The Sustainability Stimulus of Malaysian Seaport Cluster toward Competitive Vigilance: The Total Quality Management (TQM) Approach

Abstract

The quality management is primarily a commercial action, interaction between strategic business components and management practices and supported by seaport users in the seaport cluster. With the progressive approach, a conceptual of seaport quality can be installed into the seaport activities to stimulate the seaports to create and sustain competitive advantage by increasing their ability to respond tousers’ needs through the quality improvement of seaport services as logistics platforms. The Total Quality Management (TQM) can be used to improve the responsiveness of seaport cluster products and services from upstream entities to downstream entities. The quality management focuses on: to satisfaction of customers; reduce cost; improve productivity; and, to optimize the seaport operations. This issue has become apparent within theseaport cluster, whilethe influence of quality on customer perceptions and consumption behavior has become a major factor affecting the end user choice of seaports. Although that quality management provides approaches to achieve such objectives, a limited number of seaports have developed quality-oriented approaches. This paper explores issues related to the total quality management within the seaport cluster, this paper also reviewing on the current situation at Malaysian seaports that are currently using the ISO for improving the organizational performance. A conceptual of seaport quality will be introduced as a framework for excellence for the seaport cluster and may provide the best strategic approach for the seaports at present and in the future. This paper will provide practitioners and policy makers with an indication of the applicability of the quality culture in the seaport cluster.