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This work in the domain of quality management and business process design looks at how the requirements of the ISO 9001 standard for quality management systems are designed and implemented in business. It is the aim of the research reported in this thesis to support manufacturing companies when modelling a Fulfil Order Process by identifying the links to the ISO 9001 quality standard and highlighting potential impact from any changes in the process or the standard during a redesign project. It does so by presenting a modelling technique, named IDEF9ooow, hich will enablec ompaniest o take a systemic perspectiveo f a Fulfil Order Process identifying all relevant links to ISO 9001. A research strategy based around the experiences of companies when designing business processes with links to ISO 9001 was adopted. In-depth case studies carried out by the author showed that simply documenting what an organisation does to satisfy the various elements of ISO 9001 is still one of the most common approaches adopted. This results in a process-oriented character only at the documentation stage. It is the result of limited guidance on how to integrate the requirements of ISO 9001 in business processes. The work proceeded by exploring the domains of business processes, the use of systems thinking to explain business processes and the relevance of ISO 9001 requirements from a processbased viewpoint. A set of criteria was developed to identify activities, information and other flows controlled by ISO 9001 to design a Fulfil Order Process in a manufacturing company. This provided the context for the development of the modelling technique IDEF90oow, hich is an enhanced version of IDEFo, and its validation by review and by use in two manufacturing companies. The originality of this work lies in the identification and emphasis by the author of the need to take a systemic view of business processes when designing or redesigning a processbased ISO 9001 quality management system. Also, criteria for a technique to address the modelling of a Fulfil Order Process were identified. Furthermore this contribution to knowledge includes the identification of links between ISO 9001 requirements and a holistic Fulfil Order Process. This led to the development of further criteria for modelling such a business process showing the links to ISO 9001. IDEFooo represents an improved modelling approach that fulfils the identified criteria and permits the systemic design or redesign of a Fulfil Order Process while establishing the links controlled by the ISO 9001 quality standard

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Since it's release in Dec 2000, there has been a slow movement towards the new version of ISO 9001:2000 by ISO 9000:1994 certified organizations. Of the 561,747 ISO 9000 certified businesses, 167,210 are certified under the new ISO 9001:2000, which is less than 30 % of the total ISO 9000 certified companies. Although many studies have been conducted to understand and assess the practices of ISO 9000:1994 standards, no research has been done to investigate the practices of ISO 9001:2000 in Saudi Arabia. This study is designed to investigate the implementation practices of the new ISO 9001:2000 standard in Saudi business organizations. The main objectives of this study are to identify the critical factors that lead to successful implementation of the new standard, to determine what barriers have been encountered during implementation, and to identify the most difficult parts of the standard to comply with. It investigates the perceived benefits that Saudi firms have gained from implementing the system and examines the level of knowledge about ISO 9001:2000 and the perceptions of the new standard among the management teams and staff of ISO registered firms. It determines the level of integration between ISO 9001:2000 and other implemented systems. Furthermore, this study aims to investigate the factors that may explain the Saudi organizations' decisions to implement ISO 9001:2000 in their businesses. To accomplish these research objectives, a questionnaire was developed based on an extensive review of related literature and tested for validity and reliability. The target sample for the study was made up of all ISO 9001:2000 registered sites in Saudi Arabia up to 31 Dec. 2002, which comprised 131 organizations. A total of 89 completed surveys were received, for a response rate of 72%. Descriptive statistics, measurement of variation, and association, and factor analysis were used in the interpretation of collected data. The major findings are as follows: 86.5% of the total respondents had implemented ISO 9001:2000 as a transition process from previous ISO 9000 standards. 68.5% of the certified sites took less than one year to implement the standard. Most of them were previously certified in one of the ISO 9000:1994 standards. This high percentage indicates that ISO 9001:2000 can be easily implemented in a short time frame. Most of the companies in the study reported the use of external consultants (70.8%), but overall there was a low level of reliance on them, with 64.0% of registered organizations having documented less than 10% participation of external consultants in implementing the ISO 9001:2000 system. The top five critical success factors in implementing the ISO 9001:2000 quality management system, in descending order, are as follows: commitment of management, effective internal auditing, commitment of middle management, employee motivation and involvement, resource allocation, and existence of appropriate communication routes. The major hindrances during the implementation of ISO 9001:2000, in descending order, were as follows: lack of employee involvement, difficulties in co-operation among middle managers over quality problems, lack of training programs related to quality, insufficient project time, and lack of customer co-operation. The most significant reasons for Saudi organizations to implement the system, in descending order, are as follows: top management initiative, quality improvement of internal operations and processes, customers requirements, part of the overall quality policy of the organization. The highest perceived benefits, in descending order, were as follows: development of quality culture, improved customer satisfaction, better communication with customers, increased management commitment, and use of data as a business management tool. Most respondents are highly satisfied with the standard, believe that it is cost effective and would strongly recommend the standard to other firms. Top managers were the most knowledgeable about the ISO 9001:2000 standard, followed by middle managers, then employees. Findings reveal that level of knowledge about ISO 9001:2000 among organization's people is positively correlated with most of the attainable benefits from implementing the standard. Based on the findings of this study, many conclusions and recommendations were drawn. In summary, for a successful implementation of ISO 9001:2000 standard, organizations must give great consideration to the people involvement factor, particularly top and middle management s involvement and commitment to quality, employees motivation and involvement, quality awareness, and ISO 9001:2000 training.

<p dir="ltr">Interactions between drinking water quality and delivery systems, pipe materials, and attitudes</p>

This research is motivated by an issue frequently encountered in environmental water quality evaluation. Many times, the sample size of water monitoring data is too small to have adequate power. Here, we present a Bayesian power prior approach by incorporating the current data and historical data and/or the data collected at neighboring stations to make stronger statistical inferences on the parameters of interest. The elicitation of power prior distributions is based on the availability of historical data, and is realized by raising the likelihood function of the historical data to a fractional power. The power prior Bayesian analysis has been proven to be a useful class of informative priors in Bayesian inference. In this dissertation, we propose a modified approach to constructing the joint power prior distribution for the parameter of interest and the power parameter. The power parameter, in this modified approach, quantifies the heterogeneity between current and historical data automatically, and hence controls the influence of historical data on the current study in a sensible way. In addition, the modified power prior needs little to ensure its propriety. The properties of the modified power prior and its posterior distribution are examined for the Bernoulli and normal populations. The modified and the original power prior approaches are compared empirically in terms of the mean squared error (MSE) of parameter estimates as well as the behavior of the power parameter. Furthermore, the extension of the modified power prior to multiple historical data sets is discussed, followed by its comparison with the random effects model. Several sets of water quality data are studied in this dissertation to illustrate the implementation of the modified power prior approach with normal and Bernoulli models. Since the power prior method uses information from sources other than current data, it has advantages in terms of power and estimation precision for decisions with small sample sizes, relative to methods that ignore prior information. / Ph. D.

The thesis focuses on the issues of Quality Standards and the process of their application in the residential services in Vysočina region. The aim of my thesis is to map the present situation concerning the introduction of Quality Standards in social services in residential facilities in Vysočina region. The introductory theoretical part of my thesis contains sections related to social services. Definitions of basic concepts and sections which are related to chosen topic are explained here. It also contains the description of settings and context of the work. In the practical part the subject is narrowed to the topic of introducing Quality Standards in social services in relation to providers of social services, and to old people{\crq}s and handicapped people{\crq}s homes and special treatment facilities. The results of a questionnaire inquiry, conversations with directors of organizations and workers in direct care are presented and compared. This process is interlaced with the analysis of documents used in filling out the questionnaire that have a direct connection to fulfilling the criteria of social services quality. In the discussion and summary the essential research results are discussed. In relation to introducing Quality Standards in social services it will be necessary to change especially the attitude to users of social services. An important landmark here is the legal codification of Quality Standards in social services in relation to the Social Services Act.

Context. Several quality standards have been developed over the years in order to define quality metrics for an organization’s product and even processes. One of the famous standards among them is the ISO 9000 standards which started several years ago. Since its beginning, ISO standards have seen several upgrades. Currently ISO 9001:2008 is in use which is being upgraded to ISO 9001: 2015. Companies have to migrate to the new scheme within three years of the prescribed time in order to retain certification to the ISO 9001 standards. The present thesis is targeted at finding the expected changes and the work improvements in the context of software engineering. Objectives. The main aim of the study is to find the expected changes and work improvements needed to migrate to the new version. This is done by fulfilling the following objectives, they are: analyze the expected changes and motivations for the changes in the new ISO 9001 version. Understand the required work and improvements needed for a software organization to successfully upgrade their certification to the new ISO 9001:2015 version. Predict the estimated cost/time /effort that could be incurred for organization to get certified to the forthcoming ISO version. Methods. In order to meet the objectives, a literature review was done and the changes incorporated in the new scheme are identified. A survey was conducted in order to predict the impact of cost, time and effort on the new changes in moving to ISO 9001:2008 to ISO 9001:2015. The survey was sent only to software organizations as the context of this study is only restricted to quality in software engineering. The collected data was analyzed using bi-variate analysis and Friedman test on SPSS tool. Results. From the literature review, the changes brought about in the new scheme were identified. These changes made were used in the survey questionnaire designed. The survey questionnaire was designed to investigate the expectations of the organizations on the time taken, cost incurred and the effort needed to implement these changes. A total of 63 responses were recorded from the survey. Conclusions. From the analysis it was found that several key changes were identified in the new scheme when compared to the old one. From the survey responses, the cost needed for implementing the changes is expected to be moderate, the time needed is predicted as less than 1 year and the effort needed for implementing the changes was estimated to be more. Along with this, the document also holds clear results about clause by clause expected time, cost and effort estimates and the reasons for these assumptions.

The goal of this diploma thesis named "Updating of The Quality Standards of Česká spořitelna, a.s." is to update The Quality Standards of Česká spořitelna in accordance with demands of customers. Standards are updated every two years to guarantee anticipated level of products and services. In diploma thesis I introduce starting-points for quality of services. In next part there is profile of Česká spořitelna, a.s. and some specific terms. The core of this diploma thesis is the aplication of Quality Function Deployment. Next parts include performance of research results and identification od critical points. Suggestion of improvement lead off the analysis.