Investigating the perceived service quality expectations of Sibanya platinum mining : a case of the (South African) overhead crane industry

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate customer service-quality expectations delivered by the overhead-crane industry to Sibanye-Stillwater's Southern Africa PGM operations (for the purpose of this study, 'Sibanye platinum') in the North-West province, South Africa. Overhead-cranes are essential to customer operations to ensure cost savings, enhanced safety, maximising productivity uptime, and reducing downtime. Operational problems result in production losses and can be caused by downtime of overhead-cranes. According to a blog by the Crane Inspection & Certification Bureau (based in Texas, USA), customers are at risk of safety, quality, cost, and potential downtime, whereas the overhead-crane industry service providers risk the loss of business, legal claims, and safety hazards. This study assists companies in identifying guidelines that could help them benefit from competitive performance, quality, upsurge performance, striving for excellent standards, and improved customer relationships. Provide results that could be useful to managers for strategic planning and drafting company policies and quality-improvement procedures. The methodology followed in this study involved two parts: a literature study and an empirical research study by means of interviews. Data were collected through interviews with constructed open-ended interview guides to obtain customer perspectives on service quality delivered by overhead-crane companies. The interview guide intended to characterise the perception and expectations of the target population consisting of Sibanye-Stillwater management, who oversee the overhead-crane functions at Sibanye-Stillwater's PGM operations in Rustenburg, North-West province, South Africa. The selection of operation engineers and supervisors as the population was because of their positions, responsibilities, and legally-correct appointments related to overhead-cranes. Six interviews, including the pilot study, were conducted until saturation plus one was reached. The research design was based on a qualitative approach, applying non-probability purposive sampling. The study focused on the content of discussions, with each interview and transcript analysed and codes developed through a thematic framework. It was evident from the empirical study that the following service quality expectations showed up as themes after the Thematic analysis was done. Most participants revealed that 'stewardship', 'in a timely manner' and 'service-delivery' are highly relevant themes to service-quality expectations in the overhead-crane industry.