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No description available.

The quality of any finished project in the construction industry relies mainly on the specifications written for that project. The specifications are benchmarks for the quality of the project, which should be referred to during all phases of the project. Successful specifications are normally associated with accuracy, clarity, coverage of all clauses, precession and the effectiveness of the description of the materials and methods of fixing. On the other hand, poor specifications often result in delays in handing-over, escalation of prices due to variations, disputes, high penalties, loss of trust and compromise in the quality of the finished project. The construction industry in Bahrain often suffers from poor specifications. In order to determine the severity of the problem, a questionnaire survey was undertaken to analysis the present standard of specifications used in the construction industry in Bahrain. The outcomes of the survey revealed major setbacks in the standard of the existing specifications such as inappropriate repetition, excessive conflict, unclear and uncompleted clauses with little precession. The majority of respondents called for a change in the situation. Improvement of quality has become a major challenge faced by the construction industry and can involve, reducing cost solving problems of rework, reducing maintenance cost and improving the life cycle value of the buildings. Total Quality Management has become one of the best solutions to overcome the problems, and specification could be used as a gate to introducing TQM to the construction industry. Specifications are approach to setting the standard of quality for any construction project, and used as a tool to get design and construction teams committed to the projects quality standards through all stages of the construction process. The overall afin of Us thesis is to develop a framework for implementing Total Quality Management (TQM) in the construction industry in Bahrain, by developing a dynamic specifications model which will help to improve performance in the construction industry, improve consultant-client- constructor- supplier chain relation, control the budget of the project and reduce disputes, claims and variations in the construction industry.

Both total quality management (TQM) and the use of information technology (IT) have been widely researched over recent years. However, there has been no well-founded empirical research on the two together - on how IT can support TQM practices. A scarcity of empirical studies on the role of IT in TQM, especially in the non-manufacturing sector, which can illustrate the importance or otherwise of IT for TQM, has prompted this study. Thus the study sought to provide such an empirical base. This study investigated the extent to which IT has been used to support TQM among selected Malaysian public agencies. It also identified the external, organisational and technological factors that may influence the use of IT in TQM. A framework based on the literature of TQM has been derived and used as the conceptual base for the creation of a questionnaire to determine the use of IT in TQM. The questionnaire was sent to 110 Malaysian public agencies that have implemented TQM. The results presented were based on the responses from 47 agencies. The study reveals that IT is helpful for implementing TQM but its usage varies across the nine aspects of TQM processes. 'Important Innovations' exhibits the highest level of IT usage followed closely by 'Information and Analysis'. 'Supplier Quality Assurance', on the other hand, shows the lowest level of IT usage. Regression analysis showed that four independent variables have a significant effect on the use of IT. They are IT experience, top management support, public accountability and IT structure (in order of importance). The responding agencies were then classified into three distinctive IT-usage groups (i. e. low, moderate, and high) according to their IT-usage level. Contextual influences (external, organisational and technological) were then explored using regression analysis. The results revealed that when the IT-usage level is high, technological factors play an important role. However, when the usage level is low, organisational factors become more influential. For the moderate group, both technological and organisational factors affect the usage level.

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The cloning of code is controversial as a development practice. Empirical studies on the long-term effects of cloning on software quality and maintainability have produced mixed results. Some studies have found that cloning has a negative impact on code readability, bug propagation, and the presence of cloning may indicate wider problems in software design and management. At the same time, other studies have found that cloned code is less likely to have defects, and thus is arguably more stable, better designed, and better maintained. These results suggest that the effect of cloning on software quality and maintainability may be determinable only on a case-by-case basis, and this only aggravates the challenge of establishing a principled framework of clone management and understanding. This thesis aims to improve the understanding and management of clones within software systems. There are two main contributions. First, we have conducted an empirical study on cloning in one of the major device drivers families of the Linux kernel. Different from many previous empirical studies on cloning, we incorporate the knowledge about the development style, and the architecture of the subject system into our study; our findings address the evolution of clones; we have also found that the presence of cloning is a strong predictor (87\% accuracy) of one aspect of underlying hardware similarity when compared to a vendor-based model (55\% accuracy) and a randomly chosen model (9\% accuracy). The effectiveness of using the presence of cloning to infer high-level similarity suggests a new perspective of using cloning information to assist program comprehension, aspect mining, and software product-line engineering. Second, we have devised a triage-oriented taxonomy of clones to aid developers in prioritizing which kinds of clones are most likely to be problematic and require attention; a preliminary validation of the utility of this taxonomy has been performed against a large open source system. The cloning-based software quality assurance (QA) framework based on our taxonomy adds a new dimension to traditional software QA processes; by exploiting the clone detection results within a guided framework, the developer is able to evaluate which instances of cloning are most likely to require urgent attention.

Globalisation has led to the 'commodification' of higher education and the concern over the quality of higher education has exerted considerable pressure on educational institutions to improve their performance substantially. However, the efforts on how to enhance and evaluate the quality of higher education have been hindered by the lack of agreed models for quality improvement of higher education. The development of TQM models for institutions of higher learning has provided the background for this study and its scope was confined to two private higher learning institutions in Malaysia. / Thesis (DBA(DoctorateofBusinessAdministration))--University of South Australia, 2006.

The purpose of this research is to investigate into the client perceptions and expectations of quality legal service offered by local service providers i.e. the law firms. The study is to determine how effective Singapore law firms have been providing legal services from the client perspective, and to reconcile the law firms' perception of quality services with that of the consumers of legal services. The first study is targeted at the commercial business corporations, the main end-users and recipients of legal services provided by the law firms. The supplementary study involves obtaining a simple feedback from local law practices in Singapore on the implementation of formal quality service management or client care programmes in the legal organisations covered in the survey. / The research is based on the concepts of quality management theory, theoretical contributions from the service quality and legal service literature. The literature review suggests that consumers make satisfaction evaluations based on service provider's delivery performance. Despite increasing importance of the services sector of the economy, very little independent research has been published regarding the service delivery performance of legal professional services providers within the context of Singapore to determine the satisfaction level as perceived by their corporate clients. / From the literature review five service dimensions are identified that appear to be common to legal service firms: understanding the organisation's needs, technical legal skills, quality of service, overall value for money and general satisfaction. The descriptive study is conducted in a non-contrived environment and consists of three phases, namely, pre-tests, mail questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews with business consumers of the legal services. The wide-spectrum of industries covered in the research includes: professional services (management, IT and HR consultants), manufacturing, communication, transportation, wholesale and retail organizations. The data from the 84 business entities, representing some of the top 1,000 companies and top 500 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), were collected through return mail and online surveys, secondary sources, and semi-structured interviews with the corporate executives who are responsible for the selection and the working relationships with external legal service professionals. The essential aspects of the service quality dynamics explored in the study relate to client expectations and perceptions of the legal services provided. The findings provide application opportunities particularly in the management of quality in legal services, client relationships, and professional practice in business-to-business contexts. / An evaluation model emerged from the extensive literature review, responses from the mail and online surveys, and interviews. It integrates the Eight Stages in the service quality-profit chain. The conceptual framework is dynamic in that it is evolutional, integrative and flexible. The model is subject to influencing factors such as the nature of the service, the nature of the contract as well as the personal characteristics of the professionals and the respondents. Expanding from the existing literature on satisfaction in the service industry, this research offers legal service providers a generic framework to better manage their business relationships and thus preserve their existing clients and possibly attract new ones, which in turn sustain long-term profitability. / Key words: Service Quality; Quality Management; Quality Gaps; Legal Service Delivery; Client Perceptions; Client Expectations; Client Satisfaction; Technical Legal Skills; Client Care; Client Management; Total Quality Management; Quality Service-Profit Chain; Service Encounters; Professional Services; Legal Profession; Legal Marketplace. / Thesis (PhDBusinessandManagement)--University of South Australia, 2004.

Thesis (DBA(DoctorateofBusinessAdministration))--University of South Australia, 2002.

Thesis (PhDBusinessAdministration)--University of South Australia, 2003.