It is a real challenge for me to be one of the quality control officers in such a big city like Houston. I have done lots of research regarding to improving the quality of our city services, as well as assessing the actual quality of the services more practically. Working closely with my colleagues, we set up some methods for each service as the following: .
1) Fire Protection .
The Houston Fire Department (HFD) is the third largest municipal fire department in the nation, serving 2 million people and a area more than 600 square miles. The quality of service is directly related to our daily living: time is money, and more critically, life. .
Resident Evaluation : Customer satisfaction is always our primary concern. Questionnaires will be mailed to sampled residents and neighboring witnesses who experienced emergency situations for feedbacks. The survey contains various areas for grading the department's performance, including response time, proper action skills and courtesy of firemen. The survey even asks public opinion about whether or not fire department personnel are professional in their appearance. .
False Alarm : Response time is extremely critical in the service of fire protection. Instead of getting the data from the Fire Department's records, we will work out a plan with the Chief of the Fire Department and several communities to select some locations randomly, creating false alarms to test the actual response time. In order not to disturbing the normal life of the sampled areas, we may schedule the testing during daytime. .
Budget and Priority: Houston Fire Department is short of budget for a very long time. Due to limited number of mechanics, more than 800 trucks are still out of operation, in need of repairing. A tight budget has a negative effect on the performance of firefighters. It is under discussion that the Fire Department may have had its priorities in the wrong places.