Sammanfattning   Kurs: Ämnesfördjupande arbete i logistik, 2FE02E, VT 2016-05-25 Författare: Marcus Rex, Alexandra Valhed och Daniella Pavkovic Handledare: Hana Hulthén Titel: Ett ramverk över förutsättningar inom Supplier Quality Development-program - en fallstudie Bakgrund: För att förbättra sina leverantörers kapacitet och skicklighet kan företag använda sig av olika leverantörsutvecklingsprogram byggda på långsiktiga relationer baserade på lojalitet och tillit. Ett viktigt område inom dessa program är leverantörernas kvalitet. Företag som inte säkerställer kvalitetsnivåerna riskerar att bli mindre framgångsrika i sin leverantörsutveckling. Det har hänt mycket inom kvalitetsområdet inom det senaste decenniet, marknadens kunskaper har ökat och allt högre krav från kunder ställs. Supplier quality development-program är ett strategiskt kvalitetsutvecklingsprogram inom leverantörsutveckling, där syftet är att förbättra kvalitet och effektivitet hos befintliga leverantörer och möta den förändrade marknadssituationen. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att exemplifiera förutsättningar för ett supplier quality development-program genom att utveckla ett föreslaget ramverk. Metod: Forskningsdesignen för studien är en fallstudie med en kvalitativ forskningsmetod. Personal på kvalitet- och miljöavdelningen på projektföretaget har intervjuats i ostrukturerade och semi-strukturerade intervjuer för att samla in empirisk data till studien. Urvalet har gjorts genom snöbollsurval där första kontakt tagits med Head of Supply Chain Management på företaget. Slutsats: Kommunikation med ömsesidigt engagemang, måttlig frekvens samt tillit och lojalitet, regelbundna och noggranna kvalitetsmätningar, tillgänglighet av nödvändiga resurser, långsiktiga och hållbara relationer, utbildning, intern och extern strategi samt en aktiv ledning åtminstone inledningsvis är de förutsättningar som belyses i ramverket som slutsatsen mynnar ut i.

The current body of knowledge concerning Agricultural Education quality in regards to its three components is not consistent and total program quality has not been defined scientifically. The purpose of this study was to determine quality indicators for instruction, SAE, and FFA according to experts (agricultural education teacher educators, state instructional staff, and high school teachers) across the United States. The conceptual framework for this study was the three circle model consisting of the three integral, intra-curricular components of Instruction, FFA, and SAE. This national study was descriptive in nature and utilized the Delphi technique to gather responses from an expert panel and combine the responses into one useful statement (Stitt-Gohdes andamp; Crews, 2004). The initial questionnaire consisted of three open-ended questions and was developed by the researcher while subsequent questionnaires were developed from the experts responses. The expert panel agreed upon 37 quality indicators for Instruction, 19 quality indicators for FFA, and 6 quality indicators for SAE.

Thesis (M.S. in environmental engineering)--Washington State University, December 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Apr. 2, 2009). "Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering." Includes bibliographical references.

With the passage of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), Congress made changes to several important federal health programs. First, MACRA reformed the Sustainable Growth Rate, a mechanism created under the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Second, MACRA instituted the framework for the QPP which solidifies efforts to shift payments to value-based arrangements and streamline several existing programs under a single policy. This thesis aims to better understand how providers are responding to this new policy in four parts. First, I explain how MACRA passed in Congress with nearly unanimous bipartisan support. Second, I review the QPP and the two tracks offered under the program. Third, I review the literature on value-based payment arrangements, including the response of providers and health systems to these arrangements. Finally, I present original research on how major health systems and provider groups in the state of Iowa are preparing for MACRA implementation. I find several characteristics among health systems and provider groups that are associated with efforts to align payments to value-based measures. Across the tracks laid out under the QPP, there is consistency in the types of investments and operational changes being made. Work on these changes has been occurring for several years, and continued investment and reforms are likely.

Current pavement performance prediction models are based on the parameters such as climate, traffic, environment, material properties, etc. while all these factors are playing important roles in the performance of pavements, the quality of construction and production are also as important as the other factors. The designed properties of Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) pavements, known as flexible pavements, are subjected to change during production and construction stages. Therefore, most of the times the final product is not the exact reflection of the design. In almost any highway project, these changes are common and likely to occur from different sources, by various causes, and at any stage. These changes often have considerable impacts on the long-term performance of a project. The uncertainty of the traffic and environmental factors, as well as the variability of material properties and pavement structural systems, are obstacles for precise prediction of pavement performance. Therefore, it is essential to adopt a hybrid approach in pavement performance prediction and design; in which deterministic values work along with stochastic ones. Despite the advancement of technology, it is natural to observe variability during the production and construction stages of flexible pavements. Quality control programs are trying to minimize and control these variations and keep them at the desired levels. Utilizing the information gathered at the production and construction stages is beneficial for managers and researchers. This information enables performing analysis and investigations of pavements based on the as-produced and as-constructed values, rather than focusing on design values. This study describes a geo-relational framework to connect the pavement life-cycle information. This framework allows more intelligent and data-driven decisions for the pavements. The constructed geo-relational database can pave the way for artificial intelligence tools to help both researchers and practitioners having more accurate pavement design, quality control programs, and maintenance activities. This study utilizes data collected as part of quality control programs to develop more accurate deterioration and performance models. This data is not only providing the true perspective of actual measurements from different pavement properties but also answers how they are distributed over the length of the pavement. This study develops and utilizes different distribution functions of pavement properties and incorporate them into the general performance prediction models. These prediction models consist of different elements that are working together to produce an accurate and detailed prediction of performance. The model predicts occurrence and intensity of four common flexible pavement distresses; such as rutting, alligator, longitudinal and transverse cracking along with the total deterioration rate at different ages and locations of pavement based on material properties, traffic, and climate of a given highway. The uniqueness of the suggested models compared to the conventional pavement models in the literature is that; it carries out a multiscale and multiphysics approach which is believed to be essential for analyzing a complex system such as flexible pavements. This approach encompasses the discretization of the system into subsystems to employ the proper computational tools required to treat them. This approach is suitable for problems with a wide range of spatial and temporal scales as well as a wide variety of different coupled physical phenomena such as pavements. Moreover, the suggested framework in this study relies on using stochastic and machine learning techniques in the analysis along with the conventional deterministic methods. In addition, this study utilizes mechanical testing to provide better insights into the behavior of the pavement. A series of performance tests are conducted on field core samples with a variety of different material properties at different ages. These tests allow connecting the lab test results with the field performance survey and the material, environmental and loading properties. Moreover, the mix volumetrics extracted from the cores assisted verifying the distribution function models. Finally, the deterioration of flexible pavements as a result of four different distresses is individually investigated and based on the findings; different models are suggested. Dividing the roadway into small sections allowed predicting finer resolution of performance. These models are proposed to assist the highway agencies s in their pavement management process and quality control programs. The resulting models showed a strong ability to predict field performance at any age during the pavements service life. The results of this study highlighted the benefits of highway agencies in adopting a geo-relational framework for their pavement network. This study provides information and guidance to evolve towards data-driven pavement life cycle management consisted of quality pre-construction, quality during construction, and deterioration post-construction. / Civil Engineering

This dissertation describes a case study comparing the effectiveness of twoinformation systems that assess the quality of surgical care, the National SurgicalQuality Improvement Program (NSQIP) and the University HealthSystemConsortium Clinical Database (UHCCD). For the comparison, it develops aframework for assessing contextual data quality (CDQ) from the decision maker'sperspective. The differences in quality assessment systems to be studied areposited to be due to the differing contexts in which the data is encoded,transformed and managed impacting data quality for the purpose of surgicalquality assessment.Healthcare spending in the United States has risen faster than the rate of inflationfor over a decade and currently stands at about fifteen percent of the GrossDomestic Product. This has brought enormous pressures on the healthcareindustry to reduce costs while maintaining or improving quality. Numeroussystems to measure healthcare quality have been, and are being, developedincluding the two being studied. A more precise understanding of the differencesbetween these two systems' effectiveness in the assessment of surgical healthcarequality informs decisions nationally regarding hospital accreditation and qualitybasedreimbursements to hospitals.The CDQ framework elaborated is also applicable to executive informationsystems, data warehouses, web portals, and other information systems that drawinformation from disparate systems. Decision makers are more frequently havingdata available from across functional and hierarchical areas within organizationsand data quality issues have been identified in these systems unrelated to thesystem performance from which the data comes.The propositions explored and substantiated here are that workgroup contextinfluences data selection and definition, the data entry and encoding process,managerial control and feedback, and data transformation in information systems.These processes in turn influence contextual data quality relative to a particulardecision model.The study is a cross-sectional retrospective review of archival quality datagathered on 26,322 surgical patients at the University of Kentucky Hospital alongwith interviews of process owners in each system. The quality data includepatient risk/severity factors and outcome data recorded in the National SurgeryQuality Improvement Program (NSQIP) database and the UniversityHealthSystem Consortium Clinical Database (UHCCD).

The thesis is focused on the analysis of quality of toys on the Czech market in context of quality toy brands Safe and Secure toys. Both of these brands are part of the Czech Quality Programme and are solely intended for the assortment of toys. In the first part are defined the basic concepts and procedures relating to theissues tracked to ensure closer acquaintance with the subject. The analytical part based on the results of a survey involving the manufacturers toys (holders of quality labels and other manufacturers), toy retailers, consumers and ČOI Supervisor, supervising toys and childcare products. The final section confirm or reject the hypothesis, evaluated the quality of toys on the Czech market and outlined proposals for solutions with respect to the data obtained in the analytical part.

在商業化的市場環境下，電視媒體往往追求自身利益而忽視其身為社會公器應發揮的作用，導致新聞與新聞性節目的品質下降。然而，在商業電視台當中，仍有受到許多獎項肯定的新聞雜誌節目。本研究以【民視異言堂】為研究對象，採用深度訪談的方式，探討（一）其在產製過程中，如何因應外部市場導向環境帶來的衝擊；（二）了解媒體組織的內部因素對於節目產製之影響，包括其產製理念與價值；（三）探討商業電視台如何維持具品質的電視新聞雜誌。 本研究發現，在面對收視率思維的外部環境之下，商營電視台要試圖找出平衡點來兼顧市場性與公共性；在媒體內部組織中，組織文化與目標影響著組織成員對於新聞雜誌節目的品質標準，也培養組織成員在觀察議題的深度與前瞻性，且節目品質的維持需要由整個媒體組織的成員共同進行維護與重視，培養對於節目品質的意識與警覺。研究建議應以提升節目品質的觀點來看待新聞與新聞性節目，經營者與產製者要有良好的動機與特質，才能發揮新聞雜誌節目的功能與肩負對社會的責任。 / In the commercial market environment, the television media tend to pursue their own interests while ignoring their social responsibility as the roles of the leading quality news and news program are in decline. However, in the commercial television which, still some of them produce award recognized news magazine programs. In this case study, the news magazine program [Yi Yan Tang, FTV], using in-depth interviews ways to explore (a) the process of its production system, how to respond to external market-oriented environmental impact; (b) to understand the media organization's internal factors for the production system of the impact of the program, including its production system of ideas and values; (c) to explore how to maintain a good quality of commercial television news magazine. The study found that, in the face of the external environment of TV rating focus, commercial stations have to try to find a balance to take into account the marketability and public interest; in the media within the organization, the culture and goals affect the organization members for the news magazine quality standards of the program, but also train members of the organization in question to observe the depth and forward-looking, and the need to maintain program quality by members of the entire media organizations jointly maintenance and attention, training for program quality consciousness and alertness. Research proposals improve the quality of the program to look at the news and news program, manager and operation system must have the good motives and characteristics in order to make news-magazine programs and their social responsibility work.

From the Proceedings of the 1974 Meetings of the Arizona Section - American Water Resources Assn. and the Hydrology Section - Arizona Academy of Science - April 19-20, 1974, Flagstaff, Arizona / In the lower reaches of the Colorado River, damages from the increase in salinity to U.S. water users are now estimated to be about 53 million dollars per year and will increase to about 124 million dollars per year by the year 2000 if no salinity control measures are taken. Physical, legal, economic, and institutional aspects of the salinity problem and proposed actions to mesh salinity control with a total water management plan for the basin are discussed. A scheme is presented for planning under the Colorado River water quality improvement program. Recent legislative action is also discussed which provides control plans to improve the water quality delivered to Mexico as well as upper basin water users. These efforts now under study will assure the continued, full utility of Colorado River water to U.S. users and Mexico. However, more extensive development of the basin's natural resources puts new emphasis on total resources management through improved water and land use planning to conserve a most precious western resource - water.

<p dir="ltr">To reduce the establishment and spread of invasive plant species, the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) was created in 1996 to provide financial and technical assistance to private landowners to aid in conservation practices and address environmental concerns. From 2014-2022, approximately $90 million dollars was obligated to the EQIP for completed contracts of over 240,000 hectares in Indiana. However, to date, there has been no examination of whether participation in conversation cost sharing programs has resulted in the recovery of native tree diversity, growth, and reproduction following the treatment of invasive plants. Furthermore, there is a gap in our understanding of the effectiveness of EQIP and its success in achieving and maintaining management goals. This thesis quantifies the composition, diversity, regeneration density and growth of tree species in response to invasive plant treatments at sites that participated in the EQIP. In particular, I investigated how the species composition of woody seedlings (stems < 2 cm dbh) and woody saplings (2 – 5 cm dbh) differed across EQIP-treated and untreated reference plots. I then examined how native species richness and diversity values differed between EQIP-treated and untreated plots. Lastly, I used dendroecological methods to determine how treatment of invasive shrubs affected overstory tree growth. Across the state, I found that native species richness of seedlings and saplings was greater in EQIP-treated plots then within reference plots. Reference plots were associated with invasive species such as <i>Lonicera maackii</i> (Amur honeysuckle), <i>Rosa multiflora</i> (multiflora rose), <i>Elaeagnus umbellata</i> (autumn olive) and <i>L. japonica</i> (Japanese honeysuckle), while EQIP-treated plots were associated with native tree species, such as <i>Carya ovata</i> (shagbark hickory),<i> Ulmus americana </i>(American elm), <i>Fraxinus americana</i> (white ash), <i>Liriodendron tulipifera</i> (yellow-poplar), <i>Quercus alba</i> (white oak), <i>Q. velutina</i> (black oak), and shrubs, such as <i>Rubus allegheniensis</i> (Allegheny blackberry) and <i>Lindera benzoin</i> (spicebush). I observed that trees generally had greater basal area increment growth following invasive shrub treatments; therefore, the reduction of invasive shrub dominance on EQIP-enrolled lands has led to a small, but significant, increase in overstory tree growth. I observed high within-group variability in growth for EQIP-treated and reference plots, likely due to differing management strategies across privately owned forests. Overall, my results demonstrate that participation in the EQIP has positively benefited species richness, and native species composition, and tree growth.</p>