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Second of a two‐part series. Suggests that external, third‐party assessment schemes no longer meet the needs of total quality organizations and that what is needed is a self‐assessment process, based on a new reference model, capable of unifying an organization′s diverse assessment criteria regarding total quality. Highlights the “quality sub‐system” as the most important component in self‐assessment and examines a possible model in detail, including its relationship to the organizational system model. Concludes by summarizing ways in which external assessment can be improved significantly through incorporating these self‐assessment methods.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a quantitative risk assessment method for agricultural products cold chain logistics to assess the condition of the fresh agricultural products cold chain process objectively and accurately.

A risk assessment index system of agricultural products cold chain logistics is designed on the basis of the risk identification for the process of agricultural products cold chain logistics. This paper first uses catastrophe progression method and a new maximum deviation method to build an improved catastrophe progression assessment model for agricultural products cold chain logistics. In order to verify the reliability and validity of the model, two representative enterprises are selected as the case in the study.

The results in the empirical research indicate strong support for the assessment model and coincide with the reality. The risk assessment index system can also reflect the key risk factors from agricultural products cold chain logistics scientifically. In addition, the improved catastrophe progression assessment method proposed in this paper can be scientific and reasonable to predict risk.

This paper contributes to provide a new risk assessment model for agricultural products cold chain logistics. The new model overcomes the limitation of subjective empowerment and it increases the objectivity and scientificity in the process of cold chain logistics risk assessment. This paper also shows that practitioners involved in the field of products cold chain logistics can manage the potential risk by a set of scientific methods for assessing the risk before the accident.

The paper provides a practical guideline to practitioners, especially for cold chain logistics managers, relevant management departments, and cold chain logistics management consultants. It is proved that the new risk assessment method and the risk assessment index system of agricultural products cold chain logistics can help them assess the risk scientifically and reasonably.

Although the calculation is simple, the new model can overcome the limitation of subjective empowerment scientifically and reasonably, and thus has important practical value.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on developing a knowledge-based engineering (KBE) approach to recycle the knowledge accrued in an industrial organization for the mitigation of unwanted events due to human error. The recycling of the accrued knowledge is vital in mitigating the variance present at different levels of engineering applications, evaluations and assessments in assuring systems’ safety. The approach is illustrated in relation to subsea systems’ functional failure risk (FFR) analysis.

A fuzzy expert system (FES)-based approach has been proposed to facilitate FFR assessment and to make knowledge recycling possible via a rule base and membership functions (MFs). The MFs have been developed based on the experts’ knowledge, data, information, and on their insights into the selected subsea system. The rule base has been developed to fulfill requirements and guidelines specified in DNV standard DNV-RP-F116 and NORSOK standard Z-008.

It is possible to use the FES-based KBE approach to make FFR assessments of the equipment installed in a subsea system, focussing on potential functional failures and related consequences. It is possible to integrate the aforementioned approach in an engineering service provider’s existing structured information management system or in the computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) available in an asset owner’s industrial organization.

The FES-based KBE approach provides a consistent way to incorporate actual circumstances at the boundary of the input ranges or at the levels of linguistic data and risk categories. It minimizes the variations present in the assessments.

The FES-based KBE approach has been demonstrated in relation to the requirements and guidelines specified in DNV standard DNV-RP-F116 and NORSOK standard Z-008. The suggested KBE-based FES that has been utilized for FFR assessment allows the relevant quantitative and qualitative data (or information) related to equipment installed in subsea systems to be employed in a coherent manner with less variability, while improving the quality of inspection and maintenance recommendations.

This chapter focusses on food systems' vulnerability. In a rapidly and unpredictably changing world, vulnerability of farming and food systems becomes a key issue. The conceptual bases for food vulnerability analysis and food vulnerability assessment are discussed in a systemic perspective with an eye to the transition approach (Geels, 2004) as a perspective capable to analyze how novelties can develop and influence the system capability to fulfil societal functions, and food and nutrition security in particular. A framework for assessing people's food vulnerability is presented together with a simple vulnerability model based on the three dimensions of exposure (the degree to which a system is likely to experience environmental or sociopolitical stress), sensitivity (the degree to which a system is modified or affected by perturbations) and adaptive capacity (the ability to evolve in order to accommodate environmental hazards or change) (Adger, 2006). Then, other sections are dedicated to discuss the general questions that should be answered by a vulnerability assessment exercise, and the specific challenges emerging when the assessment concerns a food system. These elements are then used in the Annex to this chapter as a base for the development of a detailed method based on seven distinct steps for conducting participatory assessments of the vulnerability of food systems.

Very often, manufacturing companies have been faced with the problem of assessment and selection of suppliers for their product development. Some methods and techniques have been developed to assist these companies in performing the assessment. However, these methods and techniques lack tge capability to deal with the instrumental and conceptual uncertainties that are involved in the supplier assessment and selection. Fuzzy expert system is an alternative approach from which the heuristics and knowledge of supplier assessment can be captured and the impreciseness and uncertainties due to the human subjectivity, that are common in the process of the supplier assessment, can be handled. In this paper, a combined scoring method with fuzzy expert systems approach is introduced to perform the supplier assessment. With the use of the fuzzy concept, the error due to human judgement in the scoring method could be minimized. First, current methods and techniques of supplier assessment are reviewed in this paper. There follows the description of a case study of combined scoring method and fuzzy expert systems approach to supplier assessment. Some results of the prototype system trial‐run are discussed in the final part of this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to present the development of an action and assessment framework to make sustainability in German facility management (FM) transparent, measurable and assessable.

The underlying research project’s approach to develop the new action and assessment framework consisted of a three-step methodology: to define and substantiate sustainability in FM, to operationalise and quantify sustainability in FM and to validate the developed system draft through an initial pilot study.

The main result of the presented research project is a set of 24 criteria, organised into the separate areas of environmental, economic and sociocultural quality, as well as the quality of FM organisation and the sustainability of building/contract-specific facility services. The assessment methodology reflects the strategic approach of a plan–do–check–act loop to create a transparent and objective appraisal and a practical action framework.

The outcome of the study is initially only a measurement and assessment framework. To transform the finalised system draft and assessment tool into a certification system, further steps of development are necessary.

The newly developed action and assessment framework is able to cure the blind spot that the relevant players (building owners, users and service providers) suffer from while developing, purchasing and comparing concepts for sustainable FM. The results and practical experiences of its initial pilot study show that this new framework can make the building operation phase and its processes transparent, measurable and assessable.

The guideline is also able to establish a crucial basis for the development of corporate sustainability strategies and sustainability reporting. This is an important step in closing the existing gap in numerous corporate social responsibility reports.

Due to its assessment methodology and the calibration of its criteria, this new action and assessment framework both diversifies and completes the range of existing sustainability certification systems.

This paper seeks to describe the development of a web‐based system for managing and assessing suppliers, presenting the system design and interface of the prototype and discussing the applicability of the system.

In this paper critical assessment criteria and factors for managing supplier quality (MSQ) were identified through literature review and a mail survey of manufacturers in Hong Kong. Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process methodology, a self‐assessment model comprising these criteria and factors was developed. Industry experts were invited to determine the relative weighting of these criteria and factors. A software was developed to support the assessment system.

The findings in this paper identified criteria addressed strategic alliance, supplier development and supplier monitoring. The critical factors encompassed buyer‐supplier partnership, technology and information sharing, sourcing strategies, supplier evaluation and motivation, and issues on performance measurement and improvement. A self‐assessment model comprising these criteria and factors was developed.

The paper shows that in future work, more best practices of supplier management will be identified to enrich the knowledge base of the system in order to further develop the assessment system to an expert system.

The findings in this paper were incorporated to develop a prototype web‐based system for self‐assessment with promising industrial validation results.

In this paper, a novel self‐assessment system was developed for supplier quality management. It is of great value for quality management theory and practice.

The goal of this research is to demonstrate how web‐based applications improve the effectiveness of a very important human resource (HR) function. It proposes a framework of a web‐based training needs assessment system for HR professionals to effectively assess employee needs for competency‐based training.

A conceptual framework of a survey‐based training needs assessment using the Internet was developed. A use case detailing a walkthrough of a prototype system developed under this proposed framework was created to illustrate how this system works. A two‐phased operation test of the prototype system was then conducted to assess how well human resource (HR) managers would accept and adopt this technology to develop organizational competencies. The first phase involved demonstrating the use case to a group of experienced HR managers and polling their opinion toward the system. The second phase involved one‐on‐one interviews with three select HR managers who were asked to experience the prototype system hands‐on.

HR managers from both phases of validation demonstrated positive acceptance of both the needs assessment model and the process improvement generated from the web‐based prototype system.

The qualitative validation test was conducted to a small sample of Taiwan's HR managers. Caution is advised when generalizing the positive results to other regions or countries with more advanced IT applications in HR practices.

This study contributes to the HR practice in several ways. First, it qualitatively confirms that HR professionals accept a competence‐based approach to build company's training curriculum. Second, it observes a lack of effective tools to help HR professionals in the task of training needs assessment. Third, it shows that HR professionals do recognize the power of web technology in helping them become more efficient.

Formal competency‐based training programs are rarely implemented in the real world because the process required is both tedious and time‐consuming. This paper adopts Internet technologies in a conceptual model for effective competency‐based training needs assessment, and presents an efficient web‐based tool to assist HR professionals in the needed analysis.