Purpose
This qualitative study aims to explore the concept of organisational leadership in the context of Quality Management deployments across a variety of business organisations, particularly ...focusing on the possible relationships between leadership approaches during the implementation and sustaining phases of Quality Management.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on one-to-one semi-structured virtual interviews with leaders in the quality field.
Findings
Four themes (Customers, Leadership, Quality Culture and Sustainability of Quality) emerged from the post-interview data analysis, illustrating the critical role of Leadership in the successful deployment and sustainment of Quality Management and identifying the leadership traits that are most conducive to successful organisational deployments.
Originality/value
Although some of these leadership traits are described in the wider leadership literature as belonging to one or more different leadership styles, there is no existing style of leadership that comprehends all the characteristics; thus, the need for a new leadership paradigm is this paper's theoretical contribution to the literature.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore important quality-related challenges facing organizations, and investigate how current excellence models incorporate these challenges.
...Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a Delphi study of Swedish organizations. Forty-nine challenges were generated and ranked according to importance and the ten top-ranked challenges were compared to the principles of four excellence models.
Findings
The excellence models still seem to be relevant since their content matches many of the identified challenges. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and the Swedish Institute for Quality models were found to have the most comprehensive coverage, while the International Organization for Standardization model had limited coverage.
Research limitations/implications
Three areas for further research were identified: first, how quality management (QM) can evolve in different contexts that have varying needs in terms of adaptive and explorative capabilities; second, the interfaces of QM and sustainability, and ways to understand how customers and stakeholders can be active contributors to improvements; and third, the roles of the owners and board of directors regarding QM, and how to organize and distribute responsibilities of the QM work.
Practical implications
There are three important challenges that future revisions of excellence models could address: first, making QM a strategic issue for company owners; second, involving customers in the improvement activities; and third, developing processes that are robust yet still easily adaptable.
Originality/value
The Delphi study identified upcoming challenges in the QM area based on input from 188 quality professionals.
Purpose In a highly competitive and globalised era, agile organisations proactively steer towards sustainability. This situation persuaded the organisations to align Quality Management (QM) ...initiatives to achieve sustainable outcomes. This study aims to explore quality–sustainability linkage, explicitly focusing on attaining the prestigious IAQ Quality Sustainability Award. Further it investigates, the impact of QM as a strategy for promoting sustainability to meet sustainable development goals (SDGs). Design/methodology/approach Due to the lack of substantial literature connecting QM to sustainability, the current research adopted an explanatory multiple-case study. Six cases were purposively chosen for the study. Three cases of those who have achieved the prestigious IAQ Quality Sustainability Award and remaining have been selected that have fallen short of receiving the award. A detailed within-case and cross-case examinations involving six cases that reported their QM achievements aligned with SDGs. Findings The findings demonstrate the significant role of QM adoption in achieving positive results from the perspective of SDGs, such as reduced environmental impacts, improved operational efficiency and enhanced quality of life. Effective stakeholder collaboration, proficiency in analytical tools and strategic alignment with SDGs emerged as critical success factors. Conversely, weak linkage with sustainability and unclear approaches were crucial challenges in attaining the IAQ Quality Sustainability Award. Research limitations/implications This paper outlines essential commandments for organisations actively seeking to promote sustainability. It offers valuable insights for decision-makers, facilitating a profound understanding of the challenges and opportunities in pursuing sustainable performance. Originality/value The distinctive nature of this study lies in its dedicated exploration of the intricate relationship between QM deployment and its true impact on the achievement of the SDGs.
Purpose
The use of quality management (QM) to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) is a topic of growing interest in academia and industry. The IAQ (International Academy ...for Quality) established Quality Sustainability Award in 2020, a testament to this growing interest. This study aims to investigate how QM philosophies, methodologies and tools can be used to achieve sustainable development in organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
Five large manufacturing organizations – three from India and two from China – who reported their achievements about using QM in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were studied using multiple sources of data collection. A detailed within-case and cross-case analysis were conducted to unearth this linkage's practical and theoretical aspects.
Findings
The study finds that QM methodologies effectively met the five organizations' UNSDGs. These organizations successfully used OPEX (Operational Excellence) methodologies such as Lean, Kaizen and Six Sigma to meet UNSDGs 7, 11, 12 and 13. Moreover, UNSG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) is the most targeted goal across the case studies. A cross-case analysis revealed that the most frequently used quality tools were Design of Experiments (DoE), Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA), C&E analysis and Inferential statistics, among other essential tools.
Research limitations/implications
The study's sample size was limited to large-scale manufacturing organizations in the two most populous countries in the world. This may limit the study's generalizability to other countries, continents, or micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Additionally, the study's conclusions would be strengthened if tested as hypotheses in a follow-up survey.
Practical implications
This practical paper provides case studies on how to use QM to impact SDGs. It offers both descriptive and prescriptive solutions for practitioners. The study highlights the importance of using essential QM tools in a structured and systematic manner, with effective teams, to meet the SDGs of organizations.
Social implications
The study shows how QM can be used to impact UNSDGs, and this is very important because the UNSDGs are a set of global objectives that aim to address a wide range of social and environmental issues. This study could motivate organizations to achieve the UNSDGs using essential QM tools and make the world a better place for the present and future generations.
Originality/value
This case study is the first to investigate at a micro-level how QM can impact UNSDGs using live examples. It uses data from the IAQ to demonstrate how QM can be integrated into UNSDGs to ensure sustainable manufacturing.
Many qualified candidates for higher education and advanced workforce development are denied the opportunities because affordable options are not accessible to them locally or are too costly. * ...Studies have indicated that a sufficient amount of food to feed all people a nutritiously suitable diet is attainable, but issues related to distribution systems stand in the way of meeting this basic human need. * The need for clean drinking water exists across the globe, but a variety of issues make this resource a precious commodity that is unavailable to all people in all locations. * Safe and affordable housing also are denied to many people.Despite the increased emphasis on reducing organizations' environmental footprints, new products/services are introduced that cause environmental harm by wasting energy generated from precious fossil fuels, incorporating harmful ingredients, producing byproducts that can't be recycled or that damage land and/or water, and many other ill effects that can last for several generations into the future.In the 1937 precepts of Toyota Motor Company, the emphasis on employee service was not limited to the organization, but it also focused on the country.4 Similarly, Kaoru Ishikawa reminded practitioners of their higher purpose-actively propagating quality knowledge (theory) and spreading activities (practice), writing "... that quality all over the world be improved, that cost be lowered, that productivity be increased, that raw materials and energy be saved, that peoples all over the world be happy, and that the world prosper and be peaceful.Keim has global consulting experience in Lean Six Sigma at executive, champion, Black Belt, and Green Belt levels in industries including: insurance, banking, sales and marketing, government, mining, utilities, healthcare, chemical, automotive, distribution, hospitality, testing, and telecommunications.
12 requirements for Six Sigma success Sandholm, Lennart; Sorqvist, Lars
ASQ Six Sigma Forum Magazine,
11/2002, Volume:
2, Issue:
1
Trade Publication Article
The experience of Lennart Sandholm and Lars Sorqvist of Sandholm Associates in Sweden and research conducted at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm lead us to believe there are 12 ...requirements for a successful Six Sigma program. They are: 1. management commitment and visible support, 2. treatment of Six Sigma as a holistic concept, 3. investment of adequate resources, 4. focus on results, 5. customer orientation, 6. focus on training and content, 7. adaptation to an organization's situation and needs, 8. prioritization and selection of projects, 9. development of uniform language and terminology, 10. development of a strategy to introduce Six Sigma, 11. follow-up and communication of success stories, 12. responsiveness to External Influences.
ABSTRACT Phosphoglucomutase 3 (PGM3) is an enzyme converting N-acetyl-glucosamine-6-phosphate to N-acetyl-glucosamine-1-phosphate, a precursor important for glycosylation. Mutations in the PGM3 gene ...have recently been identified as the cause of novel primary immunodeficiency with a hyper-IgE like syndrome. Here we report the occurrence of a homozygous mutation in the PGM3 gene in a family with immunodeficient children, described already in 1976. DNA from two of the immunodeficient siblings was sequenced and shown to encode the same homozygous missense mutation, causing a destabilized protein with reduced enzymatic capacity. Affected individuals were highly prone to infections, but lack the developmental defects in the nervous and skeletal systems, reported in other families. Moreover, normal IgE levels were found. Thus, belonging to the expanding group of congenital glycosylation defects, PGM3 deficiency is characterized by immunodeficiency, with or without increased IgE levels, and with variable forms of developmental defects affecting other organ systems.
This paper focuses on the need for a widened definition of the notion of technology within the smart city discourse, with a particular focus on the “built environment”. The first part of the paper ...describes how current tendencies in urban design and architecture are inclined to prioritize high tech-solutions at the expense of low-tech functionalities and omits that information and communication technology (ICT) contrasts the art of building cities as an adaptable and habitually smart technology in itself. It continues with an elaboration on the need for expanding the limits of system boundaries for a better understanding of the energy and material telecouplings that are linked to ICT solutions and account for some perils inherent in smart technologies, such as rebound effects and the difficulty of measuring the environmental impacts of ICT solutions on a city level. The second part of the paper highlights how low-tech technologies and nature-based solutions can make cities smarter, representing a new technology portfolio in national and international policies for safeguarding biodiversity and the delivery of a range of ecosystem services, promoting the necessary climate-change adaption that cities need to prioritize to confer resilience.
Powerformer, a radically new type of generator developed by ABB, has been chosen for a combined heat and power plant in Eskilstuna, Sweden. This first commercial order for Powerformer from the ...thermal power sector is for a generator rated at 42 MVA, 136 kV and 3000 rev/min. It will be connected directly to existing 136-kV switchgear, ie no step-up transformer will be used. The life-cycle cost of Powerformer is expected to be 15 percent lower than for a conventional generator.
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