International Journal for Quality Research

6

Authors: Laxmana Naik, Rajan Sharma, Raju Naik, Girish Lakshmana, Karuna Devi

A lean laboratory is one which is focused on testing products and materials to deliver results in the most e fficient way in terms of cost or speed or both; primarily focused on improvi ng measurable performance and reducing costs. The goal of a lean laboratory is to use less effort, le ss resources and less time to test incoming samples. Laborator ies have a critical role to play in establishing and improving process c apability and key performance indicator (KPI) of the organization. There are inevi tably many opinions as to what a lean lab actually is; here is one version fr om. Quality assurance laboratories are crucial to the success of organization and this effectiveness needs to be measurable and demonstrable. To facil itate this, a method of measuring a laboratory's progress towards complete deployment has been created by lean tools. These tools allow laboratorie s to conduct gap analysis and identify opportunities for improvement.

8

Authors: K.Venkata Subbaiah, K. G.Durga Prasad, M. Uma Bharathi, K. Soma Sekhara Rao

In this paper an attempt has been made to propose a methodolog y f or identifying and prioritiz ing the user needs pertaining to library services. I n order to categorize the user needs into quality dimensions, Factor analysi s has been carried out on user re sponses obtained through questionnair e s urvey. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is employed to determine th e priority ratings of the library quality di mensions. The priority structure of th e quality dimension s provides an idea for the library management to allocat e the resources in an effective manner to achieve more user satisfaction. A cas e study is presented to demons trate the proposed methodology.

8

Authors: M. Ahsan Akhtar Hasin, Sudipa Sarker, Nouroz Islam, M. A. Shareef

Purpose - Healthcare service quality and customer satisfactio n have been a major research issue over the decade. Customer satisfaction ha s been measured by different researchers under varied environment. A s environment varies, desires of cust omers and the perception of satisfactio n vary. As a result, a major issue is to define the complex nature of custome r s atisfaction under varied environment. On the other hand, a compromisin g trade-off is required in operational cost in the wake of increase in cost t o uplift service quality. This research addr essed the issue from the context o f Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach - This research used SERVQUAL, which is a very powerful tool to measure service quality. The study utilized the benef i of hierarchical nature of satisfac tion. Service quality was analyzed fro m customers' view point, as well as th e service providers, such as doctor s nurses, etc. Finally hypothesis tests we re performed to investigate into th e possibility of relationships among th e affecting quality parameters and th e output service. This analysis was based on customer's perception, as well a s expectation. Findings - The research found the values of service quality parameters, suc h as tangibles, doctoral service, nu rsing, infrastructure and management. Th e established fact of dependence of perception of quality on culture has bee n proved once again. The relationship am ong conflicting parameters were als o f ound using hypothesis testing. Alt hough the study was conducted in th e context o f Bangladesh, the analysis procedure is well applicable to othe r countries. Originality/value - The study proved that the hierarchical nature o f s atisfaction can well be analyzed usi ng the powerful tool of SERVQUAL. Th e dependence of customer satisfaction on service quality has been assumed t o be a function of market segmentati on and customer perception. This resu l can guide many of the future research works in further analysis of comple x nature of service quality and customer satisfaction.

10

Authors: Biljana Tesic

The role of management information systems (MIS) of local treasuries budget accounting is to pr ovide qualitative information support to management in process of deci sion making and to provide effective managing of key processes of budget accounting, in accordance with requests of management on all levels of decision making. From the aspect of effectiveness and request for quality, in accordance with request of users and defined system goals, this rese arch includes the analysis of characteristics and goals of identified key processe s, critical succecs factors (CSF), key performance indicators (KPI), standards for realization of users requests, results of processes and indicators of goals realisation. The aim of this paper, based on the re sults of the analysis, is to develop models for evaluation of quality and effectiveness and to define key performance indicators of MIS of budget accounting, in order to perceive the level of achievemen t of the goals of the system, effectiveness of processes and level of fulfillment of requirements and needs of all users groups that are significant for budge t accounting of local treasuries.

11

Authors: Pratima Mishra, Rajiv Kumar Sharma

The greatest continuing area of weakness in management practice is to evaluate human dimensions. The aim of this research is to evaluate the human dimensions which can prove for succe ssful implementation of Six- sigma through teams. This paper discusses the available dimensions of supply chain management (SCM) practices in lite rature and develops an integrated framework (6 ? +SCM) based upon ten human dimens ions of SCM practice ( (i) Self management, (ii) Participation, (iii) Flexibility, (iv) Training, (v) Managerial support, (vi) Communica tion and cooperation, (vii) Feedback and reward, (viii) Leadership, (ix) Information sharing and (x) Process improvement orientation) . The framework has been used to analyze the performance of teams based upon the above dimensions which helps in improving the performance. Various pe rformance metrics i.e. Sigma level (within) and sigma (overall), yield, Cp and Cpk have been calculated to find out the scope for improvement with re spect to SCM dimensions based upon team characteristics.