Daily Times

From a social and an economic standpoint, waste disposal is one of the most crucial needs of an urban center. Not only does it help with the health of citizens, it is also important in maintaining the scenic beauty of Lahore which has positive impacts on the mental health of its residents.

As the population of Lahore grows its waste management must keep up in terms of efficiency and overall quality of the system. The majority of Lahore’s waste collection is done by individuals who are not affiliated with the government or by contractors. However, since there is a lack of standard practices and a missing feedback loop, the current collection system proves to be inadequate.

According to reports, the waste management system at its current level has severe negative impacts on the environment and the residents of Lahore.

Improper waste disposal has direct consequences on water quality in Lahore as well. It is noted that about 80% of water in the country is polluted. The main cause of this pollution is improperly disposed household sewage and industrial and agricultural waste which is not properly managed. As of 2016, 14 drains were pouring 2000 cusec of waste into the River Ravi system.

Quality lies in the consistency of the system to deliver its required functions in a timely manner.

For the purpose of this research, the residents of Lahore are viewed as the customers while the waste management system is considered the firm. Based on this premise, the research explores best practices to ensure quality in our waste management system which is sustainable both environmentally and economically.

Discussion

The city of Lahore with its population of more than 11 million people generates more than 7,510 tons of waste per day, extrapolated to a month this figure becomes 221,659 tons of waste.

Furthermore, only about 51%-69%of waste is collected by municipalities and there is little concept of waste segregation within this. Scavengers and private waste collectors play a substantial role in waste collection in Lahore, however, even they take materials that can be sold and dump the rest in garbage piles in neighborhoods across the city.

Despite the fact that Lahore’s waste disposal system has been outsourced to a great extent, there are still instances of unregulated waste disposal and large garbage dumps at street corners, especially when the focus is moved to areas not included in the heart of the city.

As far as legislation is concerned, the current legal mandate for waste disposal is the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act which was created in 1997. According to local news sources, residents complain about the heaps of garbage that have become commonplace in the city. The waste collection workers arrive once a day but do not collect the entirety of the garbage piled.

Another resident complained how garbage is collected intermittently without proper schedules, leading to piles of garbage in their locality. Needless to say, this poses an alarming health problem for residents and the city as a whole when these residents are unfortunately carriers of the diseases that spread due to these uncollected garbage heaps.

TQM implementation can be positively linked with financial strengthening of the firm as well as improving the productivity of current resources in order to save resource drains and utilize untapped potential within the organization. Since TQM deals with constant improvement, the problems of one-time service delivery are tackled by using this quality technique, it prevents complacency and stresses the importance of timely customer satisfaction.

Managing human capital is one of the key factors in successful TQM implementation within any organization. For the waste management system, there is a need to formally organize the different people involved from scavengers to outsourced firms. Since scavengers and private collectors are not affiliated with the government they do not have the incentive for proper disposal. They are also generally not educated regarding proper waste separation leading to huge wastes in recyclables as well as health concerns if toxic or contagious waste is left out.

A lack of a trained workforce leads to a lack of accountability. Since scavengers are not a part of the official, formal organizational workforce, there is a lack of accountability and awareness among them. They are not aware of proper methods of disposal and since they sell items they find, it also leads to an imbalance in data collected by the government and since they are not accountable for this discrepancy, they do not have an incentive to end it. Systems for weighing and separating waste are lacking in municipal facilities which means improper data collection.

The first step in implementing TQM is the realization that the main aim of a formal organization is customer satisfaction. Currently, there is low customer satisfaction, and this is clearly illustrated through key performance indicators that directly affect satisfaction.

A sizable proportion of waste in Lahore is disposed of and collected by informal agents. As urban population booms, waste generation is also at an all-time high and, unfortunately, collection and disposal systems have not kept pace with this rapid growth.

As Ishikawa points out, the voluntary and active participation of employees plays a vital role in the overall quality improvement in any organization. Since waste management employees are the ones working firsthand in data collection and disposal, their input is vital when it comes to policy creation and modification. Tackling employee problems while empowering them to make meaningful decisions is also necessary for overall motivation and productivity within the workforce.

In addition, one of the most important aspects in total quality management implementation is data. Data driven decision making and statistical analysis is the key to successful and sustainable TQM implementation. For this, one vital aspect is to have data on hand which can be used for decision making. This data does not have to be in numbers, but rather it can be a measure of different KPIs as well as organized record keeping. Once activities are documented, and the data is retrievable, managerial decision making becomes more accurate and relevant with regards to the current situation in which the system is operating.

Tying in with the importance of data and documentation, it is vital to have written policies and rules that are strictly enforced and apply to the entire system, from contractors to the public, being widely known and effectively communicated, a factor which has led to immense success in Japanese waste management systems. Rules and regulation for the disposal of waste are clearly drawn up by the Japanese government and effectively communicated to all stakeholders. One of the ways this is achieved is through the use of education from elementary school level to the wide availability of waste disposal related pamphlets available at city offices to guide residents.

There are also fixed data collection schedules available and communicated to residents.

In Germany, citizens pay extra for their bottled water and the extra amount is returned to them when they return these bottles for recycling. Innovative strategies like the ones being employed in Japan and Germany are tried and tested, proving their effectiveness in dealing with issues like recycling and waste separation that prove to be challenging for the current waste management system.

There is a lack of educational importance placed on the correct methods of waste disposal, and a lack of awareness of the adverse effects of incorrect disposal. There should be widespread awareness and education campaigns within waste management organizations but also among the general public that stress the importance of individual and community involvement in waste management.

Research has established a direct link between employee training and education and their performance.

Furthermore, the positive impacts of this training and education are felt over other business functions such as finance, technology and innovation. As mentioned earlier, outsourced firms are hired to assist with their widespread operations. While outsourcing operations does remove some pressure from main operations, it should not lead to complacency. In order to achieve true TQM, there should be focus on the contractors and their performance. Empowering and enabling contractors will lead to improved operational performance.

As discussed, customer satisfaction should be the key goal of any system and company and can be effectively handled through the use of stakeholder involvement strategies. Usually, stakeholder involvement can be at three distinct levels: Inform, Consult or Actively Involve. In a few cases we can see the use of the Active Involvement strategy when it comes to housing societies which are now being told to manage and correctly dispose of their waste or face fines. In this manner, stronger legislation must be adopted at neighborhood level to instill a sense of joint responsibility so that neighborhood representatives ensure that waste is correctly disposed of in containers.

However, this will only work if waste containers are appropriately placed as per neighborhood population and waste generation data. There is a pressing need for drawing up and writing down a complete, comprehensive breakdown of the processes involved in waste management from collection to disposal and recycling. An important driving factor of TQM and its success is the clear communication of and analysis of the process so it can be broken down into its parts and tackled directly, reducing and ultimately eliminating the need for inspection.

Conclusion

First and foremost, it is important to improve data collection within the organization. One of the basis of TQM implementation is statistical analysis and data driven decision making. As things currently stand, there is a lack of proper data collection which leads to misleading or incomplete data which automatically leads to flawed decision making. None of the solutions and opportunities mentioned require the added cost of technology and this is because technology should be used as the facilitator in conjunction with effective management.

Data collection is necessary but effective analysis of that data to form the basis of decision making is much more important. Implementation of TQM will also lead to reduced costs by reducing costs associated with flawed practices including time and energy. TQM prevents the problem of stagnation within the organization by focusing heavily on constant improvement rather than a one-time effort towards change.

Constantly updating and improving helps the organization keep in touch with the ever-changing population trends and as well as keeping their legislation relevant to the current trends with wastes related to modern practices like e-commerce and fast fashion.