No description available.

As today's global competition grows in manufacturing industries companies are forced to work smart in all areas of operations, starting with suppliers and ending with customers. This competition in general requires firms to improve market responsiveness, product quality, use computerised information systems for production planning and control, have more rapid changeovers, reductions in setup times, work-in-progress reduction and hence throughput time reduction. In order to accomplish these formidable tasks, there are a number of management philosophies available for manufacturing companies. These include just-in-time, flexible manufacturing systems, computer integrated manufacturing, total quality management, concurrent engineering. Implementation of these philosophies, however, requires mass mobilisation encompassing many areas of operations such as production, sales and marketing, suppliers, finance, customer servicing, product design and method engineering, maintenance, personnel and training, etc. This thesis details a study which evaluates the total quality management philosophy in cellular manufacturing environment. Following this evaluation, a quality management information scheme, which is structured and integrated, has been produced using the Manufacturing Systems Analysis and Design Method. In order to manage smoothly this mobilisation and incorporate the scheme to other integrated functional areas, a new approach namely the Activity Based Implementation (ABI) has also been produced. Justification of the model from various points of view has shown that the model is expected to address a considerable gap in the area concerned. The model was designed to be used as an integrated part of a system or as a stand-alone scheme by quality practitioners, the management board of organisations implementing TQM and quality management researchers.

This research considers a Customer Satisfaction Index approach and its relative benefits to the UK community. It is focussed on the service industries in both the public and private sectors. It looks at, and develops the measuring and modelling processes involved and employs a Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) methodology. The research critiques two of the leading methodologies currently available (Maximum Likelihood and Fixed Point Estimation) before selecting one from which to model the whole process. Throughout the research, three different structural models are considered. These vary in how the different latent variables are connected together, but are based around a core of specific latent variables, which together make up a customer's total buying experience. Two of the models considered were by other authors, while the third (Sheffield Model) was a direct development of this research. The data has been collected by the means of a questionnaire. Over the life of the research a generic questionnaire has been developed to produce a tool that is focused on the specific issues that the model requires for it to operate. The final part of the research contemplates how a company can use the results of the index to pin point where improvements in their customer service provision would have the largest impact on their overall customer satisfaction index score. The research considers the different aspects of customer satisfaction and their place within a Total Quality Management approach. However, the index is a completely self-contained product, which allows any company to measure how well it is satisfying its customers. The index calculates an index score between one and one hundred. The ultimate aim of the index is for a company's score to be compared over time, against other companies within the same industry, against other companies from other industries, against the national average and even against company's throughout Europe and the World, as National Indices operate overseas. In fact, it is envisaged that the index will act as a way for individual companies to benchmark themselves against the best customer service companies in the world. It is hoped that over time the customer satisfaction index can become a key indicator as to the state of the UK economy. After all, satisfied customers are very often loyal customers, they tend to buy more, more often, and satisfied customers are often willing to pay premium prices for a company's products (Kristensen & Martensen, 1996).

No description available.

No description available.

Abstract Research has revealed that many of the historically disadvantaged schools in South Africa experience difficulty in implementing policies aimed at restoring the quality of teaching and learning. The difficulty has been attributed to several factors such as poor conceptualisation and implementation of quality management systems at school level. This article reports on empirical research that investigated the possibility of applying Total Quality Management principles in schools for the purpose of restoring the culture of learning and teaching. Data was collected through qualitative and quantitative methods in selected schools situated in the Tshwane North District. The findings revealed that there is a gap between what is provided in the policy framework on the management of quality teaching and learning. It is recommended that in order to fill the gap, schools need to apply customised principles of Total Quality Management. The primary aim of this research was to develop such an integrated framework that is not only theoretically sound but that has been customised for schools’ contexts and conditions.

The purpose of this research is to understand the state of art of total quality management in Hong Kong Hotel Industry and to develop a model of business excellence to help monitor and guide hoteliers in search of excellence. With this in mind, a preliminary study was conducted to understand the concepts, management practices, barriers to their implementations and future plan that are pertinent to total quality management. Founded on Kanji's Business Excellence Model, the Business Excellence Model for Hong Kong Hotel Industry is developed, tested and applied using survey data from 28 members of the Hong Kong Hotels Association and the questionnaires are mainly responded by directorates of the hotels. To compliment the business excellence study, over 2,400 interviews were made from guests of 62 hotels to set up a customer satisfaction index for Hong Kong Hotel Industry. A full-scale study on customer satisfaction for three international and two Asian hotels is included as a case study. Five critical success factors are identified in the preliminary study and they are People Management, External Customer-Satisfaction, Teamwork, Internal Customer-Satisfaction and Leadership. Under staffing is the major barrier to the hotel's implementation of TQM in terms of both frequency and degrees of difficulty, and the approach believed to be short-lived gimmicks or fads comes second. The customer satisfaction survey 1999 reveals that Customer Satisfaction is mainly influenced by both Expectation and Perceived Quality. This, perhaps, gives the hoteliers the starting points for improving their customer satisfactions. Contrasts between the two groups of hotels in the case study reveal that the Asian group outperforms the International group of hotels in all the five dimensions of the Customer Satisfaction Model for both sexes and for both ethnic groups of White and Chinese. This indicates that the difference is something fundamental, perhaps in their quality cultures, quality initiatives and, most importantly, leaderships.

Lic.-avh. Luleå : Luleå tekniska univ., 2002.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka vilken uppfattning chefer inom offentlig verksamhet har om kvalitetsarbete och hur chefer inom offentlig verksamhet anser att de gör sina medarbetare delaktiga i verksamhetens kvalitetsarbete. Kvalitetsarbete ses idag som en väl integrerad del i de flesta verksamheter, offentliga som privata. Utgångspunkter i studien är Total quality managment (TQM) och transformativt ledarskap. TQM är ett arbetssätt för kvalitetsarbete vilket är omfattande och bygger på en helhet med fokus på kvalitet från hela organisationen. Flera forskare förespråkar delaktighet som en viktig del i kvalitetsarbete. Vägen till kvalitet och medarbetarnas delaktighet i kvalitetsarbetets kantas av utmaningar. Förutsättningarna i en organisation, specifikt inom offentlig verksamhet är varierande och begränsande. Studien är en kvalitativ studie. Som kvalitativ metod har författarna genomfört semistrukturerade intervjuer med enhetschefer inom offentlig sektor som respondenter. Författarna har använt sig av ett målstyrt urval. Resultatet visar att kvalitetsarbetet anses viktigt men också svårt då en hel del av de aktiviteter som ingår resulterar i administrativa uppgifter istället för kvalitetsutveckling. Ett närvarande ledarskap är en framgångsfaktor gällande skapandet av medarbetarnas delaktighet i kvalitetsarbetet.

In the last decade, the rapid development in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has forced its government to implement modern management styles such as Total Quality Management (TQM) to ensure continuous improvement in the provision of healthcare. There is a considerable body of literature that shows the benefits of implementing TQM in hospitals, but there are few empirical studies that show TQM implementation efforts in the healthcare sector. Furthermore, the healthcare literature did not explore the implementation of TQM in a context of gender segregated environment such as the case in KSA. This research project is an exploratory investigation assessing the impact of TQM in a gender segregated healthcare environment such as KSA. The research design used triangulation methods to investigate the problem at hand. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies were used through field-work and external comparisons. The approach was based on the following: (1) Assessing the level of perception and understanding of TQM principles in several KSA hospitals, taking into account the differences and similarities between the different gender population, (2) Examining the approach to TQM implementation and its degree of effectiveness in four Saudi hospitals to highlight critical factors for effective implementations using the Baldrige assessment method; (3) Benchmarking the Saudi hospital experiences to UK and USA hospitals to highlight key facilitating and inhibiting factors; (4) Using key findings from the previous steps to identify the critical factors and propose a model for TQM implementations in a segregated healthcare environment such as the case in the KSA. The survey research findings show a weak appreciation, awareness and understanding of TQM in managing healthcare organisations by the respondents in the KSA. It clearly shows that many employees in the organisations do riot understand TQM. The degree of emphasis for each quality activity varied and thus more research needs to be done to investigate the importance of each quality activity to a TQM implementation process, as there are varying degrees of emphasis across the board. The KSA case studies show that in implementing organisations, TQM intentions and TQM policy frameworks are generally acceptable. However, the implementation process is generally weak and lacks coordination in the majority of these organisations. It is clear that the majority of the KSA cases have not succeeded in total commitment towards a total quality culture. When compared to the UK and USA hospitals, the majority of the KSA cases show deficiencies in most of the critical activities that form the foundation of a successful quality process. Furthermore, the study indicates three critical factors in KSA hospitals that either did not exist or were not given full attention. The importance of these factors were further validated in the literature. The factors were continuous top management commitment, continuous education and training, and culture awareness. These factors were then used to develop a model for TQM implementation for a segregated healthcare environment. / King Saud University