Identifying Satisfiers and Dissatisfiers in the Service EncounterEdvardsson, Bo; Nilsson‐Witell, Lars
2005 Asian Journal on Quality
doi: 10.1108/15982688200500002
Service attributes are important for customer perceptions of service quality. However, in spite of huge amount of research, the role of service attributes as satisfiers and dissatisfiers in service incounters is not understood well enough. An empirical investigation is conducted concerning a problem resolution service in the telecommunication industry. We use both qualitative and quantitative service performance data to describe and analyze how critical incidents can be used to identify and understand which service attributes are perceived as satisfiers and dissatisfiers. Our study reveals that there is a subset of critical incidents, so called critically critical incidents, which are perceived differently and are different in content compared to critical incidents. These incidents are extremely rich of information and have the possibility to reveal the real satisfiers and dissatisfiers in a service encounter.
Research on the Operational Performance of ISO 14000‐Certified Taiwan’s ManufacturersYi‐Chan Chung; Chih‐Hung Tsai; Yau‐Wen Hsu
2005 Asian Journal on Quality
doi: 10.1108/15982688200500003
This research topic evaluates the effectiveness and importance of environmental protection in the 21st century in light of the increasing demand on the earth’s natural resources and the pressures on economic and industrial development to provide dynamic power. As the world and our fellow citizens become more conscious of environmental protection, companies are under greater pressure whilst pursuing economic growth. Therefore, domestic manufacturers have been devoting efforts to promote environmental management. This research conducts survey using questionnaires on the operational performance of the manufacturers who have ISO 14000 series accreditation and certification. The survey considers five dimensions/functions within a manufacturer, financial management, human resource management, production management, and marketing management. A total of 35 indices are used for analysis of the effects that the location, history, industry, number of employees, amount of capital, and revenue may have on the performance. This research targets the manufacturers approved of ISO 14000 series certification by Environment Adminstration Association. The statistical methods deployed are descriptive statistics, T‐test, and single factor analysis of variance used for analysis. The conclusions reval that a certain level of performance has been achieved in every dimension. After T‐test, all the indices have reached a significant level. The indications are that ISO 14001 benefits all manufacturers the level of benefits however varies from company to company.
Enhancing Quality Teaching in Operations Management: An Action Learning ApproachRichard C.M. Yam; Kit Fai Pun
2005 Asian Journal on Quality
doi: 10.1108/15982688200500005
Action learning motivates students to solve open‐ended problems by “developing skills through doing’. This paper reviews the concept of action learning and discusses the adoption of action learning approach to teach operations management at Universities. It presents the design and delivery of an action‐learning course at City University of Hong Kong. The course incorporates classroom lectures, tutorials and an action‐learning workshop. The experience gained proves that action learning facilitates student participation and teamwork and provides a venue of accelerating learning where enables students to handle dynamic problem situations more effectively. The paper concludes that adopting action‐learning approach can help lecturers to enhance quality teaching in operations management courses, and provide an alternate means of effective paradigm other than traditional classroom teaching and/or computer‐based training at universities.
Comparison of Relative Risk before and after SEMI S2‐93A Implementation: Using a Semiconductor Plant in a Taiwan’s Science Park as an ExampleShiaw‐Wen Tien; Yi‐Chan Chung; Chih‐Hung Tsai; Guo‐Ji Hwang
2005 Asian Journal on Quality
doi: 10.1108/15982688200500006
The objective of this study is to evaluate the equipment risk before and after SEMI S2‐93A implementation, thus providing a guideline for safety improvement. Semiconductor Plant A located in Taiwan’s Hsinchu Science Based Industrial Park with 147 manufacturing machines was used for risk assessment. The study was carried out in three steps. First, a preliminary hazard analysis was conducted. A detailed process safety evaluation was conducted (Hazard and Operability Study, HAZOP); and finally, the equipment risk comparison before and after Semiconductor Equipment Manufacturing Instruction (SEMI S2‐93A) implementation. The preliminary hazard analysis results showed high risk in 21.77 per cent of the manufacturing machines under risk assessment at Plant A. The largest percentage existed in the Diffusion Department. The machine types specified by the hazardous work site review and inspection according to Article 26 of Labor Inspection Regulation (the machines that use such chemicals as, SiHi, HF, HCL, etc. and that are determined to be highly hazardous through preliminary hazard analysis) were added to the detailed process analysis and evaluation. In the third part of this evaluation, the machines at Plant A used for detailed process safety assessment were divided into two groups based on the manufacturing data before and after 1993. The severity, possibility, and actual accident analysis before and after SEMI S2‐93A implementation were compared. The semiconductor Equipment Manufacturing Instruction (SEMI S2‐93A) implementation can reduce the severity and possibility of hazard occurrence.
A Methodology for Integrating Business Process and Simulation for Business Process RedesignJoong‐In Kim; Dong‐Soon Yim; Jung‐Sang Choi; Keun‐Chong Kim
2005 Asian Journal on Quality
doi: 10.1108/15982688200500007
IDEF0 is the IEEE standard for functional enterprise modeling and has been used for business process modeling or process mapping in US and Europe. But it does not reflect the potential benefits of modeling and simulation of the dynamic aspects of an enterprise or a system. On the other hand, simulation tools concentrate mostly on the simulation of material flows and are difficult to include information flows and control flows. Additionally, the simulation models that include elements such as queues, event generators and process nodes is a visual interactive representation for the model builder, but is inconvenient for the domain expert. In an attempt to fill that void, we provide an integration of business process and simulation models in this paper. an enhancement of the IDEF0, called parameterized IDEF0, is proposed and its conversion mechanism to network simulation model is developed. Using this methodology, business process models for alternative systems can be evaluated and compared through simulation on time, cost, and quality metrics. As an application of the proposed methodology, economic evaluation of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) for time‐based BPR (Business Process Redesign) is demonstrated. In addition to BPR, the developed methodology may be further integrated with ABC (Activity Based Costing), TQM (Total Quality Management), and economic evaluation of information systems.
Robust Parameter Design via Taguchi’s Approach and Neural NetworkJeh‐Hsin Tsai; Iuan‐Yuan Lu
2005 Asian Journal on Quality
doi: 10.1108/15982688200500009
The parameter design is the most emphasized measure by researchers for a new products development. It is critical for makers to achieve simultaneously in both the time‐to‐market production and the quality enhancement. However, there are difficulties in practical application, such as (1) complexity and nonlinear relationships co‐existed among the system’s inputs, outputs and control parameters, (2) interactions occurred among parameters, (3) where the adjustment factors of Taguchi’s two‐phase optimization procedure cannot be sure to exist in practice, and (4) for some reasons, the data became lost or were never available. For these incomplete data, the Taguchi methods cannot treat them well. Neural networks have a learning capability of fault tolerance and model free characteristics. These characteristics support the neural networks as a competitive tool in processing multivariable input‐output implementation. The successful fields include diagnostics, robotics, scheduling, decision‐making, prediction, etc. This research is a case study of spherical annealing model. In the beginning, an original model is used to pre‐fix a model of parameter design. Then neural networks are introduced to achieve another model. Study results showed both of them could perform the highest spherical level of quality.