Huffman Trucking is a Cleveland, Ohio-based trucking company that was founded in 1936 with a single tractor-trailer rig (ôHuffman Truckingö). Like most organizations today, Huffman Trucking is affected by globalization. A company with customers as diverse as ordinary consumers, major manufacturers, and the U.S. government, globalization puts Huffman in the arena with transport carriers of all types. Globalization also increases the complexity of total quality management for this organization.
Total quality management, or TQM, is a philosophy that attempts to provide quality in all aspects of a companyÆs operations; it strives to ensure that everything is done right the first time, and that defects and waste are eliminated (Padhi). Using the eight key elements of integrity, ethics, trust, training, teamwork, leadership, communication, and recognition, TQM endeavors to provide total customer satisfaction through high-quality products.
Huffman Trucking has 2,100 45Æ-foot trailers, as well as 1,060 other transport units, and performs preventive maintenance on them every 25,000 miles, but in a globalized environment truckers often have to drive unaccustomed routes. Set routes may exist for some customers, but others may require different trips all the time, through different terrain than the preventive maintenance schedule is set for. This means that the truckers need to assume more individual responsibility for the maintenance of their trucks, doing a pre- and post-trip check for every trip, watching carefully for signs of component failure, and monitoring the vehicleÆs condition closely while driving (ôPreventive Maintenance and Inspection Proceduresö). Furthermore, with truckers driving an assortment of unaccustomed trips, maintenance scheduling for Huffman as a whole becomes problematical.
The usual maintenance schedule ensures that no more than a certain percentage of trailers are off
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