Quality management system as a tool for improving the performance companies railways

Increasing globalization, railway reforms and growing competition on the transport market require attention towards quality management in railway enterprises. Apart from external competitive advantages, modern quality management system can be useful for railway enterprises to focus on cutting services’ primecost without reducing reliability and quality. Therefore, a quality management system can become a real tool for improving the performance of domestic railway enterprises, a source of economic benefits and an agent promoting their competitiveness. Quality management system of railway enterprises is a complex multidimensional and multilevel system that should include: controlling subsystem, controlled subsystem, quality policy, objectives, tasks for quality management system, principles, cost reduction, administration’s responsibility and leadership, personnel engagement, process analysis and improvement, requirements/satisfaction of customers (and other stakeholders), resource management, product creation, measurement, continuous management improvement. Quality management system must consider the peculiarities of systematic process approach. According to the author, railway enterprises need a business management system. Quality management system can be a part of business management or fully conform with it at the same time. Such an approach features the principle of process distribution among departments and adequate distribution of managers responsibility. It allows to adjust process management, implemented within the quality management system and compliant with existing approaches to business management in general, to the existing vertical organizational structure. Quality management system based on distribution and accountability is not only an effective way of business management, but also a modern development strategy ensuring compatibility of railway products and activities.