International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management articles from July 1997

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management archives from July 1997

A model for institutionalizing TQM in a state government agency. (total quality management)
July 1, 1997... Introduction In these times of rising concern over the future, a fast changing business economy, and, above all, an increasingly negative public perception of government in general, public and non-profit agencies are struggling to address...

The effective maintenance of quality management systems in the construction industry.
July 1, 1997... Introduction Since the adoption of the ISO 9000 certification scheme in Singapore in 1991, local construction companies are beginning to implement the ISO 9000 Standard for their quality management systems (QMS). The ISO 9000 Standard is...

Reliability metric for information systems based on customer requirements.
July 1, 1997... Introduction The gurus and pioneers of total quality management offer various definitions of quality in their extensive writings (see, for example, Crosby, 1984; Deming, 1986; Feigenbaum, 1991; Juran, 1992; Taguchi, 1989). Crosby (1984)...

Comparing quality management practices in the Australian service and manufacturing industries.
July 1, 1997... Introduction This paper attempts to identify and explain differences in quality management practices between Australian manufacturing and service organizations. The Australian economic context and the sectors' relative economic importances...

SURGE process - a time-to-market approach to reliability improvement.
July 1, 1997... Introduction The time a company takes to bring a product from the conception stage to delivery to customers determines its success. A McKinsey and Company study, cited in the Harvard Business Review[1] reported that on average, companies...

Using Internet conversations to improve product quality: an exploratory study.
July 1, 1997... Introduction The Internet is growing at a phenomenal rate. According to Scott Ross, president of MCI Business Markets, it is growing at the rate of 160,000 new users every month (Business Week, 1995). International Data Corporation (IDC), a...

A systematic approach to improving quality: a framework and a field study.
July 1, 1997... Introduction Global market realities are demanding a strategic shift in the way businesses in the USA approach competitiveness. Businesses are increasingly stressing quality strategies in addition to operational efficiency. When Siemens...

Analysis of fault tolerant systems operating under different levels during a mission.
July 1, 1997... Introduction Fault tolerant systems continue their operations even in the presence of certain component or subsystem failures. However, when a component or a subsystem fails the performance of the system degrades. These types of fault...

Development and implementation of quality assurance in public construction works in Singapore and Hong Kong.
July 1, 1997... Introduction There is a worldwide trend towards more stringent client expectations with regard to the quality of construction work. As the technical specifications may not in themselves guarantee that the quality requirements will be...

The distribution of the passage time in a two-station reliable production line: an exact analytic solution.
July 1, 1997... Introduction and literature review A production line can be modelled mathematically as an open queuing network with a serial topology. The time a job spends in such a network - which is known as the passage time or sojourn time or time delay...

ISO 9000: marketing motivations and benefits.
July 1, 1997... The largest-ever national survey of the international quality management system, ISO 9000 (BS EN ISO 9000), which has been installed in 95,000 companies internationally, is the subject of a survey reported here. Specifically, the paper reports...

An optimal design of joint X and S control charts using quadratic loss function.
July 1, 1997... Introduction Control charts are important tools of statistical quality control. These charts are used to decide whether a process has achieved a state of statistical control and to maintain current control of a process. To use any of these...