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Management - Assignment # 1

7206ENG Quality and Performance

DOMESTIC WASTE COLLECTION SERVICE PROVIDED BY CLEANON Inc. UNDER

GOVERNMENT CONTRACT: Improvement for better quality service and client satisfaction

Introduction
Recently, the Cleanon Inc. organization dedicated to providing waste collection services under
contractual obligations towards municipal governments in cities on Latin America, has been subject to
large losses going over budget on the delivery of our service. To avoid upcoming financial losses, the
company is starting a process to improve and develop a more competitive plan-and-operation scheme
for other potential customers (municipalities of other cities), to deliver the service on time (reliable
collection on schedule) and within budget. We must be prepared to deliver a good quality service at
low costs by learning from our past operations mistakes. Additionally, the company needs to keep a
good performance to maintain the contracts we receive for the time period established, thereby
increasing the chances to get more contracts from other cities in the future.
For these reasons, the present report is developed and presented as a preview of what needs
to be taken into account and achieved to better plan, operate and control future deliveries of our
service by focusing on:
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Our clients requirements and ways to correctly detect them; and on their perspective on the

quality of the service.

Understanding the relation between our clients requirements and our operations characteristics
Knowing how to identify the causes for costs increment.
Being aware of the costs incurred on maintaining our quality system in place.
Devising useful performance measures to know we are on the right path to increase our clients
satisfaction.

1. The organisation, the service and the clients

The organization
Our organization is specialised on providing domestic waste collection services as a private
company who establishes a contract with the government, to collect domestic solid wastes from a
specific collection district in cities on Latin American countries. The contract is usually taken for a
period of 4 to 5 years.
We are obliged to follow detailed municipal ordinances and adjust our operations to certain
operational details or minimum service requirements like the bin system used already in place, the
frequency of collection, permitted hours of operation, insurance and bonding requirements, health and
safety restrictions (Scarlett & Sloan, 1996).
The fee is paid by citizens (most of whom have low incomes) and collected by the government.
As it is difficult or sometimes impossible to increase the service prices, having a certain budget
available makes it harder to accomplish great quality improvements at a time (like changing the whole
fleet of collector vehicles). We must instead, aim to improve the quality of the service gradually,

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increasing efficiency and productivity of vehicles and workers at low costs, knowing that in low-income
countries, equipment costs are over 50% of the total costs; while labor costs, even after adjustments
for social benefits, overtime, and administrative overheads, are typically less than 25% of total costs
(Cointreau-Levine & Coad, 2000).
The service
Our company serves the community of a specified area by collecting at the source, compacting
and transporting to the disposal facility the commingled domestic solid wastes from single family
housing and apartment areas. Sacks filled with solid wastes are left outdoors and placed in front of the
single houses or unit buildings on different kinds of bins the night or a few hours before collection, so
collection crew members (usually consisting of 2 or 3 men) take the bags manually and place them in
the collection vehicles leaving the empty bins at place. The collection rear-loaders vehicles have
compaction mechanisms consisting on a system of sliding panels moved by hydraulic cylinders in a
pattern that grabs, presses and pushes the waste into the truck body (Christensen, 2010). As domestic
households produce wastes in regular times, quantities and types, their trash can be collected on a
fixed schedule using the same collection trucks (Tchobanoglous, 2002).
It is important to understand that the collection is the process of filling the truck by driving along
a collection route and the transport as the driving to and from the collection route, i.e. driving an empty
or full truck, where distances can vary from a few kilometres to hundreds (Christensen, 2010). The
collection can be improved, whereas the transporting cannot. As such, when possible, routes should
begin and end near arterial streets; routes should start at the top of the grade and proceed downhill
and the last container to be collected on the route should be located nearest to the disposal site
(Tchobanoglous, 2002).
Collection scheduling and routing has to be carefully planned and followed, as it is an important
mean of increasing productivity and therefore of reducing costs. Citys traffic and noise generation by
the vehicles and handling of bins are the main factors to take into account.
On other matters, as part of the planning of the service, data about the area and population like
the demographic s, their waste production based on the characterization and quantification of waste
generated, its socio-economic conditions, climatic factors, the road and housing structure and traffic
conditions, the current policies, the institutional setup of waste management and the current collection
practices and infrastructure , must be collected to plan and device the layout of collection routes,
schedules, frequency of collection and the necessary number of crew members and vehicles for
waste collection (D-Waste Team, --). We must also take these factors into account to plan our quality
management and costumer relations.
The clients
Our internal client is the government of the municipality with which we have sign a contract to
deliver the waste collection service of a certain district of city zone. We must be able to deliver the
service under the contractual conditions they have established; and find a better way to operate the

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system within the possibilities, both technical and economical and with regards to the conditions and
laws that applied.
Our external customers are the citizens inhabiting the specified zone where we deliver the
service, who pay the fee for the waste collection service. Our responsibility to them is to satisfy their
requirements providing a good quality service so that they know and feel they got value for their
money expended. (On this report, the term clients only refers to the citizens receiving the service, as
they are the subjects of concern regarding quality issues)

2. Clients perspective on the quality dimensions related to the waste collection service
As solid waste collection is a visible service, residents are better able to observe and to rate the
perceived service quality (Oduro-Kwarteng, 2011). A short view of the perceived quality dimensions of
the waste collection service from our clients is shown below; using the 8 critical dimensions of quality
proposed by Garvin, 1987, where a product or a service can rank high on one dimension of quality
and low on another one (Garvin, 1987 pp.104): Performance, features, reliability, conformance,
durability, serviceability, aesthetics and perceived quality.
Performance: Given that the client sees the basic operating characteristics of the service while
crew and vehicles collect wastes following some sort of collecting route and while trucks
transports the load through the roads, they view these characteristics as being: Times a week the
waste collection service is offered, time of the day the crew and vehicle comes to the household,
number of crew members working, quickness of crew to pick up wastes from the pathway and put
them on the collector vehicle and the time that each vehicle spends on a certain neighborhood or
street. As any service business, performance can often mean prompt service.
Features: There is no chance to customize the service or offer a wide range of options regarding
the delivery or operation characteristics of the waste collection. The large number of clients the
service has to be delivered to doesnt allow it.
Reliability: The collector trucks are expected to be reliable meaning that they shouldnt breakdown
or fail during daily operations. Frequency of breakdowns or how old the trucks are, might be a
good measure for the clients to assess reliability. As regards to the service, reliable might mean
that the process of collecting and transporting wastes operates properly during all the 5 years of
contract. The service is provided without failing to collect wastes at any scheduled day.
Conformance: The most important target to achieve is to collect wastes from all residential
houses and buildings in the zone entrusted to the company. As to meeting pre-established
standards or specifications some clients might be aware the company has to comply with a
specific frequency of collection, permitted hours of operation and insurance requirements. Also,
informed clients might know that it is required by law for crew members to use personal protection
devises. As any other service, part of the conformance is related to the level of accuracy and
timelines, the counts of processing errors, unanticipated delays and other frequent mistakes
(Garvin, 1987). As such, is important for the service of waste collection to be performed right

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every time picking up all wastes at the scheduled day from all households, and to be completed in
time so no household has to wait some hours for the vehicle to come because of delays (on
account of traffic, accidents etc.). Frequent mistakes like leaving bags uncollected or spilling
some wastes might affect the conformance.
Durability: There are two approaches to interpret the durability of the service from the clients
point of view. The durability of the contract of the specific company providing the waste collection
service before getting replaced by another company for contractual and competitiveness reasons.
And the time that passes before having to replace a certain collector vehicle or a crew member
when its productivity is no longer acceptable.
Serviceability: Getting a fast and effective response from the company when clients make a
complaint or suggestion about the service while finding a polite and competent person who
receives it. Complaints are expected to be analyse and resolved and not filed, so that no multiple
calls are needed to correct a problem. Also, the time clients wait before service is restored when a
delay on the collector vehicle arrival is produced. It is important for spillages of waste are cleaned
every time and repairs to vehicles are made when necessary. Rapid response becomes critical to
collect uncollected wastes to avoid vectors, odours and bad looks.
Aesthetics: Accidental or usual spillage of wastes on road or walk paths shouldnt be left
unpicked, and wastes should be collected on time, for it affects the looks of the neighborhood and
produces bad smells. Collector cars should be clean and not look too old and crew members
should look well protected against occupational hazards. The noise generated by operating
vehicles while collecting and compacting wastes is an important part of the aesthetics.
Perceptions: Clients might have perceived that the previous waste collection company that
provided the service didnt performed well, so they expect our company to perform badly as well.
An extra dimension, not considered by Garvin, 1987, is:

Safety: Is important for clients that the company assures they will not suffer injury or harm from
the lack of collection of wastes (preventing health and sanitation problems) and from accidents or
misuse of the collector trucks on road during operations. To see that collection crew are working
safely and wearing appropriate protection devices is also important for clients.
3. Clients needs and wants
Clients need:
For the waste to be collected in time and schedule to avoid odor and vector generation and
possible risks to human health
The householder needs to have his solid waste collected with a minimum of inconvenience
(McDougall, 2008)
For collection vehicles not to damage their neighborhood or citys streets
For collection trucks to be safely handled, maintained and driven on the roads to avoid accidents
that could threat citizens lives.
Clients want:
The overall cleanliness of their city district
For the waste to be collected on time and schedule
For the accidental wastes spillage to be wiped and the street be left clean

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For the collection vehicles to operate at times where the noise and the contribution to the traffic
have the least amount of impact
To be heard when they wish to report any irregularity or when they want to complaint about any
aspect of the service (vehicles, crew members and quality dimensions)
To see that their report or complaint is taken into account, revised and that measures are taken to
mend and prevent the irregularity from happening again
Some clients may want for a special service where the waste collection supplier collects the
recyclables separated from the organic putrefiable wastes, to contribute to recycling.
For the waste collection service price not to rise
A good quality service. A service that is reliable, aesthetic, safe, accurate, on time and consistent

4. Process adopted to identify causes for delivering the service over-budget

To identify the causes for which the company suffers from low efficiency and hence higher costs
and poor quality from the waste collection service as a unite process, the development of the Pareto
chart was chosen. It consists on a histogram where the main few problematic areas of the system that
contribute to the most of the quality problems are identified. Here are the main steps to recognize the
causes for delivering the service over budget and with poor quality by developing a Pareto chart using
in advance a cause and effect diagram and a check sheet (Richardson, 1997):
1. Developing of a Cause and Effect diagrams (Fishbone) to identify the problem and the
various causes grouped on different areas of the system. This gives a good view of the
problem as a whole to make it easier to later attack the problem. (See Figure 1, page 6)
2. Selecting a period of time of 6 months for observing how often each cause occurs (detected
on the previous step) and measuring the frequency of the causes over the selected time
devising a table showing: Causes and Total frequency of each cause in a Check sheet. (See
Figure 2, page 6) For this phase, the results and data of the operation problems detected on a
previous project were used; and causes from all areas were taken into account, except the
environmental-external causes for there is no possibility of controlling them.
3. Arranging the causes in order of the percentages of occurrence from the highest to the lowest,
and graphing them in a bar chart. (See Figure 3, page7) this constitutes the Pareto chart, were
each bar represents a problem category and vertical axes represent frequency of occurrence
4. Using the previous histogram, the causes that contribute most to the problem are identified.
These are the vital few responsible for more or less 80% of the problem (See Figure 4, page7)

Machines - Vehicles
Overload of collector trucks
(Excessive wear and
damage to the vehicle)
Poor vehicles maintenance
(Breakdowns, delays and repairs)

Human Crew members

Lack of usage of
personal protection
devises (health
costs)
Inadequate training

Environment - External
Poor lit and hard
access to the waste
Long distance from
landfill to district
Traffic congestion

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Old/worn vehicles
Poor or late repairing of vehicles

Inappropriate response to
complaints from customers (lack
of corrective measures)
Lack of assessment and
supervision on vehicle usage
and crew performance

Warm climate (higher frequency

of collection to avoid vectors)

Lack of attention

Poor estimation on vehicles

maximum loading capacity and
size of crew necessary (lower
productivity)

Quality
Problems and
over budget

Poor planning of collecting

routes (Higher fuel consumption)
Collecting to many unnecessary
data for the planning process

Process and supervision

Planning

Figure 1. Fish-bone diagram: Identifying causes for poor quality.

Defect type on the service (Cleanon Inc.)

Overload of collector trucks
Vehicles breakdowns or delays
Old/worn vehicles
Poor or late vehicle reparations
Lack of usage of personal protection devises (PPD)
Untrained members of the crew
Times when accidents or errors occurred from lack of attention
No response to clients complaints
No daily supervision checkups done
Lower loading of wastes from vehicles capacity
Detected poor routes layout
Detection of unnecessary data collected

Frequency (N)
10
41
1
9
9
6
57
13
46
38
2
1

Figure 2. Check list: Identifying defects on the waste collection service over a period of 6 months.

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30
25
20
15
10
5
0
% for each cause

Causes of poor quality and over budget for Cleanon Inc.

Figure 3. Pareto chart: Identifying most significant problems

Accidents or error caused for lack of attention

24,4%
No daily supervision checkups performed
19,7%
Vehicle breakdowns or delays
17,6%
Lower loading of wastes from vehicles capacity
16,3%
TOTAL 78%
Figure 4. Causes that contribute most to the poor quality and over budget problem
5. Simple QFDs House of Quality to demonstrate priority and conflict areas
A Quality Function Deployment QFD House of Quality is presented to evaluate the ideas of
clients in order to deliver a domestic waste collection service which better addresses customers
important requirement (wants and needs), making sure that the voice of the customer drives the
definition, design, and production (Richardson, 1997). (See Figure 5)
From the House of quality diagram, it can be found that clients think that the most important
needs for them the waste collection service should cover are: for it to be consistently on time and
schedule, safe and causes the minimum level of inconvenience. These aspects should be specially
taken into account when planning and delivering the service to achieve a higher customer satisfaction.
On the other hand, the priority technical areas that influence more client satisfaction are: Vehicle
maintenance and prompt repairs, the training and security of crew members and the appropriate
planning of collecting routes, times and service frequency.
There are no relevant conflict areas where technical requirements oppose each other. All
operating aspects are to be address.

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6. System to better capture customer requirements to eliminate key source of rework

The system presented below, has been devised to develop a more effective apprehension of
customer requirements to remove the necessity of rework, which in the case of the domestic solid
waste collection services means having to go back to pick uncollected bins or not being aware of faulty
vehicles and low performance workers; or in general, not accomplishing high productivity levels so
more effort and resources have to be invested and allocated to do the same amount of work.
Initial Stage of planning

Throughout the operation

Enquiring information on customer

needs and wants from the waste
collection service:
-Group sessions, Questionnaire surveys
and dialogue with homeowners and
building managers
-Observation and previous experience

Customers Expecters requirements:

-Personal preferences
-Viewed values on the system and the
service
-Attitudes towards the service
-Expectations from the waste collection
service
-Specific wants and needs
-Criteria for judging the service

Constant communication with

customers:
-Interactive Web page (informing
operations and improvements)
-Feedback forms
-Attention Phone line available 24h

Decreases need for

Customers Spoken requirements:

-Complaints
-Reports of irregularities

Response to customer reports and complaints:

Immediate rectifications
Systematic registration
Collection of uncollected garbage
Analysis to allocate weaknesses
Repairs, replacement of
collector vehicles and/or crew

Technical data acquisition,

revision and analisys:
-Government specifications
-Vehicles loading capacity and
other maintenance specifications
-Use of specified PPD for crew
-Citys traffic and roads
-Quantification and
characterization of solid wastes
produced by target population

Clear knowledge of customer requirements

Better definition and

design of the service

Maximum vehicles and workers high

performance and productivity
No rework
No investment on extra resources

Customer satisfaction

Figure 6. System to capture customer requirements to eliminate rework

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7. Relevant cost categories related to the quality of the service

Different cost categories related to the quality of the waste collection service are identified.
Costs of quality include money invested on prevention (planning and executing an acceptable error
free service), appraisal (evaluating the service and its outputs), internal failure (correcting identified
errors before delivering), external failure (not correcting errors before delivering), and measurement
and test equipment (using equipment for prevention and appraisal) (Ireland, 1991).
Prevention costs:
To develop a correct planning stage for the waste collection service, relevant data regarding
populations demographics and generation of wastes, citys street layout, studies on traffic, and
housing structure must be collected and analyzed to devise correct collecting routes, effective times
and schedules of collection and deciding matters on crew size. (Tchobanoglous, 2002). The collection
and analysis of these data costs money.
Costs incurred on regular prevention maintenance, cleaning and periodic planned safety checks
of the collector vehicles to prevent loss and spillage of wastes during daily operations, minimize health
and safety hazards to personnel and clients and prevent breakdowns and delays from the trucks that
can produce errors. Also, the costs of protection personal devices that waste loaders must use at all
times during operations to prevent injury and lower levels of performance (Oduro-Kwarteng, 2011).
Additionally, the money invested on training crew member including waste loader and collector
truck drivers to prevent and decrease the number of errors made on daily operations and the capital
used on providing incentive plans or certain benefits (social and healthcare services) for workers and
managers to keep high morale, interest on doing the work correctly and for them to obtain high
performance levels and accept the responsibility for maintaining their equipment.
Appraisal costs:
- Inspection and operator: Costs incurred on supervision procedures done by supervisors to
ensure crew members are performing at a correct level, that drivers are strictly following the
planned routes, and that the vehicle maintenance are completed on schedule. Inspecting the
whole process periodically (checking of records in vehicle log books and time sheets,
monitoring and follow-up of waste collection and keeping of records of the daily number of
trips and tonnage of waste) is crucial to make sure corrective measures are taken to ensure
-

better quality service (Oduro-Kwarteng, 2011).

Test equipment: Costs incurred on the maintenance of the equipment used to test compaction

capacity of collector trucks and regular operational characteristics of vehicles.

Internal failure costs:
- Scrap: Cost of replacing old, worn or damaged collector trucks when a certain vehicle is
-

identified as being too unproductive due to little compaction capacity and high need of repairs.
Rework: Costs of sending another truck to provide the waste collection service when a vehicle
breaks down, is object of a road accident or is unexpectedly fully filled before finishing the

collection of waste planned. Also, another source of rework is

Process failure: Money expend on determining the causes from the collection process that
need to be corrected to produce a better quality service. It might mean adjudging more

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supervisors to find out under what circumstances failures are presented regarding crew,
vehicle and customer service performance.
External failure costs:
- Customer complaint: Costs incurred on responding adequately to a client complaint or report
of an irregularity regarding a poor quality service that can be made due to collector truck
delays uncollected sacks of garbage and spills of wastes etc. Costs may include the
investigation of facts, its analysis and registration, the location of weakness in personnel and
-

the taking of corrective and preventive actions.

Service liability: Money to cover litigation costs resulting from services legal responsibility to
provide a safe waste collection scheme, and customer injury when accidents are caused by
the ineffectiveness or remissness of members of the crew, or when customers suffer any harm
on account of the lack of provision of the service (uncollected wastes may cause health

problems for fungi, bacteria, toxins and vector generation) (Christensen, 2010).
Warranty claims: Money that would have to be paid to the municipality government in case
that the company is unable to provide the waste collection service within the minimum
established requirements.

8. Relevant input, output, outcome and quality performance measures

Measuring performance with quantifiable and useful indicators that have clear the how, the
when and the who, is an important part of the process of quality systems. Input measures (resources
or effort used), output measures (what service produces), outcome measures (impact or benefit of the
service) and quality measures (effectiveness in meeting clients satisfaction) are used to indicate a
quantifiable aspect of performance (Mohamed, 2013). For Cleanon Inc. the next performance
measures are established so that certain parameters can be gauged to indicate that after
implementing preventive, corrective, and control actions, the company will be able to deliver a
consistent and reliable waste collection service within the pre-established budget from the
government, ensuring client satisfaction. (D-Waste Team, --; Scarlett & Sloan, 1996; Cointreau-, &
Coad, 2000)
Input measures:
- Kilograms of wastes collected per man per hour
- Gallons of Fuel consumed on a collector vehicle/ tons of waste collected during one day
- Tons of waste collected by each vehicle in one route/ Maximum loading capacity of the vehicle
-

in tons
Time spent per ton of waste collected. Comparing data from consecutive periods
Number of daily trips by vehicle/ Number of expected daily trips from that certain vehicle
Costs incurred per 1000 of population served. Comparing data from consecutive periods and

see its decrease

Output measures:
- Number of households where waste is collected in a certain day/ Total number of households
that should be served
Outcome measures:
- Kg of wastes/ man of the crew/ hours compared to the standardized requirement of labor
- Time spend at discharge site by a certain vehicle/ Standard expected time for discharge at site

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Number of times when there has been important vector generation

Morbidity rates due to illnesses related directly with the lack of the waste collection service.

Comparing data from consecutive periods and see its decrease

Quality measures:
- Number of revised and responded complaints /Total # of complaints received from customers
- Number of vehicles repairs necessary, performed in a month. Comparing data from
-

consecutive periods and see its decrease

Number of times when crew have left wastes uncollected (missed stops) over a certain period

of time. Comparing data from consecutive periods and see its decrease
Number of collector vehicles breakdowns while operating over a period of time. Comparing

data from different periods and see its decrease

Number of vehicles daily cleaned and maintained / Total number of vehicles on the fleet

Conclusion
In conclusion, the key aspects to take into account when working towards delivering a reliable
and consistent waste collection service, within budget and satisfying customers, are:
- Correctly recognizing clients perspectives on the quality of the service and clients
requirements being able to establish its relation with the service operations characteristics
-

and properly measuring performance

Correctly identifying the causes for over budget, detecting the costs incurred on maintaining a
good quality.
Through this report, it was found that perspective of clients on quality of the waste collection as

a visible service is related mostly to collector vehicles and crews performance and looks and the
overall cleanness of their neighborhood and that the primarily desires of the clients that should be
covered by the service are the safety, reliability and minimum causality of inconvenience. The same
areas of causes of over budget, areas of technical priority, areas with most quality cost incurrence and
areas to focus performance measures were found to be: vehicle maintenance, training of personnel
and planning routes and times of serving and supervision of daily activities.

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