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Digital voice-of-customer (digital VoC) analysis is gaining much attention in the field of quality management. Digital VoC can be a great source of knowledge about customer needs, habits and expectations. To this end, the most popular approach is based on the application of text mining algorithms named topic modelling. These algorithms can identify latent topics discussed within digital VoC and categorise each source (e.g. each review) based on its content. This paper aims to propose a structured procedure for validating the results produced by topic modelling algorithms.

The proposed procedure compares, on random samples, the results produced by topic modelling algorithms with those generated by human evaluators. The use of specific metrics allows to make a comparison between the two approaches and to provide a preliminary empirical validation.

The proposed procedure can address users of topic modelling algorithms in validating the obtained results. An application case study related to some car-sharing services supports the description.

Despite the vast success of topic modelling-based approaches, metrics and procedures to validate the obtained results are still lacking. This paper provides a first practical and structured validation procedure specifically employed for quality-related applications.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a preliminary conceptual scale for the measurement of distributed manufacturing (DM) capacity of manufacturing companies operating in rubber and plastic sectors.

A two-step research methodology is employed. In first step, the dimensions of DM and different levels of each dimension have been defined. In second step, an empirical analysis (cluster analysis) of database firms is performed by collecting the data of 38 firms operating in Italian mould manufacturing sector. Application case studies are then analyzed to show the use of the proposed DM conceptual scale.

A hyperspace, composed of five dimensions of DM, i.e. manufacturing localization; manufacturing technologies; customization and personalization; digitalization; and democratization of design, is developed and a hierarchy is defined by listing the levels of each dimension in an ascending order. Based on this hyperspace, a conceptual scale is proposed to measure the positioning of a generic company in the DM continuum.

The empirical data are collected from Italian mould manufacturing companies operating in rubber and plastic sectors. It cannot be assumed that the industrial sectors in different parts of the world are operating under similar operational, regulatory and economic conditions. The results, therefore, might not be generalized to manufacturing companies operating in different countries (particularly developing countries) under different circumstances.

This is first preliminary scale of its kind to evaluate the positioning of companies with respect to their DM capacity. This scale is helpful for companies to compare their capacity with standard profiles and for decision making to convert the existing manufacturing operations into distributed operations.

Service matching is defined in this paper as the process of combining a new service with one or more existing services. A recurring problem for service designer is to match new services with existing ones. This process may be seen as the fundamental action for the development of a service network. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the consequences that may follow from service matching.

Through an analogy with living organisms in natural ecosystems, the service relationship deployment (SRD) allows the investigation of the possible relationships between matched services.

This paper presents a new method, named SRD, developed to support the process of service matching in the early design phases of a new service. The description of the method is supported by some practical examples.

The focus of the scientific community on the problem of matching new services with existing ones, is very limited. This paper proposes a new methodology to address this issue.

The purpose of this paper is to dissect the diffusion of the number of organizations that implemented multiple management systems (MSs), considering the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 standards (quality, environment and safety) in the South European countries: Italy, Portugal and Spain. In addition, based on the data collected, forecasting models were developed to assess at which extent the multiple certifications are expected to occur in each studied country.

Data concerning the evolution of the amount of multiple MSs in Italy, Portugal and Spain were collected for the period between 1999 and 2015. The behavior of the evolution of the number of MSs over the years was studied adopting both the Gompertz and the Logistic models. The results obtained with these two models were compared and analyzed to provide a forecast for the next years.

The diffusion throughout the years of the number of MSs presents an S-shaped behavior. The evolution of the amount of MSs in countries with a lower saturation level are properly fitted by the Gompertz model whereas the Logistic model fits more accurately when considering countries with a larger saturation level.

The data related to the early years are not available in some of the countries. To overcome this shortcoming missing data were extrapolated from the data set provided by the annual ISO survey. Additionally, the integration level attained by each company was not assessed and, on this regard and in the scope of this paper, an integrated management system is understood as implemented when organizations have multiple MSs implemented.

The results provide a cross-sectional portrayal of the diffusion of MSs certifications in the South European countries and enable a forecast for the trend in the next years.

This study aims for the first time, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to analyze the diffusion of multiple MSs throughout the years.

The paper attempts to address the following research questions (RQs): RQ1: What are the main research topics within PSS research? RQ2: What are future trends for PSS research?

Twenty years of research (1999–2018) on product-service systems (PSS) produced a significant amount of scientific literature on the topic. As the PSS field is relatively new and fragmented across different disciplines, a review of the prior and relevant literature is important in order to provide the necessary framework for understanding current developments and future perspectives. This paper aims to review and organize research contributions regarding PSS. A machine-learning algorithm, namely Latent Dirichlet Allocation, has been applied to the whole literature corpus on PSS in order to understand its structure.

The adopted approach resulted in the definition of eight distinct and representative topics able to deal adequately with the multidisciplinarity of the PSS. Furthermore, a systematic review of the literature is proposed to summarize the state-of-the-art and limitations in the identified PSS research topics. Based on this critical analysis, major gaps and future research challenges are presented and discussed.

On the basis of the results of the topic landscape, the paper presents some potential research opportunities on PSSs. In particular, challenges, transversal to the eight research topics and related to recent technology trends and digital transformation, have been discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the practice of service recycling. There is an end of life to every product. At this stage, recycling is one option: it is the process of converting waste materials into new products or raw materials. There is also an end of life to every service, which generally coincides with the end of service delivery. However, services are not made of materials or components that can be recovered or converted, so can they be recycled? If the concept of product recycling is something well established, then that of service recycling has not yet been sufficiently investigated.

This paper introduces the perspective of service recycling, analyzing the modalities in which a service can be recycled by using an analogy with natural ecosystems. Some examples are also proposed to support this new vision.

This paper purports to formalize the practice of service recycling: recycling a service means recovering all the intangibles and tangibles resulting from the provision of a service that still may have a residual value. This practice may potentially lead to an increase in profits.

Although there are several examples of close relationships between two (or more) different services in which one of the two benefits from the externalities of the other, the concept of service recycling has not yet been structurally defined, and the authors believe that interesting perspectives of research may follow from its formalization.

The purpose of this paper is to verify a possible relationship between quality management system certification according to ISO 9001 standard and risk of failure of Italian companies.

A synthetic index which summarize the most crucial economic/financial aspects of the studied companies is assumed as the response variable of a statistical model for studying the effects of four specific factors: certification, company size, regional development and manufacturing sub-sector. The analysis is conducted on a sample of Italian companies belonging to different manufacturing sub-sectors. The used data are obtained from the database Aida® by Bureau van Dijk and from the database of the Italian accreditation body Accredia. The study is based on analysis of variance (ANOVA) and contingency tables.

Preliminary results of ANOVA show that only company size, regional development and manufacturing sub-sector can be considered fully significant. Furthermore, the major conclusion from the analysis of contingency tables is that ISO 9001 certification is connected to the legal status (active, not active) of a company only for a portion for the studied manufacturing sub-sectors. Hence, the scenario is quite variegated and a significant positive interaction between certification and corporate performance is not always confirmed.

Although the research shows some interesting results, it is liable to extensions and improvements. In particular, at the current exploratory level, it is limited to a specific period of time and considers only the Italian sector, but it could be extended to a wider number of years and to European and international level.

The study opens a way for a number of important questions about the meaning, usefulness and effectiveness of ISO 9001 certification. In particular, it may be time to ask whether the paradigm of certification actually needs a radical rethink.

This work represents a first exploratory attempt to correlate the risk of failure with the achievement of ISO 9001 certification. There are several similar works in literature which, however, focus mainly on sectorial aspects of the corporate background.

Lean distributed manufacturing (LDM) is being considered as an enabler of achieving sustainability and resilience in manufacturing and supply chain operations. The purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding of how LDM characteristics affect the resilience of manufacturing companies by drawing upon the experience of food manufacturing companies operating in the UK.

The paper develops a conceptual model to analyse the impact of LDM on the operational resilience of food manufacturing companies. A triangulation research methodology (secondary data analysis, field observations and structured interviews) is used in this study. In a first step, LDM enablers and resilience elements are identified from literature. In a second step, empirical evidence is collected from six food sub-sectors aimed at identifying LDM enablers being practised in companies.

The analysis reveals that LDM enablers can improve the resilience capabilities of manufacturing companies at different stages of resilience action cycle, whereas the application status of different LDM enablers varies in food manufacturing companies. The findings include the development of a conceptual model (based on literature) and a relationship matrix between LDM enablers and resilience elements.

The developed relationship matrix is helpful for food manufacturing companies to assess their resilience capability in terms of LDM characteristics and then formulate action plans to incorporate relevant LDM enablers to enhance operational resilience.

Based on the literature review, no studies exist that investigate the effects of LDM on factory’s resilience, despite many research studies suggesting distributed manufacturing as an enabler of sustainability and resilience.

The paper aims to define a dashboard of indicators to assess the quality performance of higher education institutions (HEI). The instrument is termed SMART-QUAL.

Two sources were used in order to explore potential indicators. In the first step, information disclosed in official websites or institutional documentation of 36 selected HEIs was analyzed. This first step also included in depth structured high managers’ interviews. A total of 223 indicators emerged. In a second step, recent specialized literature was revised searching for indicators, capturing additional 302 indicators.

Each one of the 525 total indicators was classified according to some attributes and distributed into 94 intermediate groups. These groups feed a debugging, prioritization and selection process, which ended up in the SMART-QUAL instrument: a set of 56 key performance indicators, which are grouped in 15 standards, and, in turn, classified into the 3 HEI missions. A basic model and an extended model are also proposed.

The paper provides a useful measure of quality performance of HEIs, showing a holistic view to monitor HEI quality from three fundamental missions. This instrument might assist HEI managers for both assessing and benchmarking purposes. The paper ends with recommendations for university managers and public administration authorities.