Asian Journal on Quality

Feng Ling; Tomomichi Suzuki; Yoshikazu Ojima

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600023

Economic value added (EVA) is introduced on two levels: as index for evaluation of corporation and as index for evaluation of business unit. In the latter case, application of one and the same cost of capital to all business units of a business corporation may be possible, but it is a fundamental policy for EVA to apply different cost of capital to business units with different risks. Estimate of cost of capital of business units is a problem to be resolved. The author, focusing on the question of the estimate of cost of capital of business units, has conducted a demonstrative study on risk structure of cost of capital estimates by using financial indices of Japanese manufacturers (37 automotive industries, 141 electrical and electronic machinery industries, 63 food processing industries, 98 chemical industries, 125 general machinery industries) for a period of 5 years from 1995 to 1999. The author presumes that ॆ is explained by a regression formula ॆ = B 0 + ऱB i Y i + ॅ (Y i : financial indices) and selects 40 explanatory variables from financial statements as risk components. Using their financial indices, the author concludes through a series statistical analyses that there is a good likelihood of estimating cost of capital for Japanese industries and is convinced that it will lead to more reliable and practical results by assigning averages and variances to 40 primary financial indices for a period of 3 to 5 years selected in this demonstrative study.

Young T. Park; Sun Jing

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600024

A spare ordering policy is considered for planned maintenance. Introducing the ordering, uptime, downtime, inventory costs and salvage value, we derive the expected cost effectiveness. The problem is to determine jointly the ordering time for a spare and the preventive replacement time for the operating unit which maximize the expected cost effectiveness. Some properties regarding the optimal policy are derived, and a numerical example is included to explain the proposed model.

Yi‐Chan Chung; Chung‐Ching Chiu; Chih‐Hung Tsai; Yau‐Wen Hsu

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600025

In recent years, the labor consciousness is gradually valued. During the process of pursuing sustainable operation, the enterprises treat occupational hazard risk as the waste of cost. The purpose of OHSAS 18000 occupational security and health management system is to systematically establish the business managerial measures in terms of occupational security and calamity prevention. This research proceeded with questionnaire analysis with respect to the relationship between the OHSAS 18000 system implementation and competitiveness in Taiwan’s industries. The research result revealed that there was significant relationship between Taiwan firms’ execution of OHSAS 18000 system and industry competitiveness. Thus, the enterprises can decide the proper managerial plans according to the result of their own risk evaluation to prevent the happening of accidents and reduce the operational cost. They can thus completely control business occupational hazard risk through “systematic” management.

Young Hun Cho; Sung Hyun Park

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600026

The desirability function approach to multiple response optimization is a useful technique for the analysis of experiments in which several responses are optimized simultaneously. But the existing methods have some defects, and have to be modified to some extent. This paper proposes a new method to combine the individual desirabilities.

Wen‐Chin Chen; Chih‐Hung Tsai; Shou‐Wen Hsu

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600027

This paper presents neural network‐based recognition system for automatic light emitting diode (LED) inspection. The back‐propagation neural network (BPNN) is proposed and tested. The current‐voltage (I‐V) characteristic data of LED from the inspection process is used for the network training and testing. This study selects 300 random samples as network training and employs 100 samples as network testing. The experimental results show that if the classification work is doen well, the accuracy of recognition is 100 per cent, and the testing speed of the proposed recognition system is amost one half faster than the traditional inspection system does. The proposed neural‐network approach is successfully demonstrated by real data sets and can be effectively developed as a recognition system for a practical application purpose.

M.K.S. Sastry

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600028

An Integrated Outage Management System (IOMS) is a utility owned, centralized information system. Using the Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) methodology, the IOMS integrates different databases and components of outage management systems to improve the quality of service of electrical power to customers. This paper describes the development of an IOMS and its related utility functionality. The design considerations, salient features, component integration, functional aspects, and implementation issues of the IOMS are discussed. Evidence shows that the IOMS implementation would result in improving the overall quality of electric power supply and effective outage management significantly.

Kang Koon Lee; Young H. Park

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600029

In order to achieve sustainable growth in the era of global competitiveness, a speedy and flexible strategy is needed in the fast changing management environment. For this purpose, strengthening the core confidence in the organization along with acquiring competitive advantages that cannot be easily copied by competitors should be done based on dealing with needs from customers and markets positively. In this study, the creative value innovation strategy and creative value design methodology will be presented to improve company competitiveness.

Shin Wan Seon; Na Seung Kyun

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600030

This research deals with the determination of 25 key assessment questions (KAQ) from the Baldrige criteria. It first investigates the performance of all the examination questions through real world applications. The 25 KAQs are then selected based the level of correlation between each of the questions and the overall assessment results. A set of field data are used for validating the key assessment questions in a statistical framework.

Clement K. Sankat; Kit F. Pun; Cavelle B. Motilal

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600031

Nowadays, agro‐firms are confronted with competition from global suppliers in both domestic and export markets. Such competition in sustainable agro‐operations is expected to intensify. The survival of these finns in developing countries urgently requires a significant transformation to be competitive. This paper discusses the rationale of adopting a national innovation (NI) approach from an industry‐wide perspective. In order to attain sustainable agro‐operations in developing countries, the approach stresses appropriate scientific and technological applications and effective linkages of technology transfer via the network between public and private institutions, universities and other research institutions. Central to this approach is the development of the agro‐industrial sector whereby agri‐chains are formed. An illustrated case of the NI approach is presented with respect to a small island developing state, the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

Fong‐Jung Yu; Hsiang Chin; Hsiao Wei Huang

2006 Asian Journal on Quality

doi: 10.1108/15982688200600032

Control charts are important tools of statistical quality control. In 1956, Duncan first proposed the economic design of x ‐control charts to control normal process means and insure that the economic design control chart actually has a lower cost, compared with a Shewhart control chart. An moving average (MA) control chart is more effective than a Shewhart control chart in detecting small process shifts and is considered by some to be simpler to implement than the CUSUM. An economic design of MA control chart has also been proposed in 2005. The weaknesses to only the economic design are poor statistics because it does not consider type I or type II errors and average time to signal when selecting design parameters for control chart. This paper provides a construction of an economic‐statistical model to determine the optimal parameters of an MA control chart to improve economic design. A numerical example is employed to demonstrate the model’s working and its sensitivity analysis is also provided.