Asian Journal on Quality

Dae Seok Kang; Youn Sung Kim; Dong Won Lee

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600001

This study sought to examine the effect of three (distributive, procedural, and interactional) justice perceptions in predicting employees’ motivation to participate in training activities. On the basis of theoretical linkages between the constructs, full mediation and partial mediation models by perceived benefits of training were developed. The models were tested using SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) on responses from 302 employees of three wireless operators in the Republic of Korea. The results showed the partial‐mediation model is a dominant model. It also confirmed that interactional justice directly influence motivation to participate in training, whereas procedural justice influence the variable through perceived benefits of training. Furthermore, limitations and implications of the current study and directions for future work are discussed.

Andreas Hellström; Jonas Peterson

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600002

The purpose of this study is to investigate what happens within an organization when a process view of the business is adopted. With the example of an empirical case, we aim to illustrate: how members of the organization make sense of process management; what contributions members of the organization consider to be the result of adopting a process view; and the relationship between the functional and the process structure. The empirical base in this study is one of Sweden’s largest purchasing organizations within the public sector. The results are drawn from interviews with the process owners and a survey to all members involved in process teams. The case findings reveal an ambiguous image of process management. At the same time as process management solved specific organizational problems, it generated new dilemmas. It is argued that it is more rewarding to consider the adoption of the process view a “social negotiation” rather than the result of planned implementation. The study also highlights that the meaning of process management is not anything given but something being created, and its negotiation and translation into organizational practice is open‐ended. Furthermore, the study givs an illustration of the conflict between the adopted process view and the existing functional organization.

Ping‐Kit Lam; Kwai‐Sang Chin; Wai‐Ying Cheung

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600003

Client‐supplier collaboration has been an imperative approach to new product development (NPD), in which a good product specification management system and practice is crucial to the assurance of product quality. This study investigates product specification management in client‐supplier collaborative NPD. Based on the interviews and survey study, 12 problems and 13 good practices of product specification management are identified. It also compares the importance and degree of the implementation of the product specification practices in Hong Kong electronics industry. The results suggest that more intensive practices should be implemented for better product specification management.

Johnny Lindström; Per‐Erik Josephson

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600004

The Swedish construction sector has been criticized in media for being corrupted, unproductive and conservative. Several incidents, e.g. cartels, work on the side without paying tax and moisture problems, have had a great deal of attention. Of that reason has the government initiated a number of investigations in order to identify the major problems in the construction industry. Further, they have initiated a development of a tool aimed for (a) to identify risks, (b) to avoid poor quality costs, and (c) to direct towards increased quality and effectiveness in building and civil engineering projects, from a client perspective. The UK Constructing Excellence has often been held up as a model during the devate. However, the Swedish general culture differs from the British, as well as the Swedish system differs from the British. The purpose of this paper is to describe the program for developing the systems, including the purposes with the system, identified starting points and demands and the approach/method for the development.

Shiaw‐Wen Tien; Ming‐Lang Wang; Yi‐Chan Chung; Chih‐Hung Tsai; Si‐Yi Lee

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600005

In the Knowledge‐based Economic Era, all of the enterprises are facing global competitive pressure. The activities of knowledge accessing, codifying, and application will ogviously become the main inner function on enterprise operation. Knowledge will be the primary competitive advantage; therefore, he who wants to hold the competitive advantage should do the knowledge management (KM) very well. In this study, we cconstruct the research dimensions and variances by the successful factors of KM, which had been practiced very well by big enterprises inside and outside our country, and which was recommended by the related scholars. In order to approach the differences between big enterprises and small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) towards implementing KM, this study takes the way of questionnaire investigation to do empirical analysis and to construct the model of KM by path analysis. The study found out when implementing KM, SMEs should highlight “leadership”, “library‐architecture”, and “corporate culture” these three aspects, while “information technology” and “performance evaluation” these two aspects show no remarkable influence. It shows that he who wants to construct KM might not too overweight on information technology to build the KM system. Therefore, we suggest when implementing KM enterprises should reinforce the corporate culture by sharing, organized KM process, learning environment for all employees, and highly authorization by top managers in order to reach the expectant success of KM. The result of this study offers practical thinking directions to reach the expectant success for the policy makers in SMEs, who are accessing to or evaluating to implement KM.

Zhao Fengyu; Ma Yizhong

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600006

The process of producing software differs in many aspects from that of traditional manufacturing. Software is not manufactured in the classical sense. Development of software more closely resembles the development effort that goes effort that goes into design new product. In this article, we first describe the foundations of process improvement, which all processes can share. The process improvement differences between software and manufacturing process are then discussed, and a defect driven process inspection and improvement is introduced. Based on the discussion, two experiments were designed and the results of the results were collected. Through the comparison, we found that some efficient quality improvement approaches can be easily adapted in the software improvement and that the inspection efficiency is also significant.

Antonio Baldi; Paola Pedone; Daniele Romano

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600007

The paper presents the design of an optical profilometer, a device used for the reconstruction of the micro‐geometry of mechanical parts in applications where high precision is needed. The design is based on Robust Design, a major methodology for quality improvement of engineering systems. Several design solutions, namely different hardware and software setups of the device, are compared in order to select a configuration realising a desired trade‐off between performance and cost. The peculiarity of the dsgin strategy is the use of a computer m odel of the measurement process where the physical part of the process is simulated. This allows for an extensive exploration of the design space, thus opening the way to product innovation.

Yumin Liu; Jichao Xu

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600008

How to measure Quality Performance (QP) or excellence performance in organizations is very important for improving the quality of an organization’s products and services. This paper takes Quality Function Deployment (QFD) as a ueful tool to identify the key characteristics of quality performance and measure the influence factors on quality performance. Most national quality awards provide a framework of the criteria to show the essential elements of an organization’s quality performance and get the Quality Performance Score (QPS) by self‐assessment using the criteria. By means of these criteria, especially, the criteria of China Quality Award (CQA), a measurable indicator system for quality performance is set up. A four‐phase QFD model of assessment for quality performance is developed. This QFD model not only presents the most important efforts for the deployment of the measurable indicators of quality performance, but also takes great advantage of evaluating the quality performance and obtaining the quality performance score. The measurable indicator hierarchy of quality performance is formed and its implementation method for assessment quality performance is described in this paper.

Yi‐Chung; Chih‐Hung Tsai; Shiaw‐Wen Tien; Yu‐Hsin Lin; Ja‐Lin Lin

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600009

With the globalization of economy, industries are facing increasingly greater challenges. Business integration, both internally and externally, is undoubtedly an important topic. However, how does an enterprise create its own value will be the key to an enterprise’s success in the future. Therefore, this study bases on the evaluation of company value to assess the key factors and competitive strategies of an enterprise. Yet, only with stable enterprise performance can the company value be correctly evaluated. This will be an important issue for enterprise performance and business strategy. Subject of this study are mainly small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Model construction for SME value assessment is established through the sytem dynamics approach. Scholars’ opinions on literature validation and application of Delphi Method are explored through literature review on local and foreign studies, in order to compile the relevant perspectives and indices for enterprise value creation. Hence model construction of the value creation system is established, and the correlation between the perspectives and related factors is explored to understand the overall dynamics model of SMEs’ value creation system. Consequently, a research method based on the system dynamics perspective is provided for the study of enterprise value creation is provided, as policy reference for improvement of decision‐making and value creation.

Noor Hazilah Abd. Manaf

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600010

The objective of the study was to empirically assess the practice of quality management among employees of Malaysian public hospitals at the district, state and national level hospitals. Comparative analysis on the practice of quality management was made among the three groups of hospitals. Self‐administered questionnaire was the main method of data collection. Twenty‐three public hospitals throughout Peninsular Malaysia participated in the survey. Practice of quality management was found to be significantly higher in district hospitals than in the national referral centre, which is based in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. However, there was no significant difference in perception of implementation outcome between the three levels of hospitals. Among the factors of quality management, teamwork was found to be significantly higher in district hospitals than in state hospitals and the national referral centre. Leadership and management commitment was found to be significantly higher in district and state hospitals than in the national referral centre. The effect of organizational structure could have an effect on practice of quality management.