Search results

Total quality management is an approach to continuous organizational improvement, the goal of which is meeting customers’ needs. Two major TQM components are the use of statistical tools to help abolish non‐value‐added activities, and a change in managers’ behaviour, and from those who direct, are competitive, rely on rules, towards managers who lead, guide, co‐operate, focus on the process, view people as assets, and encourage variety, flexibility, etc. TQM programmes are not always effective; some focus more on statistical issues while others focus on more people issues. Examines the association of several variables used in TQM implementations in hospitals, manufacturing, and service organizations. Examines variables against two groupings of qualitative measures of TQM and quantitative measures of TQM. Depicts the successfulness of TQM and whether qualitative or quantitative measures are a determinant of this success. The research hypothesis is: TQM programmes are successful in organizations when their approach to TQM is based on the application of statistical process control tools/principles rather than solely on qualitative measures.

The House of Quality (HoQ) is a popular design tool that supports information processing and decision making in the engineering design process. While its application is an aid to conceptual aspects of the design process, its use as a quantitative information tool in engineering design is potentially flawed. This flaw is a result of potential designer interpretation of the HoQ results – interpretation which is invalid given the assumptions and information sources behind the HoQ – and is viewed as a critical limitation on the results of the method which can lead to potentially invalid and/or poor decisions. In this paper this limitation and its implications are explored both experimentally and through simulated application.

The approach taken in this research is to first study the HoQ through a “digital experiment” in order to identify the key factors that drive the quantitative results within the tool. Based on the results of the experiment, an example HoQ for a hair dryer is used to empirically study the resulting dangers of the quantitative information which results from the HoQ.

Through this research study of the HoQ, it is determined that while the tool offers conceptual support to the design process, the quantitative information that results is largely invalid.

For the research community the results in this paper create motivation for continued improvement of the HoQ tool from a conceptual, qualitative design aid to a sound quantitative tool. The results indicate exactly where the methodology must be improved.

For users of QFD, specifically the HoQ, the results of this research provide evidence to the limitations of the tool in providing quantitative information for design.

Discrete event simulation (DES) is widely known to be a quantitative research tool. A simulation modelling process is mainly based on feeding quantitative data into a model to produce quantitative results in a structured sequential process. Qualitative approaches to research take a less structured approach with more of an inclination towards judgmental and expert knowledge rather than hard data. In this paper the authors suggest that DES can be employed as both a qualitative and quantitative research tool. The paper demonstrates how simulation may represent both stances either separately or combined. This is based on the fact that the basic objectives of simulation are either for understanding – which needs a qualitative perspective – or performance measurement – which a needs quantitative perspective. Traditional quantitative and qualitative methods are discussed showing how DES might cope with the weaknesses of both stances. A structure for using DES as a combined research methodology is proposed.

As opposed to general literature reviews, by narrowing down the context only around the resources related to Six Sigma tools, this study aims to offer a strong discussion about Six Sigma toolbox which has a vital role in the success of Six Sigma.

Based on a comprehensive literature research, the most used tools; classification of tools; flow of tools with respect to define, measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) steps; tools as critical success factors and reasons of ineffective use of tools are reviewed. To stay focused and not to diverge from the research aim, 60 articles which are suitable to the context and flow of the discussion are selected during the construction of the study.

The study provides a detailed and integrated review of Six Sigma articles about tools. The most used tools are listed from different perspectives and resources, and the role of these tools has been discussed. After a broad review, a more practical and combined classification of Six Sigma tools is proposed. Next, the issue of using which tools during which steps of DMAIC is systematically addressed. Finally, emergence of tools as a critical success factor and the gaps in the literature related to tools of Six Sigma are pointed out.

Addressing important statistics and the facts related to the tools of Six Sigma helps new practitioners in particular to build a strategic filter to select the most proper tools throughout their projects.

This study is unique in investigating only Six Sigma toolbox and providing a literature review on this subject.

Uncertainty management (UM) in projects has been a point of attention for researchers for many years. Research on UM has mainly been aimed at uncertainty analyses in the front-end and managing uncertainty in the construction phase. In contrast, UM components in the design phase have received less attention. This research aims to improve knowledge about the key components of UM in the design phase of large road projects.

This study adopted a literature review and case study. The literature review was used to identify relevant criteria for UM. These criteria helped to design the interview guide. Multiple case study research was conducted, and data were collected through document study and interviews with project stakeholders in two road projects. Each case's owners, contractors and consultants were interviewed individually.

The data analysis obtained helpful information on the involved parties, process and exploit tools and techniques during the design phase. Johansen's (2015) framework [(a) human and organisation, (b) process and (c) tools and techniques)] was completed and developed by identifying relevant criteria (such as risk averse or risk-taker, culture and documentation level) for each component. These criteria help to measure UM performance. The authors found that owners and contractors are major formal UM actors, not consultants. Empirical data showed the effectiveness of Web-based tools in UM.

The studied cases were Norwegian, and this study focussed on uncertainties in the project's design phase. Relevant criteria did not cover all the criteria for evaluating the performance of UM. Qualitative evaluation of criteria allows further quantitative analysis in the future.

This paper gave project owners and managers a better understanding of relevant criteria for measuring UM in the owners and managers' projects. The paper provides policy-makers with a deeper understanding of creating rigorous project criteria for UM during the design phase. This paper also provides a guideline for UM in road projects.

This research gives a holistic evaluation of UM by noticing relevant criteria and criteria's interconnection in the design phase.

Improved environmental performance of products and services have lately become one of the main strategic and operational goals of manufacturers. This is due to influences from various stakeholders including government, consumers, societies and the business partners. Evidently, different manufacturers differently implement their environmental practices for sustainable product development depending on various driving factors such as customer awareness, legislation, economic benefits and competitive strategies, etc. In theory, manufacturers can efficiently undertake sustainable product development by implementing life cycle thinking into their system. This way, they can monitor the environment hot spots throughout a product life cycle and be able to minimise the environmental impact effectively. Therefore, several researchers have focused on developing tools and strategies to support the manufacturers in implementing sustainable manufacturing and product development studies. However, in reality, each manufacturer may operate their manufacturing system differently to accommodate different demands and constraints induced by firm characteristics and its regional location. Their attempts to implement the sustainable tools and strategies to their companies would also be different. Thus far, a number of studies have studied the implementation for a specific company. No studies have examined the relationship between their decisions and implementation for different characteristics of firms and different manufacturing locations. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to comprehensively investigate the practices of manufacturers towards sustainable product development.

A detailed statistical analysis was conducted on the survey data gathered from 330 manufacturing organisations in 13 countries. The research questions mainly cover implementation approaches, decision tools and techniques used and main driving forces at the strategic and operational levels concerning environmental practices in sustainable product development. This is to bridge the gaps between the research outputs and implementations in practice for the developed sustainable strategies and tools. Results highlighted interesting relationships of the implementations across different geographical regions (locations) as well as types and sizes of manufacturers. They can be used to shed some light for future research direction, the dominant driving forces of consumers and regulations importance towards the manufacturer practices to improve not only the environmental performance but also their social responsibility. In total, 12 null hypotheses were formulated to test the relationships as well as the correlations between the manufacturing characteristics and the research questions which cover several driving forces in implementing the environmental strategies.

The results of this large-scale global research highlighted that different geographical/manufacturing regions are driven mainly by legislation, competition and consumer pressures whilst manufacturers of different sizes utilise various decision tools. Design tools such as LCA, DFE and ECQFD methods are likely to be utilised in the medium-and high-complexity product development by OEM and ETM manufacturers. Environmental responsibility plays an important role and also enhanced by other driving forces such as the economic benefits, the long-term survival in the market and the company image.

Future work may include some or all of the following; such as respondents of this survey may be re-contacted and comparative data can be gathered from these manufacturers to capture the changes over the years. Further investigation of the sustainable supply chain management approaches, influences of dynamic driving forces and the environmental practices towards cleaner production practices such as improving energy efficiency, minimising waste, recycling scraps and reusing product as well as the product recovery practices for used products would be beneficial to gather and evaluate. This would support to address the current trends and emerging practices.

Results highlighted interesting relationships and thus provide some answers on strategies adopted by many manufacturers for the sustainability approaches and implementations across different geographical regions (locations) as well as types and sizes of manufacturers. The wave of change towards sustainability is clearly on enterprises, industries, communities and governments for thinking about solutions to increase the awareness in environmental sustainability thus reduce carbon footprint. In some areas there is clear progress but for many, this process is just beginning.

There is an overwhelming amount of information, methods and opinions, and proliferation of initiatives. It is in this climate that not only manufacturers but society must provide a practical and effective way to develop and disseminate the skills and knowledge required to fuel an environmentally sustainable economy. To achieve this, results of global surveys like this paper may support manufacturers who need to work with communities and stay well connected to their stakeholders. This may lead to developing training packages that accurately reflect industry needs and provide leadership in communities and workforce development.

There is generally an understanding of the sustainable product development and the use and role of tools and techniques to improve environmental performance of manufacturers at micro-level (within companies based on selected product, process, environmental tools and manufacturing characteristics). Whereas, a large-scale research like this paper, to present the status of sustainable product and process development approaches used by manufacturers located around the globe, of different sizes, types within existing operational and corporate strategies and eco-design initiatives have not been detailed.

The study aims to investigate if lodging research suffers from a method bias by comprehensively reviewing the research methodology used in lodging related research articles.

In all, 2,647 published papers in 16 leading hospitality and tourism published between 1990 and 2016 are analyzed using bibliometric technique.

In all, 69% of the empirical studies in lodging research across 26 years period used quantitative methods, with an increasing reliance on regression-based analysis and structural equation modeling, a disturbing plunging trend in methods diversity. Findings also suggest an increasing trend of using secondary data.

Based on the findings of this study, theoretical and practical implications for hospitality and tourism researchers are provided.

This is the first study that reviewed a large corpus of published research (2,647 papers in 16 hospitality and tourism journals from the last 27 years) to highlight (a) methodology used, (b) methods employed and (c) data collection and analysis procedures.

本论文旨在通过全面审阅酒店管理相关科研文章的方法论内容，来审视是否酒店管理研究遭受方法论偏见。

本论文采用文献计量分析法，样本数据为2647篇发表在1990年-2016年间酒店旅游期刊的文章。

近26年间发表的酒店管理研究文章的69%使用定量分析法，往往采用回归分析和结构方程模型法，大大降低了方法多样性。研究结果还表明越来越多的文章采用二手数据分析。

根据本论文研究结果，酒店旅游研究学者们得到理论和实践的启示。

本论文是首篇审阅16个酒店旅游期刊发表的2647篇文章，以强调(a)方法论(b)研究方法以及(c)数据收集和分析过程。

As in other socio‐technical fields, future‐oriented technology analysis (FTA) methods are used in transport planning to provide knowledge for decision‐making. Potential effects of policy interventions should be assessed; risk and uncertainties should be reduced; unintended effects should be avoided. A variety of tools and methods of rather different character are applied, none of these methods are able to systematically reproduce a complete system; they all have their specific limits. It is not always clear, however, which method could be used for which purpose. In this paper, a transparent and problem‐oriented categorisation of FTA‐methods is suggested. It aims at supporting an appropriate usage of FTA‐methods in planning processes.

A literature review carried out in context of the EU funded transport project OPTIC (see www.optic.toi.no) reveals that differentiating between different types of uncertainty is possible. This sets the basis for the problem‐oriented categorisation of FTA methods. Key criteria for the categorisation of methods are their abilities in dealing with different types of missing knowledge.

Two categories are introduced which are called “structurally open methods” and “structurally closed methods”. It is shown that the openness‐closedness dichotomy is highly important for the type of unintended effects that can be detected with a method.

The paper has a novel approach for structuring FTA techniques that goes beyond the traditional quantitative/qualitative approach. It juxtaposes a problem typology and a typology of methods

The purpose of this paper is to describe the 16-year research and development journey of the Culture Excellence assessment tool, which is used widely to assess safety and quality culture in the food industry. It is the third article in a theme issue of Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, discussing the importance of measuring food safety and quality culture.

An iterative process of in-depth interviews and mixed-method case studies led to the development of a conceptual model and an online assessment tool, which are used to gain insight into safety and quality culture.

The research process resulted in a conceptual model of four categories and 20 dimensions of safety and quality culture, alongside a practical online assessment tool to enable their measurement; these categories and dimensions are demonstrated using qualitative quotations.

This paper introduces qualitative data on safety and quality culture direct from the food industry with academic analysis to highlight new dimensions and issues. It will be of value to food safety and quality practitioners, trainers, auditors and other stakeholders involved in the food industry.