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A process improvement sampling methodology, known as process variation diagnostic tool (PROVADT), was proposed by Cox et al. (2013). The method was designed to support the objectivity of Six Sigma projects performing the measure-analyse phases of the define-measure-analyse-improve-control cycle. An issue in PROVADT is that it is unable to distinguish between measurement and product variation in the presence of a poor Gage repeatability and reproducibility (R&R) result. The purpose of this paper is to improve and address PROVADT’s sampling structure by enabling a true Gage R&R as part of its design.

This paper derives an enhanced PROVADT method by examining the theoretical sampling constraints required to perform a Gage R&R study. The original PROVADT method is then extended to fulfil these requirements. To test this enhanced approach, it was applied first to a simulated manufacturing process and then in two industry case studies.

The results in this paper demonstrates that enhanced PROVADT was able to achieve a full Gage R&R result. This required 20 additional measurements when compared to the original method, but saved up to ten additional products and 20 additional measurements being taken in future experiments if the original method failed to obtain a valid Gage R&R. These benefits were highlighted in simulation and industry case studies.

The work into the PROVADT method aims to improve the objectivity of early Six Sigma analyses of quality issues, which has documented issues.

Emergency situations call for effective means of providing quality education. Higher education institutions are therefore required to use effective and efficient online approaches for teaching and learning which necessitate students, academic practitioners and institutions to engage and interact with each other successfully. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the importance of interaction and engagement in the use of blended learning online tools during emergency situations. The theoretical lens that informs the chapter is social constructivism which argues that learning is a social endeavour. The literature findings show that the effective engagement of students contributes to the overall quality of students’ produced experiences as well as pass rates. Furthermore, the importance of student–lecturer engagement and student–content engagement cannot be taken for granted. The right balance of synchronous and asynchronous online learning tools contributes to fruitful interaction and engagement. Online engagement seems to have many benefits as compared to conventional based engagement such as the ability of students to contribute to their teaching and learning. Despite these advantages, challenges associated with online learning such as balancing life commitments, confidence, students’ approach to learning, high investment costs in resources, motivation, competences of lecturers and students, interest of lecturers and students and efficacy of lecturers and students cannot be ignored. The authors therefore recommend that effective and efficient online learning requires the correct blend of online learning tools accompanied by the correct engagement strategies.

Design for Assembly (DFA) is now a well established technique for cost reduction at the design‐manufacture interface. The method described here is simple, highly visual and team based and can be learned in a single day of training and experience has shown that a design team can achieve significant savings even during the training process. The method starts with the analysis of an existing product, prototype, or preliminary design by describing the product and assembly process in the form of rows in a design matrix. The row‐based description is then progressively modified by cascading down the matrix through considerations of part count, ease of handling and ease of assembly insertion. The final rows of the matrix represent the improved assembly design and its assembly process, and the body of the matrix contains cells that describe design and process changes in an order that records the evolution of the design process.

The recent shift towards accommodating flexibility in manufacturing companies and the complexity resulting from product variety highlight the significance of flexible assembly systems and designing products for them. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the requirements of a flexible assembly system for product design from the assembly system’s standpoint.

To fulfil the purpose of the paper, a literature review and a case study were performed. The case study was conducted with an interactive research approach in a global market leader company within the heavy vehicle manufacturing industry.

The findings indicate that common assembly sequence, similar assembly interfaces, and common parts are the main requirements of a flexible assembly system for product design which reduce complexity and facilitate various flexibility dimensions. Accordingly, a model is proposed to broaden the understanding of these requirements from the assembly system’s standpoint.

This study contributes to the overlapping research area of flexible assembly systems and product design.

The proposed model is largely based on practical data and clarifies the role of product design in facilitating flexibility in an assembly system. It can be used by assembly managers, assembly engineers, and product designers.

The key originality of this paper compared to the previous studies lies in presenting a novel assembly-oriented design model. The model enhances understanding of a flexible assembly system’s requirements for product design with regard to reducing complexity and managing variation in a flexible assembly system. These requirements can be applied to product design across various product families within a company’s product portfolio.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a new maturity model to identify the current state of maintenance area of organizations and drives actions to increase efficiency and effectiveness toward the concept known as world-class.

The model was developed based on an extensive literature review on maintenance management and maturity assessment, which allowed identifying the relevant factors in maintenance management and the world-class behaviors for each factor. The progressive maturity levels for each of the identified ten factors form the model. To test its effectiveness, it was applied to the maintenance area of three companies.

The model application showed that, in addition to being a self-assessment tool, it provides knowledge, to those who use it, on behaviors or practices that enable world-class results. For each factor, potential gaps and the desired state were defined focusing on behaviors rather than on indicators values or adopted methodologies, which facilitates the identification of improvement actions that lead to better performance.

Through its use, maturity levels can be identified for all considered maintenance management factors, however, the overall maturity of the maintenance area is not determined. Although this overall evaluation can be done assigning a weight to each factor, it was not considered an added value for the set purpose.

The proposed maturity model contributes to the understanding of the maintenance management process and how to stand out nowadays in an area that has an increasingly important impact on productivity and quality.

This article looks at how certain companies within the UK meat, poultry and cheese packaging and processing industries have achieved success within the new market environment created in the aftermath of the BSE crisis. The study utilises a postal questionnaire sent to 50 companies in these industries and identified three sets of industry key success factors or strategies: focus on the customer, focus on value added, focus on pursuing improvements. The strategies identified within those areas can provide such organisations with basic policies which can improve the probability of emerging as successful in a changing environment.

This paper reports the study of key success factors (KSFs) in the project management of the implementation of strategic manufacturing initiatives (SMIs).

In order to gather the experience and knowledge of many industries, from different geographic locations, in a broad range of types and sizes of SMIs, a questionnaire‐based survey of practitioners worldwide was selected as the most appropriate research method among those available.

The identification of those tasks and activities that must be done well in order to succeed in the implementation of a SMI in practice.

Practitioners focusing their attention on the KSFs identified are more likely to succeed. Once these factors have been identified, the value of benchmarking project management methodologies then comes from drawing attention to those tasks that are key to the success of the implementation of SMIs.

The paper presents new thinking by bringing project management into the operations strategy implementation literature as an important mediating factor for success. In this context the factors that are required for successful implementation are identified.

THAT THE NEWSPAPER industry has gone through a tremendous change has been obvious to all by the horrific scenes of violence shown on television over the past several months.

Describes a benchmarking tool to help organizations to be more effective in the way they manage change. The tool, a best practice model for change, links five key success factors with the change process ‐ commitment, social and cultural issues, communication, tools and methodology and interactions. It works on the basis that, by applying these key success factors to the change process itself, more effective change will be achieved. The model has potential use at all levels within an organization. It allows the organization to assess and quantify its “maturity” in change management, using a maturity matrix, and identify subsequent actions for improvement.

The growing use of internet-based learning (IBL) platforms in institutions of higher education is producing profound changes in the traditional teaching learning process worldwide. This paper aims to identify and understand the ways in which higher education institutions draw benefits by the use of such means, synthesizing the literature research.

The study synthesized the literature research by using a mixed method approach in which both Web of Science (WoS) and bibliographic techniques were used to retrieve the relevant data base.

The comprehensive review of the literature suggests that communication technology (CT), massive open online courseware (MOOCs), social networking sites (SNSs), blogs, real simple syndication (RSS) and YouTube are creating new possibilities and avenues of collaborative learning by transforming the traditional class and teacher-centric system.

Multiplicity of the IBL platforms and rapid technological obsolesce are some of the limitations of this paper.

The findings of this study are highly useful in developing a strategic framework to accelerate the integration of IBL platforms to make teaching learning process more interactive and informative.