Development of quality management system under ISO 9001:2015 and Joint Inspection Group (JIG) for aviation fuelling service

The Joint Inspection Group (JIG) standard for aviation fuel quality management assists in the operational process and maintenance of aviation fuel from its point of origin and through distribution systems to airports. Currently, problems arise as the JIG standard and quality management in aviation fuel are isolated and have independent procedures. Merging the JIG standards with ISO 9001:2015 can override original JIG’s philosophy by connecting all quality assessment, and management parties involved, throughout the supply chain. This integration can harmonize auditing tasks, focusing on risk/opportunity, and continue quality improvement focus. This paper proposes a development of quality management system (QMS) under ISO 9001:2015 for aviation fuelling service in a systematic way. The content and critical success factors of ISO 9001:2015 and JIG standards were studied. The beneficial synergies, similarities, and logical linkages between both standards are identified. This QMS was developed in the largest petroleum company in Thailand and 60 selected experts were surveyed, with a response rate of 88.3%, for their agreement on integrated criteria. Two external quality auditors, who have ISO 9001 and JIG expertise, were interviewed to modify our initial proposed QMS. The final QMS was implemented in the into-plane fuelling services as the first phase of this implementation. Results of framework implementation are discussed in a case study. There are mutual benefits resulting from the integration of JIG and ISO 9001:2015 standards. This QMS provides a unified process for quality management practices, and enhances the effectiveness of risk evaluation as well as the opportunity for continued quality improvement. It facilitates the identifi- cation of ISO 9001:2015 requirements and establishes relationships between the roles of JIG standard and the clauses of ISO 9001:2015. The first experience from five airports as the pilot study of proposed QMS implementation minimized conflicts and duplications between JIG and ISO 9001:2015 standards, reduced the number of into-plane fuelling service incidents reported, such as oil spill, machine stoppage, re-inspections, and recall costs.