International Journal for Quality Research

8

Authors: Glyusa Rafaelovna Bakieva, Lenara Fanilevna Muftieva

In modern conditions of the Russian economy is particularly important for the sustainable functioning of the entire domestic tourism industry and the individual tourist enterprises. The need to improve strategic management of the enterprise is confirmed by a series of bankruptcies of travel companies of Russia: "Neva", "Ideal tour", "Expotour", "Wind Rose. World", "Labyrint" and others. By March 2015, according to the Association of tour operators of Russia (ATOR), the number of tour operators in outbound tourism in The Unified State Register decreased for 30% in comparison with March 2014. For tour operators specializing in outbound tourism, the annual turnover of which does not exceed 250 million rubles, the amount of financial guarantees is 30 million rubles. If the turnover is more than 250 million rubles, the financial guarantee shall be not less than 12% of the total sales. For domestic and outbound tourism financial guarantees amount to 500 thousand rubles. Thus, for most of the tour operators with small volumes, set low thresholds of financial security. This is the first reason of bankruptcy. Russian tour operators have the ability to dump at any time of the year in the expectation that in peak season they will cover losses incurred.

10

Authors: Jelena Jovanovic, Zdravko Krivokapic, Aleksandar Vujovic, Tijana Cvetic

Quality of life is a theme that is becoming more and more prominent. Every man can express his opinion about the quality of their life, which allows a realistic assessment of the quality of life of a particular population on the basis of subjective feelings of its members. Therefore, in this study through surveys and questionnaires with more than 80 questions from 11 subject areas is attempted to form a picture of the quality of life of the student population of the University of Montenegro (UM). The survey covered 14 units and 60 university students and the results of this survey have provided answers to some key questions by which the guidelines for raising the quality of life of students were obtained.

12

Authors: Aleksandr Vladimirovich Gagarinskii, Irina Garriyevna Kuznetcova, Galina Pavlovna Gagarinskaia

This article discusses the problem of the effective work of managers of industrial enterprises, which is the basis of economic development in modern Russia. The authors suggest that the management of the system of performance indicators in managers in the conditions of realization of various business processes can reduce the risk of crises in the enterprise, and improve the efficiency of labour management and productivity in the company in a whole. According to the authors, improving the efficiency of management in the conditions of implementation of the various business processes of industrial enterprises is an integral element of the overall strategic development of the company. The article presents the results of work performance assessment of managers in the implementation of business process management. In this article there is developed performance business process management on the example of the metal cutting enterprise management levels: the corporate level, the first operational level, the second operational level, and the line level. For these indicators the performers are defined and criteria are given.

14

Authors: Irina Degtyarova, Guzel Tokareva, Olga Shalina, Oksana Fedorenko

The results of 2009-2015 showed that the Russian economy, which has grown over the last decade rapidly, yet extremely vulnerable. It is connected with the dependence of the domestic economy and industry from the global energy market. Moreover, the export of raw materials that occurred in Russia since 2002 ended with the change of price conjuncture of the global energy market. Nowadays it's very important to improve the management of innovative activity at the Russian enterprises, which is possible within the framework of investment and technological development of the national economy. Modern economic conditions impose to the Russian enterprises requirements quickly and flexibly to react to change of a market situation, to quickly change technological base of production and the range of products. The most effective modern instruments of increase of competitiveness level of the enterprises is continuous restructuring of production, management and property combined with real innovations.

16

Authors: Aida Rezyapova

The paper describes the proprietary methodology of distributing administrative expenses in the network retail businesses within the process approach to management, which has been developed to improve the quality of trade expenses administration. To this end, the author suggests using the original base unit (cost driver) in the course of distribution of the subject expenses to improve the accuracy of calculating the trade process efficiency. The author gives reasons to the necessity of applying a comprehensive approach in its selection. This implies use, as the base unit, of a coefficient representing shop turnover per 1m2 of sales area. The author has made a coefficient rating to formalize the relationship between the management results and economic factors of the trade businesses risk. This approach takes into account the commodity prime cost, and the quality and economic efficiency of the management processes in selling subdivisions of a network business.

16

Authors: Zorica Lazic

Answers to the questions of how and in what way the quality of life of students, resilience and ICT support affects the quality of high education we will get through this work where main objective is to define a network of processes and process management ensuring more quality and more innovative managing and service provision, therefore satisfying the needs of service users - in this case the students of the university. To collect the relevant data in the thematic analysis of this paper, the method of interviewing by questionnaires was applied. The sample survey was conducted among undergraduate students, teachers and staff of the Teacher Training Faculty in Uzice.

22

Authors: Vaclav Repa, Anna Satanova, Marcin Lis, Veronika Korenkova

Purpose: The purpose of this technical paper is to describe the new approach to the organizational development coming from the mixture of continuous improvement models and business process maturity models. This approach is Organizational Development and the baseline for its application is a standard created by the Central European Association for Business Process management (CEABPM). It is the standard CEABPM 1001:2013 - Requirements for the process-based organization. Methodology: The methodology for creating the new standard for Organizational Development is mostly a literature comparative analysis. Next, we discussed the standard in a sample of academic and business organizations. CEABPM 1001:2013 contains the requirements for process-based organizations as well as the method for quantifying the range of process orientation. Findings: The paper introduces at novel approach to the organizational development based on the systematic management of the organization's maturity. The basis for this approach is the standard for the organizational maturity assessment: "CEABPM 1001:2013 Requirements for the Process-Based Organization" together with the methodology of its use as an integral part of the organizational evolution. Practical implications: The standard is intended to work as an assessment tool for the audit of the level of maturity of the organization as well as a knowledge basis for its consequential development at the same time. The audit report as a main output of the organization audit process according to this standard contains detailed information particularly about detected aspects of the identified level of the process-orientation, and about their importance for the further development of the organization. The audit thus results not only in the determination of the level of process orientation, but also in a detailed identification of specific strengths and weaknesses connected with the identified state.

8

Authors: Bogdan Nedic, Milan Eric, Marijana Aleksijevic

The paper presents description methods of metal cutting and calculation of treatment costs based on model that is developed on Faculty of mechanical engineering in Kragujevac. Based on systematization and analysis of large number of calculation models of cutting with unconventional methods, mathematical model is derived, which is used for creating a software for calculation costs of metal cutting. Software solution enables resolving the problem of calculating the cost of laser cutting, comparison' of costs made by other unconventional methods and provides documentation that consists of reports on estimated costs.

12

Authors: Tadeja Jere Jakulin

Systems approach represents thinking outside the box and is connected to the transformation of common linear approach and thinking. Western society followed rules of classical western science, which form many centuries took analysis as mainstream of thinking and researching. One can find perfect and logical explanation for this. In the past, classical science researched matter and reached optimal results with analysis and analytical thinking. Nowadays more and more scientists research intangible world around matter and cooperate with prevailed, fastest growing service industry such as tourism. Following paper presents systems approach in tourism, which defines wideness, co-dependency among tourism system elements, and "big picture" point of view. In a frame of systems methodology, we will show the importance of systems approach in order to understand complexity in the area of tourism. At once an excellent example of the analytical approach will be shown in so called "the tip of the iceberg" theory, where events represent analytical thinking and structure or base of the iceberg represents systems approach. Complexity of the tourism systems will be explained and a model of a common tourism system developed. We claim that the analysis, in the past, caused technological progress; it caused the development of western science, which we now know it. It led to the discoveries but for dealing with contemporary complex challenges is not sufficient. Today a systems approach is suitable enough for dealing with complex question in the area of tourism and of course in global society.

12

Authors: Aleksandra Kokic Arsic

Subject of the article is an integration of quality management and sustainable development, with the basis of considerations of sustainable development and the structure of the key quality factors pointed to the possibility of achieving synergy of action on the most important variables, as well as the established model of integration of these two complex concepts. Areas of our study were 83 organizations in the region of Central Serbia. The study was based on questionnaires which contained 50 questions about the level of quality and sustainable development in the companies surveyed. Results of research highlights the most influenced variables in condition of constraints related to transition economy characteristics.

14

Authors: Abbas Parchami, Bahram Sadeghpour, Gildeh Mashaallah Mashinchi

Such as other statistical problems, we may confront with uncertain and fuzzy concepts in quality control. One particular case in process capability analysis is a situation in which specification limits are two fuzzy sets. In such a uncertain and vague environment, the produced product is not qualified with a two-valued Boolean view, but to some degree depending on the decision-maker strictness and the quality level of the produced product. This matter can be cause to a rational decision-making on the quality of the production line. First, a comprehensive approach is presented in this paper for modeling the fuzzy quality concept. Then, motivations and advantages of applying this flexible approach instead of using classical quality are mentioned.

16

Authors: Manjeet Kharub, Rajiv Kumar Sharma

After the globalization of market the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) got numerous opportunities to work in integration with large-scale organizations. Competitive advantage plays a significant role in deciding how organizations can exploit theses opportunities. So, the aim of this paper is to measure the competitive advantage of MSMEs based upon the Porter's diamond model framework. A welldesigned questionnaire is used to collect data about the various determinants of the model. Based upon the frequency of responses, percent point score (PPS) of each casual variable was calculated. By reviewing the result of this study, it is observed that competitiveness among MSME's sectors is mostly affected by market value. As is indicated by maximum PPS score e.g. 68%, followed by highly educated personnel, production and process technology (62%), further study results indicate that there is a need to increase clusters i.e. related and supported industries as depicted by low score (PPS=49%).

16

Authors: Ivan Savovic, Maja Bacovic, Sanja Pekovic, Tatjana Stanovcic

Considering that quality is one of foundation of harmonized regional development, in this paper, overall view of identified need for level of product quality, improvement of environmental protection, improvement of competitiveness and improvement of quality of tourism services has been analysed. In the next phase requests of stakeholders are presented. Author has also analysed feasibility of investing in quality improvement and environmental protection in Sumadija and Pomoravlje and identified the most significant types of economic benefits and economic costs that may result from the introduction of ISO 9001, ISO 14001, HACCP and obtaining the CE mark for products and diagrammatic unveiled in the assumed maximum, realistic and minimum value applying cost/benefit analysis. On these bases, mathematical functions and calculations are applied to determine if there are different variants of total economic benefits and total economic costs. Goal was to determine if the investment in quality improvement and environmental protection in SMEs in Sumadija and Pomoravlje is largely justified and profitable.

20

Authors: Mohammed Yunus, Mohammad S. Alsoufi, Mohammed Irfan

The present study is carried out to improve quality level by identifying the prime reasons of the quality related problems in the seat hardfacing process involving the deposition of cobalt based super alloy in I.C. Engine valves using TIG welding process. During the Process, defects like stellite deposition overflow, head melt, non-uniform stellite merging, etc., are observed and combining all these defects, the rejection level was in top position in Forge shop. We use widely referred QC tools of the manufacturing field to monitor the complete operation and continuous progressive process improvement to ensure ability and efficiency of quality management system of any firm. The work aims to identify the various causes for the rejection by the detailed study of the operation, equipment, materials and the various process parameters that are very important to get defects-free products. Also, to evolve suitable countermeasures for reducing the rejection percentage using seven QC tools. To further understand and validate the obtained results, we need to address other studies related to motivations, advantages, and disadvantages of applying quality control tools.

10

Authors: Joghee Ravichandran

Introduced by Shewhart, the traditional variable control chart for mean (X-bar Chart) is an effective tool for controlling and monitoring processes. Notwithstanding, the main disadvantage of X-bar chart is that the population standard deviation is unknown though the sample mean is an unbiased estimator of the population mean. There are many approaches to estimating the unknown standard deviation with the expertise available with the researchers and practitioners that may lead to varying conclusions. In this paper, an innovative approach is introduced to estimate the population standard deviation from the perspective of Six Sigma quality for the construction of the proposed control chart for mean called Six Sigma-based X-bar control chart. Under the assumption that the process is normal, in the proposed chart the population mean and standard deviation are drawn from the process specification from the perspective of Six Sigma quality. After discussing the aspects of the traditional X-bar control chart, the procedure for the construction of the proposed new Six Sigma-based X-bar control chart is presented. The new chart is capable of maintaining the process mean close to the target by variance reduction resulting in quality improvement. Also, it may be noted that at a point of time, the process, though under statistical control, may be maintaining a particular sigma quality level only while the goal is Six Sigma quality level of just 3.4 defects per million opportunities. Hence, as a practice of continuous quality improvement, it is suggested to use the proposed control chart every time with improvement till the goal of Six Sigma with 3.4 defects per million opportunities is achieved. An innovative cyclic approach for performing the continuous quality improvement activity is also presented. The construction of the proposed Six Sigma-based X-bar control chart is demonstrated using an illustrative example.

12

Authors: Gezahegn Tesfaye, Tesfu Berhane, Berihu Zenebe, Senait Asmelash

The Ethiopian industrial development strategy is characterized by export-led and labor intensive industrialization. The country is emerging as the most important investment destination in its apparel sector. Thought this sector is expected to generate more income from the export market, its export earnings remain trivial mainly due to the inefficient organizational resource utilization. One of the competent techniques that help companies to efficiently improve the use of their resources to increase their profit is linear programming. In apparel manufacturing firms, efficient use of materials such as fabrics and sewing threads and processing time at different stages of production as well as minimization of labor and materials cost are necessary to enhance their profitability. Cutting, sewing, and finishing operations deserve more attention for apparel process optimization. However, the issue of proper resource allocation remains an unsolved problem within the Ethiopian apparel industry. The aim of this research is to devise efficient resource utilization mechanism for Ethiopian apparel sector to improve their resource utilization and profitability, taking one of the garment factories engaged in the export market as a case study. Five types of products the company is currently producing, the amount of resources employed to produce each unit of the products, and the value of profit per unit from the sale of each products have been collected from the case company. The monthly availability of resources utilized and the monthly production volume of the five products have also been collected from the company. The data gathered was mathematically modeled using a linear programming technique, and solved using MS-Excel solver. The findings of the study depicts that all of the organizational resources are severely underutilized. This research proved that the resource utilization of the case company can be improved from 46.41% of the current resource utilization to 98.57%. This indicates that the new solution provides very significantly improvement in organizational resource utilization. At the same time, with the new solution, the total profit per month of the case company can be increased from 365,699 birr per month to 897,844 birr per month (i.e., with an increment of 145.5%). Finally, it is concluded that this remarkable profit increment of the company can certainly enhance its global competitiveness.

14

Authors: David Jimoh Kayode, Nurahimah Mohd Yusoff, Arsaythamby Veloo

This study attempts to validate process management scale using rigorous validation procedures. An adapted questionnaire comprising 77 items was administered to faculty members in two public universities in Nigeria. The data gathered were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis with SPSS 20.0 and SmartPLS 3.1.2 respectively. The findings of this study shows that process management is a third order reflective model with multidimensional constructs. The two dimension of process management administrative process and academic process has four and five dimensions respectively. The process management scale will therefore facilitate the identifications of elements that influence the effectiveness of higher education. The practical implications and methodological limitations are discussed.

16

Authors: Nebojsa Pavlovic

A crisis in management has led to the appearance of Authentic leadership. The aim of this work is to determine the characteristics of Authentic leadership in educational institutions and to respond to the question as to whether authentic leaders are satisfied with their job. The third aim is to determine differences among the researched regions. The sample included 227 randomly selected directors from primary and secondary schools in Serbia, Montenegro and the Republika Srpska. The research used an ALQ questionnaire for the estimation of leadership behaviour. Descriptions for the results prediction and multiple linear regressions were used. A multivariance analysis of variance was used to compare the groups. The research results showed that every fourth director is an authentic leader. Authentic leadership has a significant influence on job satisfaction through two aspects: internalised perspective and balanced processing. There are no differences in Authentic leadership in the researched areas. The results could be useful for educational institutions in countries where the research was conducted. Further research could be carried out in other countries while cultural differences should be taken into account. One limiting factor consists of the fact that the analysed data are obtained only from school directors. Leaders of educational institutions should provide management through the development of their own authenticity and the authenticity of their followers. The characteristics of Authentic leadership were reviewed and tested practically in the West-Balkan environment.

18

Authors: Jacek Karcz, Beata Slusarczyk

The functioning of courier companies is a vital component of modern trade. E-commerce services are changing the way of shopping. Along with them, also courier services change and become more advance. Customers of courier companies become more aware of quality, which they should expect from supplier of these services. The article presents the result of the research of the effectiveness and the timelines of deliveries realized by one of the terminals of a leading courier operator in Poland. The survey involved 55 courier routes over the course of 10 business days. The author analyses weak points of the supply chain and presents two solutions, which may improve quality of delivery processes.

20

Authors: Slavisa Moljevic

Quality infrastructure is developed on state level and covers standardization, accreditation, metrology and certification. It is a "hard" part of quality infrastructure. On the regional level there are "soft" factors such as quality level in organizations, education and training level, state support and so on. The key role of quality infrastructure is to be a basis for all quality improvement actions on lower i.e. organizational levels. It is also a basis for regional development. The influence of quality infrastructure on regional development has not been investigated enough, especially in transition states. That serves as motivation to the authors trying to define an integrative model of quality infrastructure and regional development. This model is partially verified in Bosnia and Hercegovina, being an example of transition economy. A part of the research has been presented in the paper.

32

Authors: Kassu Jilcha, Daniel Kitaw

This literature review focuses on researches undertaken since 1980s onwards. The purpose of the study is to identify existing gaps on workplace safety and health management and propose future research areas. The review adds value to existing electronic database through integration of researches' results. To identify existing gaps, a systematic literature review approach has been used. The reviews were undertaken through keywords and safety related topics. In the literature, various characteristics of workplace safety and health problems were found emanating from the lack of operational activities of the employees, internal working environment and external environment those impose hazards on employee temporarily, permanently and on working environments. The integration of multidisciplinary approaches and collaborative model of hub and peripheral industries to protect workplace safety hazards to develop multilevel model has been undermined in many researches. The other face of finding is that knowledge transfer mechanism and industrial topology factors are left. Some researches finding showed that they have focused on single problems related to health and health factors leaving universal improving workplace safety. In general, this literature reviews compare various studies output based on their research method and findings to fills gap and add value to a body of knowledge.

8

Authors: Sydney Engelberg

The problem of over enthusiastically adopting paradigms and models is well known in science in general, and in management in particular. The current trend of presenting "quality" in an unfailingly positive light in manufacturing, including in the wood industry, echoes this problem. This results in those aspects of "quality enhancement" that reflect negative processes and emotions being neglected, receiving lip service attention, or in subtle ways being denigrated. This is, potentially, the source of a severe limitation in the understanding and implementation of quality enhancement programs in the wood industry. Good intentions are insufficient. We cannot continue to neglect such issues as: authority and control; caution and reserve; autonomy and separateness; competition and aggressiveness; dislike and resistance; exploitation and manipulation; and self-interest, if we wish education for quality to be successful.

12

Authors: Aleksandar Vujovic, Zdravko Krivokapic, Jelena Jovanovic, Gordan Kijanovic

Production systems suffer frequent changes due to the growing demand and need for providing market competitiveness. Therefore, the application of intelligent systems can greatly increase the level of flexibility and efficiency, but also reduce the overall costs. On example of system for the production of irregular and variable shaped parts by cutting the wooden flat surfaces, it is discussed the possibility of applying intelligent agent-based system. In order to implement it in the production process, it was necessary to firstly performed an analysis and assessment of the initial situation. Then, we spotted a weak points and gave some suggestions to improve process by application of agents. The obtained solution has reduced the number of engaged workers, reduced the scope of their duties, made faster flow of materials, improved its utilization and we finally introduced the scheme of the new agent-based manufacturing process that achieves the foregoing benefits.

14

Authors: Irena Zivkovic, Ana Pavlovic, Cristiano Fragassa

This paper presents a short overview of the developments made in the field of wood thermoplastic composites in terms of surface treatment, flammability, matrix/reinforcement model, properties and application of recycled polymer matrices. The usage of lignocellulosic fibers as reinforcement in composite materials demands well formed interface between the fiber and the matrix. Because of the different nature of reinforcement and matrix components some physical and chemical treatment methods which improve the fiber matrix adhesion were introduced, as well as the improvements of lignocellulosic fibers and thermoplastic polymer matrix based composites flammability characteristics. These physical and chemical treatments influence the hydrophilic character of the lignocellulosic fibers, and therefore change their physical and mechanical properties.

16

Authors: Giuseppe Lucisano, Miladin Stefanovic, Cristiano Fragassa

With the aim at performing the highest precision during woodworking, a mix of alternative approaches, fruitfully integrated in a common design strategy, is essential. This paper represents an overview of technical solutions, recently developed by authors, in design of machine tools and their final effects on manufacturing. The most advanced solutions in machine design are reported side by side with common practices or little everyday expedients. These design actions are directly or indirectly related to the rational use of materials, sometimes very uncommon, as in the case of magnetorheological fluids chosen to implement an active control in speed and force on the electro-spindle, and permitting to improve the quality of wood machining. Other actions are less unusual, as in the case of the adoption of innovative anti-vibration supports for basement. Tradition or innovation, all these technical solutions contribute to the final result: the highest precision in wood machining.

18

Authors: Ana Pavlovic, Cristiano Fragassa

Machine tools use physical barriers, made by flexible thermoplastic materials, to protect the environment and the operators against the projections of wood chips and parts of cutting tools. These barriers constitute a partial closure and allow the passage of the workpiece, being simultaneously able to contain sharp fragments projected at high speed. The present research was conducted with the aim to evaluate the real effectiveness of these barriers, to investigate their dynamic behaviour by numerical simulations. Results showed that these barriers, if properly considered, could retain heavier masses and higher speeds. The research also allowed, in fact, to investigate the influence of several factors in design, selection and use, as material, shape, position, assemblages and many others, highlighting weaknesses and identifying possible measures to increase its effectiveness.

24

Authors: Ario Ceccotti, Milena Massari, Luca Pozza

The paper analyzes different wooden buildings types used in past and nowadays to realized low-rise and mid-rise timber structures from the seismic point of view. A preliminary overview about the procedures prescribed by codes for the seismic characterization of the timber building systems is given. Then the definition of the behaviour q-factor in the literature and its relevance in design of structures in seismic areas is treated. Available research methods for estimating the q-factor based on the verification of the nonlinear seismic response of entire buildings by means of experimental tests and numerical simulations are presented and analyzed. The relevance of a proper definition of the yielding limit and of failure condition in the seismic characterization of wooden building systems is treated. Moreover, a comparison between the q-factor estimations obtained using different calculation methods is presented. Lastly, the appropriate q-factor values are given for a reliable and safe seismic design of buildings realized using the examined wooden constructive systems.

34

Authors: Barbara Cimatti

Soft Skills is a very popular term nowadays, used to indicate personal transversal competences such as social aptitudes, language and communication capability, friendliness and ability of working in team and other personality traits that characterize relationships between people. Soft Skills are traditionally considered complementary of Hard Skills, which are the abilities to perform a certain type of task or activity. Soft Skills are strategic to be successful in personal and professional life then are essential for a candidate when he tries to obtain any kind of job. Enterprises generally hire new employees, in particular recent graduates, taking more in consideration their Soft Skills than their Hard Skills. This happens also for technical professions, such as engineers, because the company, in order to be competitive, needs to create good and effective teams and a collaborative working atmosphere. The quality of products provided by any industry then doesn�t only base on the materials chosen and on the technology used, neither only on the expertise of workers who contribute to their fabrication, but also on the quality of the enterprise in its whole. And this quality strongly depends from the human resources involved and their capability of positively interacting to achieve a common aim: the company success.