International Journal for Quality Research

6

Authors: Elizabeta Mitreva

The subject of this paper is linked with the valorization of the meaning and the perspectives of Total Quality Management (TQM) system design and implementation within th e domestic companies and creating a model-methodology for improved perfor mance, efficiency and effectiveness. The research is designed as an attempt to depict the existing condition in the Macedonian companies regarding quality system design and implementation, analysed through 4 po lls in the "house of quality" whose top is the ultimate management, and as its bases measurement, evaluation, analyzing and comparison of the quality are used. This "house" is being held by 4 subsystems e.g. internal standardization, methods and techniques for flawless work performance, e ducation and motivation and analyses of the quality costs. The data received fr om the research and the proposal of the integral methodology for designi ng and implementing of TQM system are designed in turn to help and presen t useful directions to all Macedonian companies tending to become "world class" organizations. The basis in the creation of this model is the rede sign of the business processes which afterword begins as a new phase of the business performance - continued improvement, rolling of Deming's Quality Circle (Plan-Do-Check-Act). The model-methodology proposed in this paper is integral and universal which means that it is applicable to all com panies regardless of the business area.

7

Authors: Ivan Kuric

Paper deals with aspects of quality and accuracy of machine tools. As the accuracy of machine tools has key factor for product quality, it is important to know the methods for evaluation of quality and accuracy of machine tools. Several aspects of diagnostics of machine tools are described, such as aspects of reliability.

8

Authors: N.M. Vaxevanidis, H. Despotidi, H. Prokopiou, A. Koutsomichalis

For the assessment of the quality of research and the scientific contribution of Higher Education Ins titutes (HEIs) and their research groups, a variety of approaches have be en proposed, including expert based qualitative approaches, such as evaluati on by widely accepted researchers in specific disciplines with broad r ecognition in the scientific community (peer-review methodology). However, th e rapid Internet proliferation and the easier access to scientific dat abases, offers an alter native approach to assessing the scientific outcome of a researcher or a Faculty. Nowadays, there seems to be a movem ent towards bibliometric measures and indices. In this paper, the resear ch output of four Engineering Departments, one being part of the School of Pedagogical & Technological Education (ASPETE) and the three others belonging to Technological Educational Institutions (TEIs) is evalu ated by using bibliometric indices such as the total and average pub lications and citations and the mean h- index. For comparison purposes the evaluation also includes two Eng. Depts; one from a University and the other from a Higher Military Educational Institute. It is concluded t hat despite the inherent limitations of bibliometrics the viability of th e adopted method for measuring and evaluating the scientific performance of higher education departments is effective in terms of Robustness, Validity, Functionality and Cost and time effectiveness. The useful results obt ained suggest that such an approach could be used in a broader context.

9

Authors: Jelena Jovanovic

This paper deals with the analysis of the Strategic Management System approach called Balanced Scorecard. At the very beginning of this article, the basic model of this syst em is presented with the detailed description of its function followed by a deep analysis of the numerous reference sources in order to test th e wider capacities of this system. The particular attention is paid to determ ine the number of BSC perspectives. In this sense, we investigate the literatu re concerning the integration of the issues related environmental protection into the basic concept of Balanced Scorecard.

12

Authors: Petnji Yaya Luc Honore, Marimon Frederic, Casadesus Marti

This paper seeks to investigate fr om customers ? perspective, if the implementation of ISO 9001 with the sc ope directly related to customers (offices, claims, etc.), spawn any disc repancies on service quality, customer perceived value, customer satisfactio n, customer loyalty and customer service recovery; in the backdrop of e-services in Catalonia (Spain). The main research target consists of e-banks operating in the region of Catalonia (Spain), besides customers w ho regularly use internet to do their banking. Self completed questionnaire wa s designed from a blend of existing constructs. An analysis of vari ance (ANOVA) was performed to a convenience sample of 428 customers of e-banking services (123 of them reported a complained about the service) and 16 banks. The results reveal that e-banking custom ers in Catalonia were not sensitive to the usage of ISO 9001. However, customers from banks that do not implement ISO 9001 perceived that the pr ices of the service available on their bank site were more economical. Research limitations and implication th is study was done only in Catalonia expandability might be restricted. Furt her investigation may be done in Spain as a whole or in differ ent countries and settings. Originality/value based on literature reviews, this study will be one of the first to carry out such research from customers' perspective and more specifically in Catalonia. The results of the study were useful in validating previous findings.

5

Authors: Rouhollah Mojtahedzadeh, Veeri Chettiar Arumugam

This paper presents a model to conduct an empirical study in Iranian large Industries in order to improve th eir performance. The Innovation plays a fundamental role in determining the performance in Iranian manufacturing industries. In this research, a model has been developed that includes the factors of Knowledge Management and Inno vation to study their effect on the performance of Iranian Industries. It is hoped that this paper can provide an academic source for both academicians and managers due to investigate the relationship between Knowledge Manageme nt, Innovation, and Performance in a systematic manner to increase succe ssful rate of K nowledge Management implementation.

7

Authors: N V R Naidu

This paper deals with a critical evaluation of the Preventive Maintenance system in steel industry. This study helps in implementing Six Sigma solutions to reduce the down tim e of two critical machines i.e., Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) and Billet Casting Machine (BCM). It is clear from the analysis of EAF and BCM respecti vely that, variations in output are quite possible because the machines output not only depend on maintenance time but also on several other variables. Further, the objective is to design a preventive maintenance programme on the same equipment situated in the plant using Six Sigma. The breakdown of these equipments could very well affect the production rate. For this, the mathematical models have been developed and these models are used to obtain the optimum preventive maintenance frequency for minimizi ng the down time and maximizing the profits.

8

Authors: Wieslaw Lukasinski

Demanding surrounding makes it necessary for an organisation to adapt and restructure constantly. Th erefore, it is essential for an organisation to acquire competence allowing to use opportunities and avoid dangers which happen, among ot hers, because of changeability of relations between it and people interested. Adapta tion to the changes which occur in the spheres mentioned in the following lines constitutes the challenge. The changes refer to the following s pheres: economical, technological, international or legal and political. It requires systematic and comprehensive organisation development, which becomes possible due to the use of The Management Model of the Polish Quality Award which is perceived as a tool optimising the qua lity of functioning and development of an organisation. The use of the m odel's criteria as a tool supporting development and mistake correction gives a chance to gain competitive predominance of an organisation. This le ads to effective and efficient way of conducting self-assessment as well as sy stematic identification of weak points of an organisation, which, in turn, directs towards the facilitation of pinpointing the direction of its functioning.

9

Authors: Shirshendu Roy, Prasun Das

The concept of quality improvement in indus try has originated from the involvement of inspector whic h has become the most important part of manufacturing process or developmen t activity. Over years, this initiative is migrated to various support functi ons of the industry. In this paper, emphasis has been given particularl y in the areas related to support functions where improvement project s can be effectively done and hence organization wide impact is assessed. Tw o case studies are presented here in this context. The first study shows how smaller change in content structure and delivery met hod can drastically improve the training feedback and the second one demonstrates minimizi ng lead time to r ecruitment with a cost-effective process modification.

10

Authors: Merce Bernardo, Marti Casadesus, Stanislav Karapetrovic

Organizations are increasingly implementing multiple Management System Standards (M SSs) and considering managing the related Management Systems (MSs) as a single system.The aim of this paper is to analyze if methods us ed to integrate standardized MSs condition the level of integration of those MSs. A descriptive methodology has been applied to 343 Spanish organizati ons registered to, at least, ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. Seven groups of these organizations using different combinations of methods have been analyzed Results show that these organizations have a high level of inte gration of their MSs. The most common method used, was the pro cess map. Organizations using a combination of different methods achiev e higher levels of integration than those using a single method. However, no evidence has been found to confirm the relationship between the method used and the integration level achieved.

5

Authors: Savka Blagojevic

Academic writing for international readership is almost always done in English, which in turn, may bring about certain di fficulties to non- English academics who are not accu stomed to English academic writing norms. Therefore, some li nguistic researches, conducted in order to find out the differences between the English academic style and those of non-English ones, are aimed at making non-English academics aware of cross-cultural differences in writing styles and help them modify their own writing style to the requirements of the English acade mic norms. Thus, in order to help Serbian academics publish international ly, we have initiated a small-scale research by comparing academic re search articles written by English and Serbian academics: thirty from hum anities (sociology, psychology and philosophy) and thirty from hard sc iences (chemistry, geology and environmental pollution). The research presented in the paper focuses the two most important discourse areas in academic articles written by English and Serbian writers: 1. Disc ourse organization, and 2.Th e choice of rhetoric strategies. The obtained results have pr oven that the two groups of writers display different preferences in their writing styles (which will be presented numerically) and on the basis of this fact certain suggestions have been offered, concerning the form that Se rbian academic articles should have in order to be published for the in ternational discourse community.

7

Authors: Bahram Sadeghpour Gildeh, Samaneh Asghari

A measurement control system en sures that measuring equipment and measurement processes are fit for their intended use and its importance in achieving product quality objectives. In most real life applications, the observations are fuzzy. In some case s specification limits (SLs) are not precise numbers and they are expressed in fuzzy terms, s o that the classical capability indices could not be applied. In this paper we obtain 100(1 - α)% fuzzy confidence interval for C pm fuzzy process capability index, where instead of precise quality we have two membership functions for specification limits.

7

Authors: Katarina Pavlovic, Vojislav Bozanic

LEAN thinking and Six Sigma have been utilized by manufacturing industries to decrease cost and impr ove quality and productivity by reducing variation and production defects. Because of the dramatic successes in manufacturing, there is rising in terest among companies in the pharmaceutical industry, which choose to implement LEAN in order to accomplish such goals as decreased wait time to release product to the market, reduce production waste, impr ove communication with end users and raize quality level both in the produc tion and in testing laboratories. In this article, basics of LEAN and Six Sigma are presented and suggestion was given for application of their concepts in pharmaceutical industry together with harmonization with legal regulati on represented by requirements Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP), in orde r to work "smarter", more cost- effectively and avoid wasting time and other resources.

11

Authors: Tatiana Karkoszka

Realization of quality, environm ental and occupational health and safety policy using the proposed m odel of processes' integrated risk estimation leads to the improvement of the analyzed productive processes by the preventive and corre ctive actions, and in consequence - to their optimization from the point of view of products' quality and in the aspect of quality of environmental influence and occupational health and safety.

14

Authors: Nandini Das, Avishek Ghosh, Prasun Das

Association rule mining finds in teresting relationships among large set of data items. While finding the impor tant (or, frequent) relations from the set of consumer survey data, a modified algorithm based on frequent pattern growth is developed in this work. The sensitivity of support and confidence used for rule mining on the data is tested. The interaction between the order of the attributes and the confid ence used is observed in terms of the number of rules mined. Th e impact of the product features on the level of consumer perception is thoroughly studied.

5

Authors: A.D. Sialakouma, G.A. Palmer, M. Botsaki, X. Papanikou and N.M. Vaxevanidis

Biomedical science is a sensitive discipline and presents unique challenges due to its social character, continuous development and competitiveness. The issue of quality management systems and accreditation is gaining increasing interest in this sector. All over Europe, Health Services Units have started to introduce quality management systems and harmonization of criteria for accreditation is of increasing importance. Moreover, clinical laboratories, like the Assisted Reproduction laboratories and biochemical laboratories are required to apply a Quality Management System in order to ensure their correct, scientific and effective operation. Ultimately, it is a moral obligation for every health care organisation to supply the best possible care for the patient. The specific features and the diversity of clinical laboratories led to the introduction (2003) and, recently to the revision (2007) of the international standard ISO 15189, which is the first international standard developed specifically to address the requirements for accreditation of this type of laboratory. The basic principles for the quality assurance in the clinical laboratories are: x Complete and unambiguous standardized operating procedures. x Complete and unambiguous directives of operation. x Obligatory detailed written documentation, i.e., how each action is done, who will do it, where will this action take place and when. x Suitable scheduling of calibration/control/preventive maintenance of laboratory equipment and recording of each activity. x Distribution of responsibilities among the staff and continuous education and briefing according to current scientific data. x Complete and informed record file keeping. x Continuous improvement which is monitored with the adoption of quantified indicators. x Internal and external audit of all activities. x Troubleshooting. All these principles should be supported by the Management in order that the necessary adaptations should be made in the provision of human resources, equipment, supplies and working environment and the resolution of organisational problems. This article deals with the planning and the implementation of a Quality Management System, in accordance with ISO 15189 (2007), in the Assisted Reproduction Laboratory in one of the biggest Maternity Clinics in Greece. The benefits resulted; both for medical laboratory service and patients are also presented and discussed.

5

Authors: K.G. Durga Prasad, K.Venkata Subbaiah, K. Narayana Rao

Cost engineering helps the firms in decision-making with respect to product development. It is primarily concerned with cost estimation and cost control. Decisions made during the design phase have a significant influence on development and life cycle costs. The effective cost management during the design phase of a product is essential to develop a product with minimum cost and desired quality of the customer. In this paper a mathematical model is established by incorporating cost engineering techniques such as Target Costing (TC) and Value Engineering (VE) with Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to develop a product. An illustrative example is also presented.

7

Authors: Aleksandar Vujovic, Zdravko Krivokapic

Tis paper represents research of several years which is conducted at the Centre for Quality at The faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Podgorica. The main objective was to obtain performances improvement measures for business processes by gathering various approaches and techniques and by underlying importance of integrated approach. This paper gives completely new approach in management systems which aim to provide business continuity according to previous defined goals. Following this, it has been created a system for risks prediction and elimination that could endanger organization functionality and could also deteriorate its performances. In this vein, a base for functioning of intelligent decision-making support system is provided. Hence, we accomplished preconditions for organizational performances improvement and knowledge acquisition concerning areas that must be under special treatment in order to enhance firm performance level.

12

Authors: Rouhollah Mojtahedzadeh, Veeri Chettiar Arumugam

This paper presents a model to conduct an empirical study in Iranian automotive industry in order to improve their performance. The quality culture plays a vital role in determining the performance in Iranian manufacturing industries. In this research, a model has been developed that includes the factors of Total Quality Management and quality culture to study their effect on the performance of Iranian automotive industry. It is hoped that this paper can provide an academic source for both academicians and managers due to investigate the relationship between Total Quality Management, Quality Culture, and Performance in a systematic manner to increase successful rate of Total Quality Management implementation.