Overview of the Company
The peculiar feature of the majority of Middle Eastern organizations is the possibility to combine business with a number of social and cultural issues (Wilson, 2012). It is always interesting and educative to observe how some Middle Eastern company appears and continues developing and demonstrating its peculiarities. The current paper focuses on a Turkish company called Erdemir. It is a steel producer that offers such products as coil plates or hot and cold rolled products (“ErdemirGroup: Product Catalogue,” 2015).
The company has been founded in the middle of the 1960s when the Turkish economic structure was undergoing considerable transformations. It was a kind of new tendency to provide the country with its own steel production. For a long period of time, Turkey was good at agriculture only. However, even such a sphere as agriculture requires a number of innovations connected with specific equipment. The founders of Erdemir considered this importance and started paying more attention to the material with the help of which the required equipment may be created.
The company offered “hot and cold rolled, tin, chromium, and zinc coated flat steel at world standards” (“Erdemir: Products and Services,” 2015, par.1). However, before the company was finally created, a number of steps and precautionary measures had been taken. For example, a special delegation had to launch a feasibility study in order to explore all possible ideas on how to create a powerful organization.
Then, the association between several Turkish companies had been created to develop a bill on the basis of which Erdemir was created. In 1965, almost one million of crude and flat steel was produced by a new company. With time, a number of industrial investments have been done by Erdemir in Turkey. Nowadays, Forbes defines Erdemir as one of the largest companies in the Middle East, with profits of about $483 million and assets in $6,014 million (Maidment, 2007).
Like almost all Middle Eastern organizations, Erdemir has the Code of Ethics and Business Conduct developed by the chairman of the company, Ali Pandit. Its peculiar feature is that it touches upon a number of personal, social, and political issues. For example, the company defines the conditions under which it is possible to avoid the actions that can be taken in favor of self or close relatives, or it is necessary to evaluate the situation of taking and giving gifts to other companies, Erdemir may or does cooperate with (“ErdemirGroup: Code of ethics”, n. d.). In general, Erdemir is one of the largest companies in Turkey that can add significant value to the economy of the country and prove that steel products are of high quality and correspond to national and even international standards.
Due to such a good reputation and an overall impact on the country’s economy, it seems to be crucial to pay much attention to the quality of products and services offered by Erdemir and check if quality management is as good and properly organized as the work of the company in general.
Product and Service Quality
Quality management is crucial for any organization because it defines the level and quality of products and services offered by a company. The role of any quality department is to identify, evaluate, and summarize the efficiency of business within the frames of which all consumers’ requirements are met (Mauch, 2009). Erdemir has the International Certificated approved by the International Certification Network, IQNet.
The presence of this certificate proves how careful and responsible the company under analysis is in regards to the quality of services and products. The company aims are constant and appropriate improvements of services to gain customers’ satisfaction and meet all expectations of partners and potential consumers. The quality management system is perfectly developed and corresponds to the philosophy developed by the company that is to promote more efficient steel production because human future depends on steel.
The success of the company is its ability to combine quality, safety, environment, and energy. The main principles supported by Erdemir concerning the quality of products and services are as follows:
- Consider customers’ opinions by means of effective communication;
- Establish and support innovative corporate culture;
- Support the idea of saving cost and increasing productivity at the same time.
In addition to these principles, Erdemir pays much attention to the environmental issues with the help of which it is possible to control and minimize the majority of negative impacts on nature and maximize the environmental performance with the help of all activities’ monitoring.
Costs of Quality
The cost of quality is usually defined as the sum of all costs spent to prevent, track, and analyze the costs that are associated with the products and services of the company (Mauch, 2009). As a rule, the cost of quality is considered by the managers of the quality department to promote appropriate decisions and support quality improvement actions. As a rule, the managers focus on the cost of quality to understand how profits of the company can be affected by the quality of products and services. A properly identified cost of quality helps to identify some important indirect costs and avoid redundant activities.
Erdemir considers a number of aspects to control the quality of services and products they offer. It is not enough to promote good work of the company. It is more important to consider the opinions of the customers and evaluate all possible costs of quality. As a rule, the managers of the company try to coordinate, monitor, and manage all consumers’ claims in regards to sales and quality.
Erdemir, as the majority of large organizations in the Middle East, face two types of quality costs: the costs that help to achieve good quality (preventive costs) and the costs that are caused by poor quality (failure costs). Preventive costs may be in the form of customer surveys or some training programs. Failure costs can be defined with the help of various laboratory tests or internal audits. Erdemir demonstrates good results in monitoring and improving the quality of services and products offered.
Total Quality Management
Among the existing variety of approaches to creating and developing a good company, the idea of total quality management seems to be one of the most powerful because it focuses on the level of customer satisfaction directly. Erdemir is famous due to its sustainability approach and all relevant activities that help to develop and offer the best services and products. Sustainability is the approach that makes Erdemir a powerful international body. It has good relations with a number of national and international organizations due to which it is possible to share knowledge, discuss strategies, solve problems, and improve the industry.
In fact, the idea of total quality management is the combination of such factors as ethics, trust, leadership, communication, teamwork, etc. Erdemir is the example of how all these factors can be united. Its leaders control all departments that promote communication and teamwork. All workers know and understand the company’s ethical standards and are eager to improve their skills and knowledge by means of new training programs. The quality of products offered by Erdemir is defined by the way of how the company and each its worker is able to meet the goals set.
Quality Tools
There are several quality tools that are chosen by a company to improve its quality and meet the required standards. Regarding the reports offered by Erdemir and the information available online, it is possible to define the following tools that can be applied to the particular company:
- The Fishbone diagram can help to identify the causes of poor quality and come to the conclusion on how to improve the situation regarding the problems with suppliers, workers, machines, or material used.
- Brainstorming helps Erdemir generate a number of ideas that depend on customers’ expectations;
- A check sheet is a universal form of gathering information and promotion of the analysis on the basis of the facts offered. As soon as the problem is identified, specially trained people have to investigate the sphere of the problem and introduce the facts that can be used to make some solutions.
- A histogram is used to investigate a particular period, compare the results, and work on the challenges the company faces in a particular moment.
All these tools may be used by the representatives of Erdemir in order to promote high-quality products and services and consider consumer satisfaction as one of the main goals to be achieved.
Quality Measurement
Erdemir is the company with the name known to a number of countries around the whole world. Its leaders and workers take care of the quality of services and products so that many international organizations want to cooperate with Erdemir and many customers want to buy its products on a regular basis. It is not an easy task to create a powerful company within a short period of time and consider such aspects as production, marketing, delivery, improvement, etc. on a professional level. Erdemir has already set a high-quality measure that helps to control the processes and all systems that work within the company. The International Certificate and a number of customers serve as the main proof that Erdemir succeeds in its business and is ready to develop new standards on the international level.
Conclusion
In general, Erdemir is a powerful company with a number of abilities. The quality of products and services offered is high indeed. Each department has a number of functions that have to be considered. Erdemir put the idea of sustainability in the first place. The company takes care of its customers and spends much time, money, and efforts to understand what can satisfy its consumers and improve the already set quality standards. The company does not stop improving itself from a variety of aspects. It finds necessary to monitor and analyze the costs to make sure the quality is at a high level.
References
EdermirGroup: Product catalogue. (2015). Web.
Erdemir: Products and services. (2015). Web.
ErdemirGroup: Code of ethics and business conduct. (n.d.). Web.
Maidment, P. (2007). In Pictures: The Middle East’s 40 largest public companies. Forbes. Web.
Mauch, P.D. (2009). Quality management: Theory and application. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Wilson, R. (2012). Economic development in the Middle East, 2nd edition. New York, NY: Routledge.