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Examines the literature to identify the essential components of kaizen or continuous improvement programmes. Relying on published sources on the North American experience with continuous improvement, also tries to identify organizational structures and practices likely to lead to successful implementation of such programmes. Distinguishes between kaizen and more radical, “strategic leap” improvement approaches, and describes the North American record of success with continuous improvement programmes. An emergent theme is that success with continuous improvement requires a wide array of systems, processes, and orientations to be congruent within the organization. Argues that the study of when, how, and why kaizen succeeds is by no means complete, and proposes a set of open research questions whose investigation is likely to be useful to both scholars and practitioners. Finally, discusses some of the ways in which the existing literature can be immediately useful for practice in organizations.

Total quality management programmes emphasizing continuous improvement have become increasingly popular as companies perceive the importance of quality in maintaining or enhancing their competitive position. Although improvement programmes are extremely valuable, they do not eliminate the need for control. Unfortunately, companies striving for quality improvement may de‐emphasize, or even abandon, the use of process control charts, believing that process control cannot be applied during periods of change. There is a need for a procedure formally linking the methodology of statistical process control – which assumes process stability – to the management of quality improvement programmes – which assumes constant positive change. Provides a procedure to develop and use process goal charts. The procedure uses a straightforward adaptation of the standard process control chart methodology to support and control the planned change of a continuous improvement programme. The procedure is illustrated with a simple example and possible extensions of the procedure are suggested.

That someone can make us feel good is a quality in itself. There has been much talk within British government circles, for example, about “the feelgood” factor, which is constantly reminding us that it is just around the corner! Whether or not we can believe in this is another matter but it certainly displays an awareness that making other people feel good can also have positive benefits for ourselves. How this can be achieved will differ depending on our particular line of business. Having a good‐quality product does not in itself guarantee success as service quality must also be taken into account. This is where the feel‐good factor comes into play. It is all very well, for example, going to a restaurant to have a top‐class meal (in that the food was good), only to have it thrown at you. Quality, therefore, must not be seen as a separate entity, but more as a package deal. Service quality is important if you wish to retain your customer base as acquiring new customers can be both time‐consuming and costly. It quite often takes very little apart from good manners to keep customer loyalty as in the case of the restaurant. Other factors can, however, start creeping into the framework such as efficiency, timeliness and good communication. Is there, for example, a time limit on how long you can reasonably be expected to wait for your meal before it arrives at the table, and if there is a delay is this communicated to you? In other words, we all have expectations as to what is acceptable and what is not. The clever part is for the organization to learn by what criteria the customer judges its service quality performance.

Total quality management does improve organizational performance and remains the most viable long‐term business strategy around. These were the findings of a recent report entitled “TQM: Forging a Need or Falling Behind?”, commissioned by Development Dimensions International of Pittsburgh, the Quality & Productivity Management Association of Schaumburg, Illinois, and Industry Week, which were based on interviews with 6,500 people in 84 organizations. However, on considering the various elements which help or hinder TQM implementation, training emerged as the one successful theme in successful programmes.

Goal setting and feedback techniques have previously been used to improve safety behaviour. Describes a pilot study of the application of a behaviour‐based quality improvement process in a continuous process production plant with a particular focus on certain aspects of the organizational structure and climate which might be conducive to the changes necessary to facilitate this approach. Since “quality improvement”, unlike “safety improvement”, is more likely to be contingent on interactions with other people, the need to optimize communication and interpersonal relationships at work are important. Suggests that an internal customer, linking‐pin model provides the optimal conditions required, and ensures a high level of employee participation in the process of continuous quality improvement.

This study aims to investigate applications of Six Sigma methodology in Malaysian private hospitals. It measures Six Sigma initiatives of the private hospitals based on demographics such as gender, position and working experience.

The present study measures Six Sigma initiatives of private hospitals and used stratified random sampling to collect data from eight selected hospitals in Peninsular Malaysia. The respondents of the study include doctors, nurses, pharmacists and medical laboratory technologists. In this study, 520 questionnaires were distributed to respondents who are working in Malaysian private hospitals. In total, 251 responses were received (48.27 per cent response rate). The descriptive analysis, independent samples t-test and one-way ANOVA were undertaken using SPSS version 23.

The findings of this study indicate that male respondents have better perception on four aspects of Six Sigma applications such as process improvement tools, process improvement methods, manage quality improvement activities and formal planning process compared to female respondents. The research findings also indicate that doctors have better perception regarding process improvement tools to measure quality improvement process, leadership to continuous improvement processes, training in process improvement tools for employees’ skill improvement compared to nurses, pharmacists, medical laboratory technologists.

The present research focussed solely on the Malaysian private hospitals, and thus the results might not be applicable to other countries. This study focussed on Six Sigma initiatives of private hospitals in Malaysia, while the future research may consider investigating the difference or conformance between private and public hospitals on Six Sigma initiatives and its relationship with quality performance. In addition, present study findings are expected to provide guidelines to enhance the applications of Six Sigma methodology in private hospitals in Malaysia as well as other countries.

This research provides theoretical and practical contributions for the Six Sigma initiatives in private hospitals. Most of the past studies of Six Sigma initiatives are centred on manufacturing sector, but few empirical studies have been conducted on the health-care organisation. Thus, findings of the present study on the health-care sector contribute to the on-going pursuit of knowledge in the area of Six Sigma by using the strength of related theories and parent disciplines.

A conceptual model of health care, a theory of quality improvement in health care and the role of patient, physician and employee judgements as part of organisation‐wide improvement are introduced. The conceptual model of health care shows how the practitioner, the locus of care‐giving and the social context interact to meet the needs of patients and highlights potential sources of unwanted variation in outcomes. This theory of quality improvement stresses the continuous improvement of processes throughout the entire organisation to meet the needs and expectations of customers. Basic building blocks for continuous improvement ‐ knowledge of customers, knowledge of work as processes, and statistical and scientific thinking ‐ are discussed along with the need to transform the entire organisation. A method for gaining customer knowledge and for monitoring hospital quality, based on measuring quality from patients′, physicians′, and employees′ judgements of quality, is introduced. The method, called the Hospital Quality Trend (HQT) family of quality measures, is described and its uses to promote organisation‐wide quality improvement are illustrated. Health care work is complex and unique. Careful analysis of the way that work is done and knowledge of the customers in defining and improving quality is essential for achieving better quality and value from the health care system.

Typically, the budgetary requirements for executing a supplier’s process quality improvement program are often done in unstructured ways in that quality improvement managers purely use their previous experiences and pertinent historical information. In this backdrop, the purpose of this paper is to ascertain the expected cost of carrying out suppliers’ process quality improvement programs that are driven by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

Using inputs from experts who had prior experience executing suppliers’ quality improvement programs and employing the Bayesian theory, transition probabilities to various quality levels from an initial quality level are ascertained. Thereafter, the Markov chain concept enables the authors to determine steady-state probabilities. These steady-state probabilities in conjunction with quality level cost coefficients yield the expected cost of quality improvement programs.

The novel method devised in this research is a key contribution of the work. Furthermore, various implications related to experts’ inputs, dynamics related to Markov chain, etc., are discussed. The method is illustrated using a real life of automotive industry in India.

The research contributes to the extant literature in that a new method of determining the expected cost of quality improvement is proposed. Furthermore, the method would be of value to OEMs and suppliers wherein the quality levels at a given time are the function of quality levels in preceding period(s).

That someone can make you feel good is a quality in itself. There has been much talk within British government circles, for example, about “the feel‐good factor”, which is constantly reminding us that it is just around the corner! Whether or not we can believe in this is another matter, but it certainly displays an awareness that making other people feel good can have positive benefits for you also. How this can be achieved will differ depending on your particular line of business. Having a good quality product does not in itself guarantee success as service quality must also be taken into account. This is where the feel‐good factor comes into play. It is all very well, for example, going to a restaurant to have a top‐class meal (in that the food was good), only to have it thrown at you. Quality, therefore, must not be seen as a separate entity, but more as a package deal.