Assignment Brief
Assume that you are a management systems consultant, working for a small consultancy practice and your company has been CONTRACTED to advise on implementation of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified quality and environmental management systems for your client.
Client PROFILE
A&A Ltd. is a haulage and plant hire provider for the UK construction industry. The company has a fleet of 60 haulage vehicles, which it operates from its depot in Preston, covering the whole of the UK. In addition, it has 10 small dumpers and 15 mini excavators for hire. The main client base for the plant hire business is in the North West of England. The company offers a delivery and collection service to clients’ construction sites for this equipment.
The company employs approximately 150 staff and runs several other company vehicles including small vans and company cars. There is a team of five Regional Managers covering Scotland, the North of England, the Midlands, South West England/Wales and South East England.
The company offers haulage services with a diverse fleet including flatbed trailers, tipper trucks, curt insiders, bulk tipping tanks suitable for sand and powders and steel body tippers for moving scrap metal or heavy stone.
A&A Ltd. have a team of qualified vehicle technicians who repair and maintain their own vehicles in workshop accommodation at the main depot. This service is also offered to other vehicle fleet operators.
The company’s accommodation is as follow
• The site is located on a small business park in a residential area, adjacent to the river Darwen.
• Office accommodation in a 1960s industrial building.
• There is an area on site for vehicle washing, with a pressure washer and large scale vehicle wash, similar to that shown in figure 1.
• Skips are provided to the rear of the building for waste disposal.
• There is a large workshop on the same site for vehicle repair and maintenance
• The building’s electricity requirements are provided by the national grid and gas by Transco.
Part A –
1. Advise the company on the implementation of an appropriate Total QualityManagement (TQM) approach (20 marks).
2. Provide an ANALYSIS and recommendation of the main quality improvement tools that the company may use to improve quality (10 marks).
3. Advise the company on the requirements of the ISO 9001 standard and application of these within the company as an appropriate quality management system (QMS) (20 marks)
Part B –
4. Considering the range of activities undertaken by the client, provide an analysis of what you expect their significant environmental aspects may be, including detail on how and where these aspects come about and the nature of their effects on the local and global environment (20 marks).
5. Based on these significant aspects, define some suitable objectives, targets and environmental management programmes that would be relevant to the client (15 marks).
6. Discuss how compliance with legislation and regulations can be managed within an ISO 14001 certified Environmental Management System (EMS) (5 marks).
7. Explain what is meant by independent 3rd party certification to the ISO 14001 standard and how organisations can become certified (10 marks).