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The article aims to give an overview of the system of public health laboratory quality management in Thailand and to produce a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis that is relevant to public health laboratories in the country.

The systems for managing laboratory quality that are currently employed were described in the first component. The second component was a SWOT analysis, which used the opinions of laboratory professionals to identify any areas that could be improved to meet quality management systems.

Various quality management systems were identified and the number of laboratories that met both international and national quality management requirements was different. The SWOT analysis found the opportunities and strengths factors offered the best chance to improve laboratory quality management in the country.

The results are based on observations and brainstorming with medical laboratory professionals who can assist laboratories in accomplishing quality management.

The factors derived from the analysis can help improve laboratory quality management in the country. This paper provides viewpoints and evidence‐based approaches for the development of best possible practice of services in public health laboratories.

As the demand for efficiency and quality in the health-care industry has increased over the past few years, adoption of Lean principles and tools in the medical laboratory industry has become increasingly crucial. The purpose of this study is to explore the level of adoption, barriers and enablers of Lean principles and tools in the Namibian medical laboratory industry.

A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out to examine the level of usage, barriers and enablers, impact of Lean tools and to suggest appropriate strategies for adopting Lean in the Namibian medical laboratory services.

Research findings reveal that Lean tools are moderately implemented in most laboratories. Standard operating procedures, root cause analysis, overall equipment effectiveness and visual management are the important Lean tools used in the industry. Results of the survey also show that Lean tools had a positive impact on operational performance, employee motivation, turnaround time and cost reduction. Furthermore, top management involvement, adequate training and proper planning emerged as important enablers, while lack of support from the management, financial constraint and staff resistant to change are major barriers to the adoption of Lean principles in the Namibian medical laboratory industry.

The paper has inherent limitations of survey research, which the authors will overcome by using case studies with medical laboratories.

The findings of the authors’ work will help in widening the application of Lean principles in more medical laboratories in Namibia and in other parts of the world.

The paper is based on numerous health-care studies on Lean. This is one of the few papers investigating the adoption of Lean principles, specifically in medical laboratories, from an emerging economy such as Namibia.

The purpose of this paper is to formulate the strategy for improving the laboratory practices to enhance customer satisfaction by analyzing the performance of critical factors of IS/ISO/IEC 17025 (2005) laboratory accreditation and the importance attached by the quality/technical managers in the accredited Indian testing/calibration laboratories.

The perceptions of the critical factors of laboratory accreditation and the importance attached by the quality/technical managers in their organizations have been collected and analyzed to develop an importance-performance analysis (IPA) model to enhance the customer satisfaction.

Findings report that the performance of the critical factors and the importance assigned to them are not the same. There exist gaps between the performance and importance which need to be measured and analyzed by the management to strive toward continual improvement to enhance the customer satisfaction through the accredited testing and calibration services.

This study is restricted to 54 responses out of 150 which were sent (i.e. about 36 percent response rate) to capture the perspectives of the quality/technical managers.

This study would enable the accredited laboratories to analyze the gap in performance and the importance assigned to critical factors through the feedback from the quality/technical managers. By analyzing the strengths and weaknesses in the accredited testing/calibration laboratories, managerial decisions and strategic plans can be proposed to gain greater insights into benchmarking improvement of the laboratory quality management system with the existing resources to strive toward customer satisfaction.

This paper proposes IPA as a tool to assess the gap between the importance and performance of critical factors of accredited testing and calibration laboratories in India.

The motivation for this paper is to better understand the strengths and limitations of quantitative performance measures in a changing environment. The context is one of organisational change and innovative management. Using a case study approach, the paper presents a history of organisational change and focuses on attempts to drive and assess efficiency through performance measures in a public hospital‐based pathology laboratory. The various financial and non‐financial performance measures used in the laboratory are presented. A discrepancy between accounting reports and laboratory management analyses of costs is reported. The notorious difficulties of costing health services are examined through the dispute that arose about whether the mean cost‐per‐test was increasing or decreasing over a three‐year period. Competing representations of performance are analysed. Whilst the case study looks at a New Zealand example, many of the pressures facing pathology services are typical of medical laboratories worldwide. General issues of performance measurement are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the critical factors (CRFs) of IS/ISO/IEC 17025:2005 laboratory accreditation and indicators of the performance (IOPs) in the testing/calibration laboratories. The impact of accreditation on the performance is analyzed using the level of presence of critical factors that can be used to benchmark the best practices in the accredited testing and calibration laboratories.

A questionnaire is designed on the basis of an extensive literature review on laboratory accreditation and performance. Based on the responses from pilot study, the developed instrument is tested for its unidimensionality, reliability and validity. Multiple regression analysis is carried out to analyze the impact of critical factors on the IOPs.

The findings reveal that the six distinct critical dimensions of laboratory accreditation (which are the independent variables) have a significant impact on the performance of the accredited testing/calibration laboratories. The performance is measured by the dependent variables which are the IOPs. The customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, laboratory performance, image of the laboratory, the number of increased customers and loyalty of the existing customers are highly influenced by the accreditation which in turn improves the performance to gain the competitive advantage.

Contribution to research is in the area of laboratory accreditation and the performance measurement by the development of a comprehensive instrument to analyze the Laboratory Quality Management System. The results are dependent on the number of respondents who are the quality/technical managers.

This instrument would enable the accredited laboratories to analyze their performance through the feedback from the quality/technical managers to gain credibility and to continually improve and benchmark the quality management system in alignment with the quality policies.

This paper proposes an instrument to measure and benchmark the performance of the accredited testing and calibration laboratories.

The success of business process re‐engineering (BPR) is dependent on the use of data‐driven methods that provide cost‐effective and optimal solutions. Today's business managers are inundated with methodologies and tools that claim to provide sustaining process improvement results. Determining the appropriate BPR method(s) to employ is a daunting task for many businesses. Understanding the technical complexities of these methods is even more overwhelming. However, with the increased availability of management science software, business managers can easily identify and employ proven management science techniques. Readily available software that provides timely results, is easily adaptable to resource changes, and does not require extensive technical competencies. This paper demonstrates how scientific management techniques, coupled with management science software (Management Scientist, Project Management and Excel), provided a feasible and achievable solution to a laboratory courier service BPR project. The solution yields a 19.5 percent reduction in annual laboratory courier specimen costs while improving service levels.

The article aims to critically analyze the project management developed by research laboratories of a Brazilian university in order to enhance their performance. For this, a critical analysis was performed to identify existing opportunities about the management of schedules and resources. Additionally, a software was developed to enable performance improvement.

The methodological procedures used were literature review, for a theoretical foundation, and case study conducted with semi-structured interviews, documentary research and on-site visits. Through a detailed critical analysis of the laboratories' management, it was possible to understand the activities developed and map the main difficulties observed.

A total of five plausible points of improvement were identified, namely reduced teams and accumulation of activities; team seasonality; centralized management; deviations from projects and schedule control. Based on the theoretical foundation, it has been proposed adjustments to minimize the mentioned difficulties that can greatly contribute for better management efficiency of multiple research projects. In addition, a software was structured based on the proposed improvements. The laboratories' performance was monitored for a month and significant improvements were observed.

The information presented here may be of great value to other researchers interested in enhancing research laboratory performance.

The academic literature presents several examples of project management guidelines application in different organizations; however, there are few studies about the application of them in research laboratories and how to improve their performance.

The paper develops a model for enhancing R&D productivity for Indian public funded laboratories. The paper utilizes the productivity data of five Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) laboratories for analysis and to form the constructs of the model.

The weighted average method was employed for analyzing the rankings of survey respondents pertaining to the significant measures enhancing R&D involvement of researchers and significant non-R&D jobs. The authors have proposed a model of productivity. Various individual, organizational and environmental constructs related to the researchers working in the CSIR laboratories have been outlined that can enhance R&D productivity of researchers in Indian R&D laboratories. Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to find the predictability of the productivity model.

The organizational factors have a crucial role in enhancing the R&D outputs of CSIR laboratories. The R&D productivity of researchers can be improved through implementing the constructs of the proposed model of productivity.

The R&D productivity model can be adapted by the R&D laboratories to enhance researchers’ R&D involvement, increased R&D outputs and achieving self-sustenance in long run.

The R&D laboratories can initiate exercises to explore the most relevant factors and measures to enhance R&D productivity of their researchers. The constructs of the model can function as a guideline to introduce the most preferable research policies in the laboratory for overall mutual growth of laboratory and the researchers.

Hardly any studies have been found that have focused on finding the measures of enhancing R&D involvement of researchers and the influence of significant time-intensive jobs on researchers’ productivity.

Presents the results of a study which was undertaken to establish best practice in the management of a pathology department through best practice. The study was carried out in two stages: an in‐depth analysis of the pathology department through a SWOT analysis and in‐depth interviews with 25 key internal and external customers, and a survey of NHS laboratories both in the UK and Ireland by targeting a sample of consultant pathologists in 50 random locations – the purpose of this questionnaire was an attempt at establishing best practice in pathology quality management. The study revealed that in pathology there is currently a major dependency on quality control that reflects a compliance to set standards laid down by professional bodies. It also identified a poor understanding of customer needs and expectations, a mechanistic culture which is resistant to change, and a reluctance by pathology managers to delegate ownership for ongoing quality improvement or to take responsibility for quality improvement issues such as waste reduction and cost improvement. Concludes with a set of recommendations geared towards helping managers of pathology services to deal with issues such as cost of quality, listening to customers, empowering employees and getting the job done right the first time and every time.

Quality in research and development (R&D) work has become increasingly important as companies commit themselves to quality improvement programmes in all areas of their activity. Quality improvement forms an important part of their competitive strategy. Quality management systems have been successfuly designed and implemented for manufacturing and service functions; but so far the quality principles and systems have been difficult to translate to the R&D function. Looks at the challenge of effective implementation of quality management and total quality principles in R&D. Discusses quality concepts, terms, systems and critical factors for successful implementation. Uses brief case histories to highlight particular approaches to implementation. Finally, introduces a new, versatile method for evaluating the capabilities of an R&D organization in terms of total quality management. It is presented in the form of a case study showing its use in a large R&D laboratory of a major multinational corporation.