International Journal for Quality Research

14

Authors: Adriana Vallejo, Efstathios Stefos, Adrián Narváez

This study analyzes the service quality in universities based on users' level of satisfaction of the service provided in the city of Cuenca, Ecuador. The methodology combines a descriptive and a multidimensional statistical analysis, the former demonstrates the frequencies and the percentages of the variables under study while the latter is used to show the group classification of the people under study. Hierarchical grouping is used since it determines the groups of people as a result of their common characteristics. At first, the results indicate that in all cases the percentage of students' satisfaction surpasses 65%. However, there is a minority group of people (3,67%) who are totally unsatisfied regarding their sense of belonging to the Institution and their class as well as with the teaching - learning process.

16

Authors: Talknice Saungweme, Nicholas M. Odhiambo

The decades of economic crisis and political uncertainties in Zimbabwe since independence in 1980 have culminated in exponential increases in the central government's indebtedness. This paper, therefore, seeks to examine the evolution of government debt, both domestic and foreign, in Zimbabwe from 1980 to 2015. At the centre of the discussions are the public-debt structural reforms and frameworks, debt trends and the associated debt-management challenges over the review period. The paper identified four distinctive phases of public-debt evolution in Zimbabwe between 1980 and 2015: (1) 1980 to 1989, in which government debt was still small, but increasing gradually; (2) 1990 to 1997, in which public sector indebtedness was increasing exponentially - mostly due to substantial economic structural adjustment reforms, maturity of previous debts and severe economic crises; (3) 1998 to 2008, in which economic recession and subsequent revenue constraints led to the massive accumulation of public debt arrears; and (4) 2009 to 2015, in which the country experienced an economic rebound leading to some paltry payments on foreign public debt arrears. Among the recommended government debt management principles in Zimbabwe is the need to devise market-friendly trade and investment policies that would enable the government to expand its revenue base, thus effectively reduce the state's reliance on debt financing and also avoid the future accumulation of any arrears.

18

Authors: Taposh Kumar Kapuria, Chitra Lekha Karmaker

The ready-made garment (RMG) industries in Bangladesh have become very competitive to cope with the competitors. The performance of this sector has attracted many countries to invest their money safely here and also earns foreign currency by exporting different materials like jute yarn. Jute yarn is a spun material which is prepared to use for weaving, knitting, sewing threads, carpets, carrying bags etc. In fiscal year 2015-16, according to data from Bangladesh's Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), Bangladesh has earned $559 million by exporting jute yarn and twine. To meet the growing demand of jute yarn worldwide, Bangladesh still has lots of possibilities to earn huge amount of foreign currency by improving the quality. It's a persistent need for Bangladeshi local jute yarn manufacturers to come forward, seek possibilities for improving quality, and fulfill the worldwide demand. The paper focuses on the application of AHP based QFD approach on a manufacturing company to improve its quality of product & improving the level of customer satisfaction. The paper shows how customer requirements can be identified and used them to prioritize the design requirements for improving quality of jute yarn. Here, AHP is integrated into house of quality (HOQ) that can be guide for overcoming the pitfalls of traditional QFD.

18

Authors: Anuj Singla, Inderpreet Singh Ahuja, Amanpreet Singh Sethi

The objective of study is to analyze the significance of various Technology Push (TP) strategies affecting sustainable development in Indian manufacturing organizations. An extensive survey of 92 companies has been executed for the present context. The study examines the use of Multiple-Attribute Decision Making (MADM) and Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method for evaluation of substantial TP strategies. For the purpose, a comparative analysis of various TP strategies using Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and VlseKriterijuska Optimizacija I Komoromisno Resenje (VIKOR) technique has been executed in the study. The outcomes of empirical calculations signify that the proposed techniques are appropriate to analyze the significance of TP strategies. The comparison of results exhibit that ranking of TP strategies evaluated using VIKOR technique is similar to the ranks obtained by TOPSIS. The focus of the paper is on the distinguishable contributions made by TP strategies like, innovative capability, research and development, corporate strategy and export orientation, for realization of sustainable development in manufacturing industries. It has been acknowledged in the investigation that manufacturing enterprises need to work more actively on managing certain TP strategies.

18

Authors: Marco Antonio Argoti, Andrés Carrión García

The Shewhart p-Chart is a widely used and taught control chart that monitors the process fraction of nonconforming, p. The control limits of this chart are computed from an equation derived from the central limit theorem that assumes the parameters p and sample size, n, provide a good approximation of the binomial to the normal distribution. It is known that if the approximation is poor the chart becomes ARL-biased with a consequent deterioration of its process improvement detection capability. Hence, if one is to use this chart its ARL-biased severity ought to be established in advance. Three parameters are used to estimate a chart's ARL-bias severity, namely the in-control ARL, the relative ARL-bias and the maximum out of control ARL. However, calculating these parameters is a task that requires of lengthy calculations that often entails the use of specialised software. In this paper we present a new approach that facilitates the estimation of the bias severity, this approach consists of a closed-form equation that eases the calculations of the ARL-bias parameters and of a graphical method that permits assessing a p-Chart's ARL-bias severity level according to the severity zone in which its n and p values fall into.

24

Authors: Filipe Carvalho, Gilberto Santos, Joaquim Gonçalves

The Internet is a privileged means of communication towards Sustainable Development (SD), where information disclosed knows no borders. The aim of the study is to determine the nature of the content that is disclosed on the corporate website and the profile of the certified Portuguese organizations which disclose information on SD, that is, about Integrated Management Systems (IMS), Corporate Sustainability (CS) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). This research consists of an exploratory analysis of the institutional website of 422 organizations with certified management systems in quality (ISO 9001), environment (ISO 14001) and occupational health and safety (BS OHSAS 18001). The research was based on the content analysis method, which allowed quantifying the contents of the information disclosed on the website by category and subcategories of analysis. The content available on the website was quantified using the Information Disclosure Index (IDI). The certified Portuguese organizations with greater business volume (turnover) and the public limited companies (PLC) disclose more information on SD on their website than the others.

26

Authors: Ana Carolina Martins Rosa, Evandro Eduardo Broday

The present work is a review of literature, to identify the improvements acquired from the application of the Lean Six Sigma methodology in the industrial and service sectors in different countries. The PRISMA methodology was used to select relevant articles to the topic of work, and the bibliographic databases used for the research were the Google Scholar, SciELO, ScienceDirect, Taylor & Francis and Web of Science. The study counted on 27 articles to better exemplify these points, being 11 focused on the industrial sector and 16 on the services sector. It was evident that in both sectors the variability of the process and its waste were reduced, by eliminating non-value-added activities, improving process quality, productivity, efficiency, the service provided, increasing customer satisfaction, reducing costs and generating savings. It has been found that Lean Six Sigma is a versatile tool that can be adapted and applied in any segment, allowing potential opportunities for new research and applications.