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This study aims to evaluate an organizational development programme (TQM) that was implemented at the tertiary‐care public hospital that showed the highest total factor productivity growth in Sri Lanka for the 1997‐2001 period.

Balanced score card approach is used to assess the performance of the hospital under study. Value chain analysis is conducted to identify the changes in organizational management following TQM implementation. Employee feedback is obtained by questionnaire‐based interviews.

Performance of the hospital with regard to service quality, employee‐performance, fixed‐asset‐performance, and social responsibility improved. Overall, value chain analysis shows that the differentiation was used to improve quality of services. Leadership, team‐work and continuous monitoring were the key factors that facilitated implementation of 5‐S based TQM.

The 5‐S system‐based TQM appears to be a feasible and promising system to initiate management improvement of public hospitals in developing countries.

This paper is of value for hospital managers and policy makers of developing countries, where there are chronic resource shortage and managerial constraints, particularly in government sector health services.

This study aims to put forward a conceptual framework to promote strategies for exploring and exploiting value co-creation with suppliers through dynamic capabilities development.

The conceptual framework was developed by applying deductive logic to blend the theoretical perspectives of value co-creation and dynamic capabilities concerning interaction and innovation.

The suggested framework emphasized that to co-create value with suppliers, health-care organizations need to integrate innovation abilities with interactional abilities for assimilating mutual processes and resources. The study also points out the crucial role of middle managers to articulate the diverse value perspectives and act as change catalysts.

This paper provides a roadmap for health-care managers to develop internal bundles of resources and integrate inter-organizational processes in the direction of co-creating value. The approach suggests the use of project pipelines and performance measures as managerial tools for aligning value co-creating initiatives with suppliers.

The study is a pioneering attempt to develop a conceptual framework for co-creating value with suppliers and, consequently, to provide innovative services to patients. The study aligns with previous value co-creation and dynamic capabilities works in terms of interaction and innovation development. However, based on the interrelation of these two dimensions, the study puts forth four interrelated processes (experimenting new possibilities of value creation; articulating value alignment initiatives; implementing mutual benefits; and executing and managing performance improvement) attached by mutual change mechanisms.

Purpose: An examination of the uptake and application of Robotic, Artificial Intelligence and Service Automation (RAISA) technologies by the events industry.

Design/methodology/approach: Academic and practitioner literature review and analysis pertaining to the relevance of RAISA in events.

Findings: The events industry has tended to rely on automation in staging and event production and the application of RAISA in events has been limited but holds great potential for the future. Whereas, in the hospitality and tourism industries RAISA has been applied across a range of service functions. For example, in such industries, artificial intelligence, machine learning and service robotics technologies have become commonplace. Nonetheless, the same level of adoption of RAISA in events is less evident particularly in front-of-house operation, due largely to the incompatibility with the raison d'être of event attendance – the purposive congregation of people seeking an event experience.

Research limitations/implications: The findings are the views of the authors and are therefore reliant upon existing events management literature on RAISA and their interpretation of this information and its application to the events industry.

Practical implications: RAISA has the capacity to play a crucial technical function in the events industry. However, it needs to be acknowledged that an event is essentially an experiential product which is simultaneously delivered and consumed in a particular setting/venue. RAISA applications and techniques avail event management immense sustainability and growth potential.

Social implications: Events are expressions of human social interactions and activities. Given the recent trend in sports media consumption as a substitute for live event attendance compounded by barriers to event attendance such as heightened terrorism threat and high expense/cost, there is a real risk of degradation of the social significance of the events industry. The prudent uptake of RAISA has the potential to emolliate the barriers to attendance while facilitating effective marketing and industry sustainability.

Originality/value: This chapter provides a new perspective in focusing on the potential applicability of RAISA in event management practice.

This paper aims to deal with the effect of natural barytes purity levels on the tribological performance of brake pads.

In this study, brake pads were developed by varying three different natural barytes without varying other ingredients. The brake pads were developed as per the standard industrial practice. The physical, mechanical and thermal properties of the developed brake pads were tested as per the industrial standards. The tribological properties were analyzed using a full-scale inertia brake dynamometer. Worn surface analysis was done using scanning electron microscope coupled with elemental mapping.

The experimental results indicate that the brake pads filled with natural barytes 95% purity had good physical, chemical and mechanical properties with stable friction and less wear rate due to reduced impurity level preventing frictional undulations.

This paper explains the effect of the purity level of natural barytes in brake pads formulation to enhance the tribological performance by altering tribofilms and preventing friction undulations.

This paper examines the relationships between: (1) motives for internalization of a quality system, (2) the internalization of a quality system and (3) customer results, employee results and social results in public organizations by means of replication research

First, the work applies a quantitative study to test hypotheses using structural equations based on the Partial Least Squares (PLS) approach. Then, a qualitative study is carried out to support the quantitative results obtained

Results show that internal and external motives affect internalization, and that the most important issues for internalization are commitment, communication, training, recognition and follow-up. In addition, continuous improvement is key in order to enhance customer results, employee results and social results

The contribution of this work is that it provides empirical support to prior research on internalization focused on manufacturing and service organizations, and extends these results to the case of public organizations

Este trabajo analiza la relación entre: a) los motivos para interiorizar un sistema de calidad, b) la interiorización de un sistema de calidad y c) los resultados de clientes, empleados y sociedad en organizaciones públicas, a través de un estudio que replica los análisis previos sobre interiorización realizados en organizaciones manufactureras y de servicios.

Interiorización de la calidad en organizaciones públicasPara conseguir este objetivo se realiza primero un estudio cuantitativo para comprobar las hipótesis a través de un análisis de ecuaciones estructurales desde el enfoque Partial Least Squares (PLS). Posteriormente se realiza otro estudio cualitativo para apoyar los resultados cuantitativos obtenidos.

Los resultados muestran que los motivos internos y externos influyen en la interiorización y que los aspectos más importantes para interiorizar un sistema de calidad son la implicación, la comunicación, la formación, el reconocimiento y el seguimiento interno. Además, la mejora continua es clave para mejorar los resultados de clientes, empleados y sociedad.

La contribución del trabajo es que proporciona apoyo empírico a los resultados de trabajos previos sobre interiorización centrados en organizaciones manufactureras y de servicios y extiende estos resultados al caso de organizaciones públicas.

The aim of the research is to investigate the ceramic brake lining on the brake performance.Design/methodology/approach – The brake lining which has new formulation has been produced by using various additive materials. Various techniques have been used in the production of brake lining. These ceramic linings were subjected to friction and wear tests under different loads, and changes in the hardness and microstructures were examined.Findings – As a result of this study, the following findings are reported. A direct proportional was not found between hardness and wear resistance due to the complexity of composite structure. Kevlar fibers were homogeneously distributed in the matrix and therefore, very few microvoids were observed in the structure. Similarly, stone wool was well spread out the braking pad and hence decreased the microvoids' occurrence. Heat treatment supplied more homogeneous structure and hence, microstructural variations were minimised during the brake action. On the other hand, heat treatment decreased the hardness of glass fiber reinforced specimens and increased the density. Each specimen was affected from the environmental conditions. However, water affected all specimens more than the other environmental conditions, such as salty water, oil and braking liquid. With the increasing of temperature, the ingredients in the braking pad were affected other due to better diffusion. On the other hand, hardness of specimens increases and density decreases due to heat treatment and also specific wear ratio changes.Research limitations/implications – Limitations in the present research are as follows: two different pressures and eight different temperatures were used and brake linings were subjected to wear test, hardness tests, microstructures were examined.Practical implications – For future work, instead of buying expensive brake lining, new and cheaper ceramic linings are produced. By this process, economic benefit can be gained and also environmental protection can be succeeded in producing such asbestos free brake linings.Originality/value – This paper fulfills an identified information and offers practical help to the industrial firms working with brake lining and also to the academicians working on wear of materials.

The aim of the research is to investigate wear performance of some phenolic composites with boric acid.

The brake lining which has new formulation has been produced by using various additive materials. Various techniques have been used in the production of brake lining. These phenolic composites were subjected to friction and wear tests under different loads, and changes in the hardness and microstructures were examined.

As a result of this study, the following findings are reported. It was not found a direct proportionality between hardness and wear resistance due to the complexity of composite structure. Heat treatment application changed the microstructure of the brake lining, and increased the hardness and also decreased the density. With the increasing of temperature, the ingredients in the braking pad were affected other due to faster diffusion. On the other hand, hardness of specimen increases due to heat treatment and also specific wear ratio changes. As a filling material, barite was used due to better performance in the environmental conditions. More wear was observed in the bigger powder particles comparing to the smaller ones due to more structural loss. Squealing was heard in fiber un‐reinforced brake lining due to more barite content. In the present samples, boric acid deports the water and establishing the structural equilibrium. Therefore, these samples supplied higher and stable friction of coefficient. Also, heat treatment supplied a stable friction coefficient. With the increasing of copper powder into specimens, friction coefficient also increased. Heat treatment made the increment of hardness of specimens and also it made effect on the hardness with strengthening bonds of interparticles.

Limitations in the present research are as follows: two different pressures and eight different temperatures were used and brake linings were subjected to wear test, hardness tests, microstructures were examined.

For future work, instead of buying expensive brake lining, new and cheaper phenolic linings are produced. By this process, economic benefit can be gained and also environmental protection can be succeeded in producing such asbestos free brake linings.

This paper fulfills an identified information and offers practical help to the industrial firms working with brake lining and also to the academicians working on wear of materials.

Most industrial robots are still programmed using the typical teaching process, through the use of the robot teach pendant. This is a tedious and time‐consuming task that requires some technical expertise, and hence new approaches to robot programming are required. The purpose of this paper is to present a robotic system that allows users to instruct and program a robot with a high‐level of abstraction from the robot language.

The paper presents in detail a robotic system that allows users, especially non‐expert programmers, to instruct and program a robot just showing it what it should do, in an intuitive way. This is done using the two most natural human interfaces (gestures and speech), a force control system and several code generation techniques. Special attention will be given to the recognition of gestures, where the data extracted from a motion sensor (three‐axis accelerometer) embedded in the Wii remote controller was used to capture human hand behaviours. Gestures (dynamic hand positions) as well as manual postures (static hand positions) are recognized using a statistical approach and artificial neural networks.

It is shown that the robotic system presented is suitable to enable users without programming expertise to rapidly create robot programs. The experimental tests showed that the developed system can be customized for different users and robotic platforms.

The proposed system is tested on two different robotic platforms. Since the options adopted are mainly based on standards, it can be implemented with other robot controllers without significant changes. Future work will focus on improving the recognition rate of gestures and continuous gesture recognition.

The key contribution of this paper is that it offers a practical method to program robots by means of gestures and speech, improving work efficiency and saving time.

This paper presents an alternative to the typical robot teaching process, extending the concept of human‐robot interaction and co‐worker scenario. Since most companies do not have engineering resources to make changes or add new functionalities to their robotic manufacturing systems, this system constitutes a major advantage for small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises.

A novel model of the upper arm under transcutaneous electrical stimulation with multi-pad electrodes is presented and experimentally validated. The model aims at simulating and analysing the effects of surface electrical stimulation on biceps brachii. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Both the passive properties of tissues surrounding nerve bundles and the active characteristics of the nervous system are included. The output of the proposed model is nerve recruitment and muscle contraction.

Simulations and experimental tests on six healthy young adults have been conducted and results show that the proposed model gives information on electrically elicited muscle contraction in accordance with in-vivo tests and literature on motor unit recruitment order. Tests with different electrodes configurations show that the spatial distribution of active electrodes is a critical factor in electrically elicited muscle contractions, and that multi-pad electrodes can optimise the stimulation effectiveness and patient comfort with sequences of biphasic pulses of 350 μs at 30 pulses/s and threshold values of 2 mA.

Results encourage the use of the proposed model of the upper arm as a valid and viable solution for predicting the behaviour of the neuromuscular system when surface electrical stimulation is applied, thus optimising the design of neuroprosthetics.

This paper aims to focus on non-poor households that during the Great Recession experienced economic stress (ES). That is, whose economic comfort was reduced taking into account their previous living standards. The paper seeks to determine how the crisis has affected this extensive (and key) social group.

The analysis has been performed in a dynamic way. The non-poor households ES situation and its changes are studied throughout the period 2008-2016 by taking the four-year intervals provided by the longitudinal Spanish Living Conditions Survey. The authors discuss and select the circumstances to determine whether ES has occurred. To identify which variables determine the probability of suffering ES the authors use a standard logit model.

The main variable is the tenure status of the dwelling: property with a mortgage or rented multiply the risk of ES by up to 3.5 times. ES falls as the household’s work intensity increases. However, an improvement in the employment situation cannot be associated with a reduction in ES probability. The main socio-demographic variables behave as predicted: woman householder, grow in the number of household members and bad health increase the risk of ES, and the higher the level of education of the householder, the lower the risk.

There are very few studies regarding the people above the poverty line. Exploring and analyzing the factors determining the sensitivity of the largest part of the population to the crisis is very relevant, as the pace of the economic recovery depends largely on them.