Maritime University of Szczecin
Akademia Morska w Szczecinie
2010, 24(96) pp. 53–58 2010, 24(96) s. 37–58
The methods of studying the satisfaction of production
department with traffic maintenance department’s work –
the outline of research method
Metoda badania satysfakcji wydziałów produkcyjnych
z pracy działu utrzymania ruchu – zarys metody badawczej
Katarzyna Midor, Bartosz Szczęśniak, Michał Zasadzień
Silesian University of Technology, Faculty of Organisation and Management Institute of Production Engineering
Politechnika Śląska w Gliwicach, Wydział Organizacji i Zarządzania, Instytut Inżynierii Produkcji 41-800 Zabrze, ul. Roosevelta 26, e-mail: roz3@polsl.pl
Key words: work assessment, traffic maintenance staff, production department, inside client, method, study
of inside client’s satisfaction
Abstract
This article is a trial to describe an author’s research method of measurement of an inside client’s satisfaction where in an enterprise, a inside client is production departments whose satisfaction with traffic maintenance staffs is to be assessed This method is based on a questionnaire survey which is conducted by means of two specialty prepared questionnaires. The first questionnaire refers to a production department’s satisfaction with actions taken by traffic maintenance staff and the second allows to assess the abilities of realizing tasks by traffic maintenance department in an organization. The obtained results, after analysing, allow to point out areas where repair actions should be taken or actions which are to improve the cooperation between analysed departments. This method is still at the stage of testing.
Słowa kluczowe: ocena pracy, służby utrzymania ruchu, wydziały produkcji, klient wewnętrzny, metoda,
badanie satysfakcji klienta wewnętrznego
Abstrakt
W artykule podjęto próbę opisu autorskiej metody badawczej pomiaru satysfakcji klienta wewnętrznego, któ-rym w tym przypadku są wydziały produkcyjne, z pracy służb utrzymania ruchu w przedsiębiorstwie. Prezen-towana metoda oparta jest na badaniu ankietowym, które przeprowadzano za pomocą dwóch specjalnie opra-cowanych ankiet. Pierwsza ankieta dotyczy zadowolenia wydziałów produkcyjnych z wykonywanych działań przez służby utrzymania ruchu, druga pozwala dokonać oceny możliwości realizowania swoich zadań przez wydział utrzymania ruchu w organizacji. Otrzymane wyniki, po odpowiedniej analizie, pozwalają na wskaza-nie obszarów, w których kowskaza-nieczne jest działawskaza-nie naprawcze, bądź udoskonalające współpracę pomiędzy ana-lizowanymi wydziałami przedsiębiorstwa. Prezentowana metoda jest jeszcze w fazie testowania.
Introduction
The contemporary management of traffic maintenance is mostly based on the concept of TPM that is a whole concept of traffic maintenance which is productivity-oriented (or in other words, traffic maintenance integrated with production) [1]. One of the rule of TPM is to involve all interested
parties into the process of traffic maintenance, so not only traffic maintenance workers but machine and device operators who usually know their tools and thus, their knowledge can’t be replacable in case of any servicing or maintenance [2]. It also gives employees awareness that they are directly and personally responsible for the technical condi-tions of tools they work on.
The second significant assumption of manage-ment of traffic maintenance departmanage-ment is a cons-tant improvement of qualification and abilities by workers of the department which results in more effective and successful performance of their work and a better cooperation with a production depart-ment.
Having these two concepts of TPM philosophy in mind, the authors of this publication have decided to observe closer the quality work of traffic maintenance department employees perceived by production department employees and get to know about traffic maintenance workers’ opinion about abilities, which they have to do their job.
If we assume, which is an obvious fact for the authors, that traffic maintenance department (TM) provides services to other units of an enterprise and production departments are the most important for them, therefore it is a inside service provider and vice versa – production departments with their own machines and tools are inside clients for traffic maintenance department.
The contemporary trends in a quality manage-ment or TQM focuses firstly on the client. His requirements, expectations and in a consequence, loyalty should become the most important element of each enterprise. As long as an outside client’s role is highly and fully appreciated, the role of inside client is still unappreciated, even marginali-zed or even, it is undermined in the context of an organization [3]. Bank writes about an inside client as a link in a chain of common interconnections in an enterprise which ends with the most important link- the outside client and his satisfaction [4]. The figure 1 perfectly presents the above mention deliberation where a cycle of satisfaction from a client to a worker is presented.
Fig. 1. The cycle of satisfaction [3] Rys. 1. Cykl satysfakcji [3]
This schema naturally refers to an outside client but a strong employee’s motivation is also a source of quality of service provided to a inside client. In the relations, an inside client – inside provider, both
sides should treat each other as partners who have a common aim to gain and should not behave as sides realizing just their own tasks.
The results, which were gained thanks to the method prepared by the authors, can help in rising quality of these aspects of work which are percei-ved as the worst by an inside client, that is a pro-duction department and they can draw attention to problems of traffic maintenance staff. The authors claim that such a simultaneous analysis of these two areas may also result in the improvement of atmosphere, a common dialog and human relation-ships in relations between traffic maitanance department and production department.
The description of research metod
The presented method assumes the measurement of inside client’s satisfaction, that is a production department and the measurement of abilities of traffic maintenance department (TM). The authors of this method think that the juxtaposition of both results will allow to define how traffic mainte-nance‘s work is perceived with reference to the perceived abilities of realizing their tasks, that in turn will allow to define quality and effectiveness of their work. This method is based on a question-naire survey of employees of production and traffic maintenance departments. The authors are aware that the questionnaire survey is highly subjective because each and every employee perceives a service differently. But if a summary result is taken, it will reflect all surveyed employees’ impressions which in turn, will allow for a real assessment of a phenomenon.
The research presented in this method is conducted by means of two questionnaires which differ between each other in terms of questions. The questions in the questionnaires were created on the basis of observations and direct, personal inter-views with employees of production and traffic maintenance departments in different enterprises and then, they were subjected to consultations. The topics of questions include the following main areas:
Prompt completion of repairs / services, Information flow,
Culture of work.
The division into areas can be helpful in further detailed analysis of results.
In both questionnaires, questions were formula-ted in a clear and simple way so as to avoid doubts when interpreting them by respondents working on different positions and with different qualifications.
Fig. 2. The questionnaire of inside client’s satisfaction Rys. 2. Ankieta do oceny satysfakcji klienta wewnętrznego
Fig. 3. The questionnaire which is used to study traffic maintenance staff’s abilities Rys. 3. Ankieta służąca do badania możliwości służb utrzymania ruchu
In order to facilitate respondents doing the ques-tionnaires, the answering to each question is done by means of itemized scale which allows a respondent for a choice of appropriate category according to him (rarely, sometimes or often) [5].
Next to an answer, there is a box of significance choice of a given issue for a respondent – there are also three categories – insignificant, significant, and very significant. Since the method is still at the stage of testing, there is a place for comments concerning questions at the end of questionnaires. Figures 2 and 3 present the forms of separate questionnaires.
The questionnaires were designed for all workers who take part in the process of service providing, that is all workers from production and traffic maintenance department.
The next stage of this method is to change separate categories into a point scoring scale. For the scale concerning significance of a given category, the category ‘insignificant’ stands for 1 point, ‘significant’ = 2 and ‘very significant’ – 3. In case of assessment, it is almost the same because points for separate categories change depending on a form of question, which means that in case of one question – the answer ‘seldom’ may mean 1 point and in case of other – it may mean 3 points. The authors’ publications have decided to complicate the analysis of the questionnaire in order to understand the issues mentioned by respondents in the questionnaire better as not all statements were unambiguously provided in ‘negative’ as well as ‘positive’ version. Such alternating formulation of questions will be also an index for the assessment
Table 1. Examples of results: Source: authors’ own study Tabela 1. Przykłady wyników
The assessment of traffic mainte-nance staff’s work
The assessment of traffic maintenance
staff’s abilities
Scopes of
effectiveness Observed phenomenon Possible repair actions
HIGH HIGH 1
The cooperation is very good. High abilities of traffic mainte-nance staff are reflected in a high assessment of their work.
Maintaining a current state of cooperation.
HIGH AVERAGE 2 The cooperation is very good. But perceived abilities of TM are far from ideal.
Maintaining a current state of coopera-tion with a possible trial of improvement
TM‘s work. HIGH LOW 3 well despite small abilities of TM’s work is perceived very
performing their tasks.
It is necessary to identify and solve the most important problems which hinder
TM’s work.
AVERAGE LOW 4
Although the assessment of abilities TM staff’s work is very
high, the perceived quality of work is only sufficient.
The identification and solution of prob-lems is on side of TM cooperation’s with
inside clients.
AVERAGE AVERAGE 5
The state ‘neutral’ – average perceived of work quality
coin-cides with average assessment of TM abilities.
The identification and solution of prob-lems on TM side as well as factors
which hinder TM’s work.
AVERAGE LOW 6
The work of traffic maintenance is perceived as sufficient de-spite a low assessment of
abili-ties of performance of their tasks.
It is necessary to identify and solve problems which hinder TM’s work and
possible identification of problems on side of TM’s department cooperation
with insist de client.
LOW HIGH 7
TM’s work is perceived low despite high ability of
perform-ance of their tasks.
It is necessary to identify and solve problems on TM’s side in order to
im-prove cooperation with inside client.
LOW AVERAGE 8
TM’s work is perceived low despite an average assessment of ability of the performance of
their task.
It is necessary to identify and solve problems on TM’s side and possible identification of problems which hinder
TM’s functioning.
LOW LOW 9
Both TM’s work and abilities to do their tasks are perceived
negatively.
It is necessary to quickly identify and solve problems on side of TM’s work and on side of elements hindering work
of credibility of a questionnaire in terms of conscientiousness in understanding and giving answers to separate questions.
In the questionnaire – the assessment of traffic maintenance staff’s work, which was conducted to define an inside client’s satisfaction, the assessment scale was turn in case on questions no. 6, 15, 22, that means that 3 points for ‘seldom’, 2 points for ‘sometimes’, 1 point for ‘often’. In case of the rest of questions, the scale is standard.
In the questionnaire – the analysis of traffic maintenance staff’s abilities, the turned back assessment scale is for questions: 1, 2, 5, 6 ,9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 27 and 28. The scale is standard for the rest.
The analysis of results
On the basis of obtained results, a weighted assessment mean RWav is counted separately for
each kind of questionnaire, according to formula:
n i i n i i i W W R RW 1 1 av (1)where: RWav – weighted assessment mean, n –
number of answers (number of questions × number of questionnaires), R –value of assessment, W – value of significance.
The values obtained in such a way are qualified into three levels of assessment: high, average and low.
The high level stands for the assessment from 3 to 2, 33, the average level is from 2, 32 to 1, 65 and the low level – from 1, 64 to 1. These values were obtained by means of dividing the assessment scale into three equal divisions.
For three levels of assessment for each kind of questionnaire, there will be 9 different combi-nations of results. Table 1 presents this idea.
The table presents the interpretation of separate combinations of results but repair actions, which are necessary to be realized by the managers, are also proposed here. The results of research can be also presented in a graphic version of two-dimensional matrix. Figure 4 presents this.
Each of 9 combinations which were defined in table 1 indicate a level of effectiveness of coopera-tion between traffic maintenance and produccoopera-tion departments. The placement of results in a defined area of matrix (Fig. 4) defines the effectiveness of traffic maintenance work as high, average or low. Both in the area of work quality and abilities of TM department, the identification of the most
significant problems can be done on the basis of ordering results as a model of modified map of quality (Fig. 5).
Fig. 5. Quality map for all studied problems – proposition of problem’s categorization
Rys. 5. Mapa jakości dla wszystkich badanych problemów – propozycja kategoryzacji problemów
The means weighed for all aspects mentioned on both questionnaires should be counted in order to place results in the matrix. Firstly, the arithmetic mean for separate issues mentioned in questioners should be counted:
Fig. 4. Matrix of results Rys. 4. Macierz wyników
m R R m k k
1 av (2)where: Rav – arithmetic mean of assessment value,
m – number of questionnaires, Rk – assessment of issue in one questionnaire.
Next, the arithmetic mean is counted for value of significance of separate issues:
m W W m k k
1 av (3)where: Wśr – arithmetic mean of significance value,
Wk – significance value of issue in one
question-naire.
The values which are counted in this way should be placed on the prepared map of processes.
The practical choice of problems which are to be solved should be supported with economic analysis of an enterprise and company’s possibilities.
Summary
The authors’ method of studying a level of inside client’s satisfaction within a scope of coope-ration between production and traffic maintenance departments should help managers in analyzing functioning of traffic maintenance with respect to their work as well as the abilities of its realization along with available sources in an organization. In contemporary enterprise, the quality of work done by traffic maintenance staff is very important because the maintenance of production capacities
at a high level in a company depends on their efficiency of work and competence, to a large extent. Efficient work of traffic maintenance staff depends mostly on the manner of its managing. The prepared method allows to identify problems quickly whose sources are underlying manage-ment’s and organization’s decisions. It also allows to define the level of client’s satisfaction with provided services by TM staff. The obtained results also let managers make decisions which should influence significantly on the improvement of traffic maintenance staff’s work.
The method which is presented in the article is still at the stage of testing and refining details concerning methodology and interpretation of obtained results.
References
1. LEGUTKO S.: Trends in development of traffic of machines
and devices. The use and reliability. 2009, 2.
2. NAKAJIMA S.: Introduction to TPM. Portland, Productivity
Press, 1988.
3. SZOŁTYSEK J.: Inside client – myth or reality. Zarządzanie
przedsiębiorstwem, 2003, 2.
4. BANK J.: Quality management. Felberg SJA. Warszawa
1999.
5. KACZMARCZYK S.: Marketing research. Methods and
tech-niques. PWE, Warszawa 2003.
Recenzent: prof. dr hab. inż. Krzysztof Chwesiuk Akademia Morska w Szczecinie
