International Journal for Quality Research

6

Authors: M. J. Perovic, R. Luburic

Training and qualifying are important request of international standards of ISO 9000 series, but also of other management enviroment ISO 14000 and work safety ISO 18000 standards. The paper points on significance of training and qualifying especialy on equaldistribution of knowledge in an organization. The paper also emphasiyes the connection between training and qualifying and processes, and points on the robe of management in process off all training of staff and members of management. Training of staff depends on management as well as the level of knowledge. Process improvement is knowledge dependant, and survival of organization is improvement dependant.

9

Authors: S. Zivojinovic, A. Stanimirovic, S. Arsovski

From the vantage point of contemporary management paradigm shift and new knowledge-based economy, we underscore the importance of relations and support of quality management system - QMS (according to ISO 9001 standard) for management of knowledge and intellectual capital. QMS implementation, documenting, application, maintenance and continuous improvement, as a catalyst of effective organiyation management, provides a foundation for effective knowledge management and intellectual capital enlargement, via knowledge, skills, management systems, procedures, information and product flow, culture, inovation, relations with customers and other stakeholders. Simultaneous implementation and dynamic interaction of these advanced management concepts intended to attain competitive advantage can result in synergic effects and improved performance. From the perspective of knowledge, as a central unifying notion, organizational behavior based on learning influences long-term business success, process effectiveness and customer satisfaction.

9

Authors: D. Rajkovic, I. Djokic , S. Pesic Djokic

Appearance of a number of management systems with various and sometimes divergent demands, demands for revise of optimal strategy on implementation of these standards in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the attempt on their integration into integrated management system are suggested even more. Firstly question on choice and reasons for implementation of standards is raised. Management and employees expect benefits on the implementation and they pass and minimize the implementation barriers. Basic concept on integrated management system (IMS) into SMEs and analyse on reasons and advantages at IMS implementation are presented in this paper.

10

Authors: N. M. Vaxevanidis, G. Petropoulos, J. Avakumovic, A. Mourlas

In order to improve quality, an organization must take into account the costs associated with achieving quality since the objective of continuous improvement programs is not only to meet customer requirements, but also to do it at the lowest, possible, cost. This can only obtained by reducing the costs needed to achieve quality, and the reduction of these costs is only possible if they are identified and measured. Therefore, measuring and reporting the cost of quality (CoQ) should be considered an important issue for achieving quality excellence. To collect quality costs an organization needs to adopt a framework to classify costs; however, there is no general agreement on a single broad definition of quality costs. CoQ is usually understood as the sum of conformance plus non-conformance costs, where cost of conformance is the price paid for prevention of poor quality (for example, inspection and quality appraisal) and cost of non-conformance is the cost of poor quality caused by product and service failure (for example, rework and returns). The objective of this paper is to give a survey of research articles on the topic of CoQ; it opens with a literature review focused on existing CoQ models; then, it briefly presents the most common CoQ parameters and the metrics (indices) used for monitoring CoQ. Finally, the use of CoQ models in practice, i.e., the implementation of a quality costing system and cost of quality reporting in companies is discussed, with emphasis in cases concerning manufacturing firms.

28

Authors: O. Calavrezo, F. Sari

The aim of our research is to analyze how the urban organization affects the unemployment-to-work transitions by considering several spatial indicators. This permits to capture two separate effects: "spatial mismatch" and "neighbourhood effects". In order to study the unemployment-to-work transitions, we implement survival models. They are applied on a sample obtained by merging three French databases: the "Trajectoires des demandeurs d'emplois" survey, the 1999 French census and finally, a database containing town inventory information. More precisely, in this paper, we analyze the duration of the first observed employment episode by using spatial indicators and by controlling three potential biases (endogeneity bias, selection bias and attrition bias).