Brentwood Trucking Ltd is a large Canadian transportation holding company. Mr. John Moser, the Vice President of Training and Quality Development, has been tasked with improving quality throughout the organization. He has identified costs associated with defects across various departments totaling over $10 million annually. Mr. Moser will analyze this data and develop a strategy to enhance quality and provide Brentwood a competitive advantage.

1. Brentwood Trucking Ltd Executive Summary
Brentwood Trucking Ltd. is a holding company for the largest Canadian
transportation group. It works on the simple philosophy that is providing the
good services and being completely honest and to treat one another fairly and
with respect.
It was started in central Ontario with the first job of transportation of by-
products from chemical valley to Toronto. Between early 1950’s and 1985’s,
the firm as extended its services to other places and also subsidizes different
transportation companies.
The firm today operates modern terminal in all major Canadian cities, towns
and remote areas. The firm operates over 1500 vehicles moving freight from
shippers across Canada to the customers. It is also providing its subsidiary
companies with the fundamental services such as, human resource, account
receivables and payables, training and quality development, etc.
Mr. John Moser who was the vice president of training and quality
Development for the company was to give the presentation on Cost of Quality
to Mr. G.K Alexander who was the President of Brentwood trucking Ltd. The
executive of the company had given approval to Mr. John on instilling quality
thinking throughout the organization. Mr. John has come up with three things
that can b applied with in the activity of firms to have the concept of quality
and that are meaning of quality defects, determination of cost associative with
quality defects and development of strategy for addressing quality that will
provide competitive and sustainable advantage for the firm.
A Steering committee was formed for the purpose of deciding how to
differentiate Brentwood Trucking Company from its competition. Mr. John was
the member of the committee and he used Deming quality concepts. He also
set up QMTs as a mean of introducing them to the “quality way of thinking.”
John also asks the executives to provide the information regarding the three
things he had come up with.

2. Terminals operations involved the loading and unloading of shipments at
central locations. The cost and expense of these terminals is approximately
$5.3 million per annum. The cost includes re-deliverance, cost associative
with location and layout, extra travels, salaries, hire external cartage, etc.
The transportation department handles the highway operations of Brentwood
Trucking Company to carry shipments from customers to their destinations.
Here John here found many facts. The cost occurred per annum is
approximately $1 million and it includes accident costs and fines, drivers cost,
cost of blocking dock, salaries, etc.
The maintenance department was responsible for the repair and servicing of
all equipments for the firm. It also deals with the spare part inventory. The
cost associative with maintenance department is approximately $0.3 million.
The cost includes packing slips and receipts cards, additional maintenance,
etc.
The quality department consists of one and half full time people. The task is
to act as consultants for various units with in the firm. The cost associated
with the Quality department is $0.27 million. The cost includes travel,
manuals, salaries, etc.
Training department consists of two and half people who were responsible for
the development of training programs with in the firm. The cost is $0.14
million and it includes production cost, wages and benefits.
The sales and marketing department was charged with the responsibility of
quoting rates for services to customers, getting new business, retaining
established accounts and etc. the total cost of this department is around $5.4
million.
Claim department was responsible for settling all claims from customers that
resulted from error made by the company in handling the customers’
shipments. The cost per year of this department is approximately $2.1
million. The cost includes cost of damages sustained, travel, salaries and etc.
Administration department deals with the account receivables. The cost of this
department is something like $0.86 million. The cost includes cost of
reprocessing, fees, bad debts, salaries and wages.

3. Mr. John now had data about the errors and problems within the different
operations of the firm and he can now use this information to asses the
current situation and make strategy to guide the implementations of the
quality development process.

4. Question/Answer
1- What do you think of the process that has been employed at
Brentwood trucking company to introduce the “Quality Thinking”
throughout the firm? What would you do differently? Why?
Implementation:
The process that has been in use at the Brentwood Trucking company to
introduce the ‘quality thinking’ throughout the firm to incorporate, effectively
measure and enhance the total quality management. There have been several
errors and flaws currently running in and around the company and to
eliminate them to maximum extent, Mr. John (vice president of training &
quality development in Brentwood Company) is initially grooming employees,
management and directors about this process and after that planning to apply
the total quality management all over the firm.
Terminal location:
If I had to implement the quality thinking process strategy in the company by
using a different way, the first step that I would be taking in order to
minimize the maximum losses is to alter the location of terminals. The losses
that has been incurred from the other heads that has been mentioned in the
case are far lesser then the losses generating through the terminal because of
their location. The cost of errors and flaws of terminal are in millions of dollar
where as the other departments are not contributing such losses in the firm.
The strategic location should be determined in order to minimize this risk and
to cover the maximum cost and losses.

5. Introduce HRM department:
Another strategy that is to be prioritized in my opinion is the implementation
of proper human resource department. As I have gone through the case of
Brentwood Company, another main issue I had figured out is that there is no
proper channel for the grooming and training of all the employees. All the
hiring firing issues are dealt under the sales and marketing department which
is a major source of losses to be generated. If there would be HR department
it will motivate the employees throughout their session. There is a need of
proper collaboration between HR and quality department in order to keep
employees pro-active and efficient all the time.
2- Examining the various examples of issues raised by various
managers which ones should be classified as related to quality? Can
we classify these items into some form that allows management to
understand where their quality efforts are being placed and what is
being achieved?
The first issue that is related to quality is the tallying of the sheets by the
dock men. If this could be reduced to maximum level the best quality of
service could be achieved. The reason is that these are the errors which are
taking so much time on checking that which shipment is for which destination
or area.
Secondly picking up the right shipment will also help in maintaining the quality
of the service. Because this will save their time in handling the nest correct
shipment and deliver it to the correct destination.
Another issue to be handled is the tracing of orders and shipments within the
system once they are entered in it. At the moment 12 people are deployed
there for this purpose and still it is a problem. So if this issue would have
been solved, it will defiantly help in providing the best quality.

6. Although each and every issue is of the same importance but the mentioned
above are the key issue which must be addressed by the company
management so that they could maintain their best image in the regions as
ones who are providing the best quality to its valued customers.
3- What action plan or strategy do you suggest to John Moser to
move Brentwood Trucking forward in its efforts to improve quality
within the firm?
Well according to my understanding they should make the strategy of Just-In-
Time concept that every task must be processed on its own time so that the
very next activity could not get disturbed. For this all the employees must
know that what type of best effort their work is demanding from them.
Secondly they must remove the communication gap within the firm. Every
employee must be clearly communicated his particular task and the time
required to execute it. With this they will be able to put their maximum efforts
in the given time to complete it.
Management strategy is also must for Brentwood to implement so that every
shipment can be handled in an organized manner without any error. As they
have to handle thousands of shipments, so there must be a very systematic
and organized way to handle them and deliver them to their respective
destinations.
Brentwood Trucking Company is indeed a very successful business that is
offering their services in different areas to their customers but even then they
have to consider their problems very seriously and do investment on them to
sort them out so that they could keep on giving their services to their
customers.