check stage. The key to safety quality assurance is to consistently check to make sure the program is working safely. Thus, as the company does, the company most also be checking. This is opposed to waiting for an incident to occur and then checking to see what went wrong. Doing this, as has already been discusses, will be detrimental to the airlines' profitability.

Quality Assurance Applied a. Overview of the Industry

To put this information into a practical context, we next turn towards the literature written by airline professionals, which is telling as to the realities of quality assurance within the airline industry today.

According to Airline Business, by Doganis Rigas, largely as a direct result of the airline industry's lack of quality assurance programs, today the industry faces its longest and deepest crisis to date. According to Rigas, the vast majority of all airlines are losing hundreds of millions of dollars, have collapsed entirely or have had to depend of the support of the government in order to stay afloat. Add to this the catastrophe of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the continuing terror threat abroad and such international health scares as SARs and the Avian Bird Flue, and the airline business has hit hard. However, it is not these external factors alone that have caused the airlines' struggle. Instead, as Rigas correctly points out, it is the airlines inability to cope with such external factors that have led to the current situation. In other words, the airline industry's lack of having an internal quality assurance program that is capable of reacting to such quality and safety concerns has led to the current state of the airline industry.

According to Rigas, the essential key in allowing airlines to stay competitive in a volatile, competitive and ever changing market place is to develop a quality assurance system. Further, according to this author, the key to a successful quality assurance program in the airline industry is lies with the human resources department.

The key to quality assurance in the airline industry, according to this book, is to have a human resources management system capable of quickly assessing and providing for the various needs found with in an airline. Because an airline depends on so many various components working together, the airline itself must be viewed as an industrial machine. As in an industrial field, quality assurance must focus on insuring that all parts of the production process operate at a level of quality. On by doing this will the end product, in this case the actual flight, be of quality for the customers. Thus, the basic principles of quality assurance as applied in industry, such as Six Sigma or the Schewart Cycle, must be implemented within an airline as if the entire airline was an assembly process. However, instead of having a process comprised of numerous functions or machines, the airline process is comprised of numerous employees. Thus, the key to quality assurance, according to Rigas Doganis, is the Human Resources Manager.

However, the author does realize the catch that is inherent in this proposed quality assurance solution. As airlines continue to suffer financially, the easy, if not short-term solution is to cut costs. One of the most efficient and effective means of accomplishing this is to cut back on labor costs, which essentially translates to eliminating employees. However, if one is to build a quality assurance program based on employees, when one cuts employees they are essentially cutting pieces of the assembly machine.

This being the case, employee cutbacks must be made with a quality assurance strategy in mind. Thus, again, the Human Resources Manager comes into play. The Human Resources Manager must play an essential, if not the leading role in determining which areas can be cut and without sacrificing or compromising the airlines overall quality. To do this, again the entire airline needs to be viewed as an assembly process. Using a flow-chart each position accomplishes a specific task. More so, every task effects another task.

Thus, when a specific area is cut, this will have some form of an effect on the entire process and thus will, in some for or another, affect the airline's overall quality assurance. To limit this effect, Human Resources Manager must have a set quality assurance system set so that needed changes can be easily implemented with limited effect on the overall quality of the company's service. Further, once the changes are made, the Human Resources manager must implement a regular check program, as alluded to at the beginning of this subsection, in order to ascertain that the changes made have not had a negative impact on the service's overall quality.

This being said, the role of technology will continue to play an increasingly important role in terms of providing quality assurance. As technology, in the long run, is cheaper than human employees, wherever a human position can be provided through a technology program, this change should be made in order to satisfy the demand for cutting costs with the need to maintain quality assurance. Using technology to both monitor and provide quality assurance within the airline industry is the key to an airline's ongoing success and viability.

Southwest Airlines and Continental Airlines: Examples of Quality Assurance Success

One airline that has continued to perform strong and to place high in terms of overall safety is Southwest Airlines. As seen in the book Nuts! Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg, the main reason for this success is that Southwest airlines has always placed a central focus on quality assurance at all levels of its operations.

Thus, starting twenty-five years ago when Southwest founder Herb Kelleher entered the airline market with airplanes painted like killer whales and a corporate motto that declared "Hire people with a sense of humor" it seems that somehow, somewhere behind this colorful gloss was a successful understanding of quality assurance.

At the heart of this was Southwest's ability to understand the importance of developing quality at costs, thus it took steps to cut costs in ways that would not significantly effect the actual quality of its services, namely providing safe flights. Thus, Southwest was best noted for its ploy of "in-flight meals are never served- just sixty million bags of peanuts a year." The irony in this is that despite not serving meals, Southwest succeeded at providing quality flights by making up for the lack of meals in other areas, such as low costs tickets, humor and, of course, peanuts.

The key to accomplishing this feat of balance was careful quality assurance planning before the business was launched and then continual follow up quality assurance checks, essentially using the Schelwart method of Plan Do Check.

As a result of its unique quality assurance approach to the airline business, Southwest airlines has turned a profit for twenty-four consecutive years and, more so, has witnessed its stock increase by over three hundred percent since 1990. Further yet, today Southwest airlines is ranked as the safest airline in the world and ranks number one in such areas as customer service, on-time performance, and lowest employee turnover rate. Finally, even Fortune Magazine has twice ranked Southwest Airlines as being one of the ten best corporation to work for.

For this reason, Southwest Airlines serves as the perfect case example of how incorporating quality assurance within one's human resources department is the key to operating a profitable and safe airline business. Because Southwest began with a succinct quality assurance plan and continued to allow its quality assurance plan to evolve with the growth of the airline, it has been able to stay ahead of the game despite the aforementioned external influences that have so heavily damaged the airline industry as a whole. While other airlines continue to scramble to cut employees and break even, Southwest Airlines continues to increase its services without going through any significant downsizing. Again, the key to their being able to accomplish this is their focus on a quality assurance program that continually monitors all phases of its services and programs.

But perhaps its Jody Hoffer Gittell who sums up the key to Southwest Airlines' success in her book Southwest Airlines Way. According to Gittell, it is Southwest Airlines' positive employee relations that have allowed the company to preserver through both good times and bad times. Through extensive and in depth research, Gittell is able to pinpoint the expect aspects that have allowed Southwest Airlines to have an unbroken string of thirty-one years of profitability. All of the examined areas relate to high performance relationships that lead to competitive motivation, teamwork and coordination. Thus, the Southwest Airlines' quality assurance program, which is primarily employee based, can be characterized as exhibiting the following aspects:

It leads with credibility and caring.

It focuses on investing in frontline leaders.

It hires and trains for relational competence.

It uses conflicts as a strategic method for building relationships.

It makes unions its partners and not its adversaries.

It focuses on building relationships with its suppliers.

As can be seen, each of these bulleted components are essentially nothing more than one stage in the production process. For example, suppliers and unions are all pieces of the puzzle that are necessary in allowing an airline to provide its services. Unlike the majority of airlines, Southwest Airlines has succeeded at viewing the entire process as a single process and thus implemented key concepts from industrial-based quality assurance in order to better manage its services. The results in this case speak for themselves, with Southwest Airlines being one of the most profitable and safe airlines in the world.

Another example of how the use of quality assurance systems within an airline in order to increase the overall safety and profitability of the airline is the case of Continental Airlines, as documented in Gordon Bethune and Scott Huler's From Worst to First: Behind the Scenes of Continental's Remarkable Comeback.

The Continental story is regarded by many in the business world as one of the most dramatic comebacks in the history of business. At the center of this comeback was Gordon Bethune, a "plain-speaking ex-Navy aircraft mechanic, armed with a few common-sense notions about good management and the courage to lack past the bottom line." What Bethune did have the courage to do was to simply implement a comprehensive system for quality assurance that ran through all levels of the Continental operation.

The key components of Bethune's method of quality assurance, like Southwest Airlines, focused on developing and promoting individual leadership, employee empowerment, teamwork and overall operational strategies. Thus, like Southwest Airlines, Continental Airlines found success through the use of an industrial inspired quality assurance program that focused first on the important and essential role of human resources.

Bethune's quality assurance program was called the "Go Forward Plan" and placed its emphasis on the product, the employees, the suppliers and the creditors. In other words, Bethune broke down the airline's operations into its most fundamental parts and designed a strategy to move forward as a whole (like the assembly line) as opposed to the traditional fragmented method used in most airlines. For example, with employees, Bethune took the Southwest Airlines approach and made them a vital part of the system instead of a dispensable component. By making employees business partners though communications and the sharing of ideas, he was able to empower them and thus increase their quality of performance, which thereby increased the overall quality of the product, which led to an increase in the overall financial profitability of the company. Following a fundamental Schelwart Plan of quality assurance, Bethune was able to ensure that the quality of one component of the airline directly enabled the quality of the next component and so on until the entire airline was operating at a level of acceptable, and profitable, quality.