The Dnata Airport Operations Management Essay

The following case study aims to highlight the core efficiency of Business Excellence Model and its implementation in an organization in context to the UAE. The company chosen for this case is “Dnata” which is the largest supplier of air combined services in the world. Dnata implemented Business Excellence Model in order to enhance its services, extending customer’s expectations, achieved competitive advantage and accomplished its vision.

Background of the company:

Dnata is a leading air combined service provider in the world with head office established in Dubai. It is also a largest travel management services company in the United Arab Emirates. It offers services in flight catering, ground handling, traveling, information technology and cargo across the world (Our Company)

The company commenced its first operations in year 1959 with five staff members. Now, being benchmark in ground operations in the Middle East, the company expertise has seen in its portfolio growing rapidly after expanding into the international market. Dnata Airport Operations is a constituent of Dnata which is also a part of the Emirates Group in context to the handling of management in airport services. The Company has more than twenty thousand employees, a fleet of over 6,200 pieces of equipments as well as most advanced technology in the industry. The company is handling over more than 130 international airlines, twenty fives non scheduled charters, 1.9 millions of fright, more than two lakh aircraft movements and forty three million passengers across 38 countries (The Safety Isuses)

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In the context of ground handling services, Dnata started its first operation in Pakistan in the year 1993 and now it is covering geographical range from Australia to UK that is representing in near about seven countries and eighteen international airports outside the UAE. Dnata’s hallmark is providing efficient and cost effective solutions across the world. The service includes cargo handling, baggage and ramp as well as ground support equipment maintenances in order to ensure the consistency of the services through the best practices techniques and quality of the training standards (Delivering creativity, innovation and service quality).

Dnata is continuously delivering the creativity, service quality and innovations and maintained very high standard of safety and quality which has been rewarded by numerous international awards and certifications. The company’s main focus is to meet customer’s needs and expectations and provide innovations and invaluable services which results in rapid expansion and thus company is evolving as a leading industry in aircraft services in the world. They try not only to meet the customer’s expectation but also try to exceed their expectation with better services providing by invaluable hardworking members (Delivering creativity, innovation and service quality).

Dnata at UAE:

Dnata has its footsteps in major continents and countries. With a comprehensive range of service available its main ground handling operations are situated in Dubai. In context to the UAE, it was established in the year 1959. The main aim with the establishment of the company was to provide cargo services and ground handling services at Dubai International Airport. The company has since grown globally as a prominent industry leader (United Arab Emirates).

Dnata is committed to the highest standards of service, safety and quality. The company is focusing on exceeding the customers’ expectations with the use of innovation of systems and state-of-art technology. It is the first ground handling operation of Dnata that has large special team of expertise and professional to focus on different operations of the company. To bring efficiency in the services several improvements were made and hence applied world wide (United Arab Emirates).

Addition to the main services offered, the company emphasized on the factors of safety and security. It has dedicated team which works to overcome with situation of emergencies and accidents. This resource planning team is also accessed by clients who look for the optimized solutions to productivity and resources (United Arab Emirates).

Dnata Ground Handling services provide full support in term of maintenance and operating equipments to Dnata Cargo Terminals and Emirates Sky cargo. There are several innovative and special services available in Dubai such as Terminal 2 operation, charter cargo, special interest flights, catering for scheduled and special freighter handling unit. The special freighter handling unit has established to provide quality cargo handling to this growing and emerging sector (United Arab Emirates).

In the field of cargo services, Dnata is one of the leading cargo services operators in the Middle East. Consequently, the region has grown and emerged as a vital hub for the commercial activities especially in cargo and logistic services. The company is adopting a culture of excellence in customer services. Thus, Dnata cargo has grown at both levels at regional as well as global. They continue to set pioneering standards and practices in the industry (Delivering world-class solutions to the Cargo industry).

Application of Business Excellence Model:

The company has achieved a mile stone through the process of innovation, customer focus, development and advanced technique solutions. Under all the departments of Dnata, the Dnata Airport Operations Management visualized to achieve Excellency through the strategy of continuous improvement. They adopted the Business excellence model in order to enhance its service and management in context to internal and external customers, achieved competitive advantage and accomplished its vision, goal and objective. The management has realized that the excellence can be achieved through putting the intelligent efforts in the right way and right direction. Therefore, the company has established strategic plan for next ten years with focusing on various activities, established quality planning department, set its mission, vision and values and empowered to work in achieving set goals and objectives (Annual Report 2011- 2012).

The Business Excellence model has wide applications in organizations in order to maintain quality in services and products and to address the future challenge. The limited resources, conflicting priorities, changing customer needs, understanding actions of organizations, comparing performance with competitors are types of challenges which were supposed to be sorted out in order to bring efficiency in the operations and performance. These challenges can be met with the effective nine criteria of Business Excellence Model. After understanding the concept and requirement of the Excellency and release of ISO 9000 by International Organization of Standardization, the company has implemented the Business Excellence Model in business and maintained quality in the performance (Principles of Business Excellence Chapter- 1) (Principles of Buisness Excellence Chapter 2).

Dnata Airport Operations has implemented core activities of Business Excellence model in its operations to bring Excellency in performance. The senior management prepared strategic plan and set clear objectives to apply in management systems and excellence model for the next ten years to increase rate of development and to overcome with the future challenges (Principles of Business Excellence Chapter- 1).

They are;

ISO 9001 QMS in year 2001- 2002.

AHS 1000, IATA AHS 804 in year 2003- 2004.

ISO 14001 EMS, DQAP in year 2004- 2005.

Initiate Airport Activity Control System (ACCS) project in 2006- 2007.

OHSAS 18001, ISAGO certification.

Establishment of Customer Relationship Unit (CRU) in 2010- 2011

(United Arab Emirates).

Framework

Source: (Principles of Business Excellence Chapter- 1)

The framework of the Business Excellence Model consists of nine criteria i.e. leadership, people, people, policy and strategy, partnership and resources, process, people results, customer results, society results and key performance results. These criteria’s are implemented in the core business activity of Dnata’s (Principles of Business Excellence Chapter- 1).

A steering committee was established in the form of developing effective leadership. People criteria developed with the recruitment of trained and skilled employees and developed invaluable hardworking team. In order to work in proper and effective manner the company has adopted strategic planning and pioneering strategies with the well qualified employees and manager. This strategic planning is also practiced in developing partnership and resources. The company is developed with developing and enhancing its partnership and resources. The company always focused on maintenance of resources also with several check list programs and quality circle etc (Annual Report 2011- 2012).

The main objective of the company is to develop the continuous improvement culture with the implementation of advanced technique solution and advance technology and advanced programs and practices. The proper and effective process is utilized to serve whole environment of the company including customers, employees as well as to the society and also to evaluate key performance results. This allows the company to lead and achieve progress in the competitive market of the world (Annual Report 2011- 2012).

Comparison with EFQM:

EFQM stands for the European Foundation for Quality Management. It is a form of business excellence model used to guide organization in order to improve their performance and productivity. Its mission is to drive force in order to sustain excellence in the company. Its vision is to see organizations excel in the world. The philosophy of this model is that the superior performance is achieved by the participation of all members of the company. It also makes individual’s performance more effective and superior (Principles of Business Excellence BE- Chapter 3).

Diagram of EFQM Model:

Source: (Principles of Business Excellence BE- Chapter 3)

The EFQM model was introduced with eight fundamental concepts and nine criteria’s in the year of 1992. The model is a non perspective framework which is based on the nine criteria’s that further divided into ‘Enablers’ and ‘Result’. In which five of them are Enablers and next four are Result. According to the EFQM model the premise is that “Excellent results in context to the Performance, People, Customers and Society are achieved through the effective leadership to drive Policy and Strategy that is delivered through Partnerships, People, Processes and Resources” (Principles of Business Excellence BE- Chapter 3).

S. No

Business Excellence Model

EFQM Excellence Model

It is based on nine criteria’s

It is based on nine criteria’s and eight fundamental concepts

It focuses on strategic development and strategic implementation with effective leadership.

It focus on strategic development and strategic implementation and again back to leadership.

Business Excellence Model helps an organization throughout the steps of journey to achieve the excellence

EFQM is a framework for assessing applications.

The nine criteria’s are implemented in an organization.

The nine criteria’s are implemented in the organization in two different groups i.e. Enabler and Results.

Business Excellence Model complete work depends on the concepts of nine pre-described criteria.

EFQM works on the concept on eight fundamental concepts and nine criteria of Excellency.

(Principles of Buisness Excellence Chapter 2)

Comment on adaption of the Model

Dnata adopted the business model in order to bring the efficiency in the quality of services and products. The adoption of the model becomes a major reason for the growth and success of the company as it interrelate all the nine crucial criteria’s of the model and evaluates the key performance result. This strategy enhanced the performance of the company in context to finance production, operations, economics and society.

Implementation of Business Excellence Model

Dnata implemented Business Excellence Model in the core activity of operations and management strategies. The process of implementation is done in proper and strategic manner as the task of implementing Quality management system was assigned to the Quality Planning Department and their managers were selected as Management representative. In order to develop the leadership, a steering committee was established under the chairmanship of Executive Vice President and department head were selected as members of the steering committee. The process of policies, procedures, targets, conducting trainings, KPI, setting objectives, measurement mechanism and setting up monitoring were led by quality department of Dnata. The measurement mechanism includes the function of internal audits, staff meetings and management reviews etc (Train With Us).

The Quality Department established training programs according to the requirements of the members of the company such as they structured comprehensive training program for the senior managers in order to spread awareness and detailed training programs for employees and junior managers. There was separate training program designed for internal auditors for two days. All these training were provided in company only with utilizing expertise of quality departments. The training provides major advantage that there syllabus and schedules can be customized as per the requirement of the company (Train With Us).

Dnata Airport Operations set its Vision, Mission and Values which helps to establish its long term direction for achieving growth and success. These strategies were implemented in the core of the Quality policy and provide objectives and targets which further transformed into sectional, individual and then departmental objectives (Train With Us).

This strategic planning of Quality Management System influenced employees’ behavior in a very positive manner across the organization. It develops “can do” attitude which gave birth to a new culture of sharing information, discuss their problems and openness and transparency in the system. This resulted in the formation of (QAT) i.e. Quality Action Teams (Train With Us).

Quality Action Teams provide systematic planned approach for problem solving which is based on the concept of Quality Circles. Quality team designed and developed a one day course that covers all the relevant stages of problem solving includes learning of various tools and techniques like cause and effect diagram, Pareto analysis, flowing chart etc. at the same time it also emphasizes on their effective adoption and process of implementation of these tools. The training was provided to employees and managers in order to make them trained thoroughly for the tools and techniques (Train With Us)

The Business Excellence Model is adopted in Dnata Airport Operations in the above described manner. The effective implementation provides several benefits to the company in context to finance operations, productions, economy and society (Train With Us)

Benefit

After the adoption and implementation of the Business Excellence Model, the company is enriched with the following benefits:

Dnata Airport Operations has become the world’s first ground handler to achieve ISAGO (IATA Safety Audit for ground operations) accreditation.

Dnata won the DQAP award and appreciated by the H. H. Sheikh Mohammed.

Won several awards and accolades such as Dubai Quality and Appreciation program certificate in 2004, Ground Handling Provider of the Year in 2007, 2008 and 2010 respectively and several ITP Aviation Business Awards in Airport Passenger Handling and Airport Operations Manager.

The culture of continuous improvement enhanced technology and operations of the company and enable to benchmark its position in competitive environment.

The company is able to establish and dive smoothly the Environment Management system, Corporate Social Responsibility system and Quality management System.

Dnata implemented excellent safety practices to streamline their process across the globe.

It enables to offer high quality services at airports internationally.

It able to provides technically advanced solutions in ground handling.

(The Safety Isuses)

Issues or challenges faced

The company is growing as leading company in the world with implementing core efficiency of the Business Excellence Model. In order to run operations with the ease and smoothness the company has to face several challenges such as

The major challenge faced during the first five years of Quality Management System was to manage the operations from fire fighting approach of managing things to a structured approach.

Influence employees to follow SOPs and avoiding the habit of shortcuts.

Managing Constant follow up and management commitment was also a major issue to inhabitant.

Spreading awareness about the management process.

Documentation of corrective actions required lots of efforts to put into practice.

Solutions:

Dnata used several strategic plans and systemized process to over come with the above challenges. To lead the consistent and effective leadership company builds up steering committee and appoints head of each department as the member of the committee. The leaders learn and adopt the effective policy and procedure of the Business Excellence Model and adopted in the core management of their operations. They used to spread awareness through different orientation and training programs across the organization. The high commitment and belief of leaders drive management approach of Excellence model in their organization and successfully implemented.

Conclusion

Dnata has been implementing Business Excellence Model since decades and its journey towards achieving excellence reveals that the excellence is achieved through intelligent efforts and systematic planning. The efforts require vision and sustained struggle to accomplish it. There is strategic planning and intelligent effort is required in order to implement the Excellence model in the organization else it would remain only a buzz word. The company travels a long journey that includes systematic practices, envisaging yearly approaches and constant refinement with focusing on continuous improvement.

The above mentioned approaches and techniques were adopted in view of their importance and requirements for their business nature and every year many new techniques and functions were focused to improve that was starting with QMS ISO 9001.

It also reflects that an organization striving for bringing excellence in the organization should taking it through the process of strategic planning till the refinements and deployments. There are several methods to bring Excellency in the operations of the company such as EFQM, Six Sigma etc. The company can choose the frame model as per the requirements of their management, techniques, services and products which suits to their internal and external business environment.

Recommendation

In Dnata, There should be awareness among the employees and the managers about the operational process and the implementation of the Business Excellence model.

The model should be adopted in all the subsidiaries and companies of Dnata.

The culture of continuous improvement should be implemented in the core business of all the company of Dnata.

The steering committee of the company should committed to the concept of Excellency.

Dnata structured several training programs but there should be employee survey to determine the efficiency of the training and orientation programs.

Dnata management implemented Business Excellence Model but effectiveness should be enhanced with the requirement of the management operation of different sectors like cargo, travels and airport.

The intelligent efforts and strategic planning should be adopted in order to implement Excellency.

Dnata should focus on consistent and standardized approach of the implementation of the Business Excellence Model in the company.