A global study on how the national business excellence (BE) custodians design BE frameworks and promote, facilitate, and award BE in their countries : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering at Massey University, Manawatu Campus, New Zealand

Business Excellence (BE) is a philosophy and a collection of BE Frameworks (BEFs) for organisations to follow to achieve excellence in strategies, business practices, and stakeholder-related performance results, to ultimately become the best they possibly can be. This research aimed to investigate the current state of and best practices in designing BEFs and deploying (promoting, facilitating, and awarding) BE on a national and/or regional level. The aim of this research was met through first conducting a systematic review of BE literature followed by collecting data directly from BECs. A mixed methodology and pragmatic philosophy were used in this research, thus collecting and analysing both quantitative and qualitative data. With regards to the participants of the research, 29 BECs from 26 countries undertook a 46-question survey. Of the survey participants, 13 BECs also undertook optional follow-up online structured interviews. It was found that while the BE literature comprises of 415 journal papers, no research covers how BECs support BE in their countries. There are 74 countries and four regions with BE Custodians (BECs) that promote BE within their countries, of which 57 actively hold BE Awards (BEA) with their last award held in 2018 or after. A key finding of this research is that BECs focus more on their BEA activities than their BE promotion and facilitation activities and report low levels of BE awareness and usage levels. A general framework for designing and reviewing a BEF is provided along with recommendations for BECs to improve their BE promotion, facilitation, and award activities. The findings of this research will help the national BECs to better understand their strengths and opportunities for improvement and to learn from other BECs’ practices. This will assist the BECs to better foster a culture of BE in their countries’ organisations that follow or aim to undertake a BE journey (of using a BE and adopting outstanding practices to achieve results) to ultimately benefit all of their stakeholders and lead to improved economic and societal benefits at a national level

A Framework for Prioritizing Opportunities of Improvement in the Context of Business Excellence Model in Healthcare Organization

In today\u27s world, the healthcare sector is facing challenges to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its operations. More and more improvement projects are being adopted to enhance healthcare services, making it more patient-centric, and enabling better cost control. Healthcare organizations strive to identify and carry out such improvement initiatives to sustain their businesses and gain competitive advantage. Seeking to reach a higher operational level of excellence, healthcare organizations utilize business excellence criteria to conduct assessment and identify organizational strengths and weaknesses. However, while such assessments routinely identify numerous areas for potential improvement, it is not feasible to conduct all improvement projects simultaneously due to limitations in time, capital, and personnel, as well as conflict with other organization\u27s projects or strategic objectives. An effective prioritization and selection approach is valuable in that it can assist the organization to optimize its available resources and outcomes. This study attempts to enable such an approach by developing a framework to prioritize improvement opportunities in healthcare in the context of the business excellence model through the integration of the Fuzzy Delphi Method and Fuzzy Interface System. To carry out the evaluation process, the framework consists of two phases. The first phase utilizes Fuzzy Delphi Method to identify the most significant factors that should be considered in healthcare for electing the improvement projects. The FDM is employed to handle the subjectivity of human assessment. The research identifies potential factors for evaluating projects, then utilizes FDM to capture expertise knowledge. The first round in FDM is intended to validate the identified list of factors from experts; which includes collecting additional factors from experts that the literature might have overlooked. When an acceptable level of consensus has been reached, a second round is conducted to obtain experts\u27 and other related stakeholders\u27 opinions on the appropriate weight of each factor\u27s importance. Finally, FDM analyses eliminate or retain the criteria to produce a final list of critical factors to select improvement projects. The second phase in the framework attempts to prioritize improvement initiatives using the Hierarchical Fuzzy Interface System. The Fuzzy Interface System combines the experts\u27 ratings for each improvement opportunity with respect to the factors deemed critical to compute the priority index. In the process of calculating the priority index, the framework allows the estimation of other intermediate indices including: social, financial impact, strategical, operational feasibility, and managerial indices. These indices bring an insight into the improvement opportunities with respect to each framework\u27s dimensions. The framework allows for a reduction of the bias in the assessment by developing a knowledge based on the perspectives of multiple experts

A design framework for the mass customisation of custom-fit bicycle helmet models

Mass customisation (MC) can provide significant benefits to the customers. For example, custom-fit design approaches can improve the users’ perceived comfort of products where the fit is an important feature. MC can also bring major value to the producers, where for instance, premium prices can be implemented to the products. Research show that MC can bring competitive advantages especially when the system is new. It is therefore surprising that MC of helmets has not been studied more extensively, especially given the advances in 3D scanning, computational analyses, parametric design, and additive manufacturing techniques. The purpose of this study was to present a novel MC framework for the design of custom-fit bicycle helmet models. In the proposed design framework, we first categorized a subset of the Australian population into four groups of individuals based on their similar head shapes. New customers were then classified inside one of these groups. The customisation took place inside these groups to ensure that only small variations of the helmet liner were implemented. During the design process, the inside surfaces of a generic helmet model was modified to match the customer's head shape. We demonstrated that all the customized models created complied with the relevant drop impact test standard if their liner thickness was between the worst and best case helmets of each group. Fit accuracy was verified using an objective evaluation method. Future work should include detailed description of the manufacturing methods engaged in our MC framework

The Usefulness of a Self-Assessment Approach Based on a Business Excellence Model: Case Studies of Textile and Garment Enterprises in Vietnam

Since Vietnam became an official member of WTO in 2006, enterprises need to pay attention and invest in their management capacities in order to build robust strategies and improve their competitive advantage. The application of self-assessment (SA), an advanced management tool, based on a business excellence model (BEM) has been recognised as improving organisational performance by providing a referenced framework and a common language to direct organisations’ focus on improvement and to assist them to deliver both financial and nonfinancial performance enhancement. This study focuses on the investigation of BEM-based selfassessment experiences of two Vietnamese enterprises. The two case study companies, both in the garment and textile industry, undertook SA using a simple EFQM questionnaire tool. Subsequently, this study used semi-structured interviews with senior managers in order to gather data evaluating the benefits of SA to the companies and to identify factors influencing the success of the implementations. Template analysis and Nvivo software were used for the data analysis. Findings provide several insights into how SA outcomes benefit Vietnamese enterprises. Firstly, out of six intended benefits of this SA tool identified in the literature, managers strongly confirmed only one — the benefit of helping them to identify their current position and to determine future directions and priorities — as being useful in improving company performance. Two additional benefits were confirmed relating to the use of SA in identifying the company’s strengths and weaknesses and in enhancing organisational learning and awareness. In relation to factors influencing the success of implementation, several were identified as being crucial: a lack of scorer understanding of SA and BEM knowledge; a risk of emphasis on high scores; and the unique ‘encouraging scoring’ style in Vietnam. Significantly, training was regarded as crucial in overcoming these difficulties, and was as important to managers as top level commitment for successful SA. The research confirms that SA is useful for Vietnamese companies in enabling benefits which should enhance performance. However, training is crucial in overcoming implementation issues which may impact on success. Whilst benchmarking is normally closely associated with SA and BEM, it had limited relevance in the case companies due to the prevalence of high-scoring, which limited the usefulness of comparisons, and the current low levels of comparative data available in Vietnam

Business excellence models in UK Universities: two contrasting case studies

The overall aim of the research was to explore the reason(s) for the apparent disparity in acceptance and adoption of Business Excellence Models (BEMs) in UK universities and to identify ways to help quality assurance staff make the best use of these models. BEMs provide organisations with management frameworks based around quality and are praised for allegedly improving global competitiveness and performance. BEMs are also criticised for allegedly being fads, over-promising and contradicting the nature of HE. This study also investigated whether BEMs were seen as fads and what makes them sustainable. Two contrasting case studies in London were examined: a research-intensive Russell Group university and a teaching-focused newer (Post 92s) university. 18 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Vice Chancellors/Pro-Vice Chancellors; senior managers; heads of department and professional services/quality assurance staff. In contrast to previous literature, only one interviewee thought BEMs were fads. All the Russell Group interviewees thought BEMs were applicable to the HE sector whereas some interviewees from the newer university were more sceptical. Advocates of BEMs cited their intrinsic value as well as operational benefits. Critics said BEMs were too complicated and conflicted with academic freedom. Although all the participants agreed that effective leadership was vital for successful implementation, they disagreed on what this meant. Some emphasised motivation and inspiration but others highlighted the need to occasionally force change. Participants generated six criteria for evaluating BEMs. Four of these ((a) improved student experience; (b) adequately trained and mentored staff; (c) increased community engagement and (d) compatibility with league table requirements) are found in previous literature. Two ((a) strong personal tutoring and (b) students informing resource allocation and report generation) are not. Participants also identified seven Critical Success Factors (CSFs) that influenced their institution’s choice of BEM. Three of these (team, process and collaboration) are found in previous literature. Four (location, brand, personal tutoring and transparency) are not. Finally, a conceptual framework was developed to explain how BEMs can be sustained. Three elements of the framework match previous literature (human resource management, institutionalisation and feedback). Four (leadership, resource allocation, monitoring and collaboration with the Student Union) are new

Development of a business tool to evaluate the Northern Health Connections program

Organization and program self-assessments are important tools for enabling companies to learn and improve. Much like an annual health physical, they help managers better understand both what is working well and what areas require attention. Self-assessments also are effective for communicating priorities to various stakeholders and for monitoring progress over time, and their greatest value is their ability to enable organizations to improve their performance and produce positive results. Self-assessment tools are well evaluated in the literature, and Northern Health -- as an organization striving for excellence -- can make good use of them to meet the needs of it Northern Health Connections patient transportation program. Ideally, tools would already exist that can be easily modified to suit the program's needs however, because Northern Health Connections is a unique, multi-faceted program, it needs a new tool developed using existing self-assessment frameworks. This project proposes a tool consisting of a Route Evaluation Flow Chart (REFC) and accompanying questionnaire. The tool will assist managers at Northern Health Connections in the essential task of allocating transportation resources for moving patients to and from northern British Columbia's medical facilities. In this paper, I will present an overview of the relevant literature and then discuss the tool's conceptualization, design, and development. Finally, I will recommend that Northern Health Connections integrate the REFC tool into their daily operations.The original print copy of this thesis may be available here: http://wizard.unbc.ca/record=b165171

A comparative empirical investigation of business excellence models in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Business excellence theorising has produced more than 100 business excellence models (BEMs). They can be divided (according to their context of development and application) into two broad groups: a) universal (e.g., the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award – MBNQA, and the European Foundation for Quality Management – EFQM models) and b) country-specific (e.g., the King Abdul Aziz Quality Award – KAQA model, i.e., the Saudi Arabia BEM).The literature is scarce and inconclusive as to the suitability/applicability of different BEMs. This is partly due to the lack of comparative and comprehensive studies (i.e., pursuing both conceptual and empirical comparisons) and robust methodological frameworks.Therefore, the key research question of this thesis: is the MBNQA and EFQM or the KAQA BEM better suited in the Saudi Arabia context? and which of these models’ criteria is critical in influencing other criteria? Moreover, given the elevated emphasis in the literature of contextual factors (like strategic orientation and industry type), the key research question is complemented with a supplementary one concerning the effects these potential moderating factors may have in the (better suited-) BEM relations.To answer the above, the three BEMs are conceptually and comparatively investigated using a purposively developed methodological framework comprising a range of methods (e.g., structural equation modelling) and primary data from a survey of 233 firms in Saudi Arabia. The results are interpreted in light of the factors that underpin the differences between BEMs, indicating: 1) the KAQA BEM superiority and 2) the key role of leadership, strategic planning, and operations management in BEM relations. Significant differences in the KAQA relations are identified due to strategic orientation except for the relationships between leadership and strategic planning, and between strategic planning and suppliers and partners, but not due to industry type except for the links between strategic planning and suppliers and partners, operations management, and focusing on beneficiary constructs.Theoretical, methodological, policy, and practice contributions are developed on the basis of the above findings. Extant theorising concerning the suitability of the MBNQA, EFQM, KAQA BEMs is tested and extended, while the role of key criteria and moderating factors (namely, strategic orientation) are clarified. Enhancements to the studied BEMs are also suggested. The comparative and comprehensive methodological framework to test BEMs and to explain BEM-construct interrelations contributes to advancing from description to inference. Last, but not least, at the policy and practice levels, mechanisms for developing and/or reviewing BEMs are provided along with recommendations concerning considering local conditions in practising business excellence and the differentiating effects of contextual factors

Shedding light on TQM: some research findings

Over the last decad , the paradigm of Total Quality Management (TQM) has been successfully forged in our business world. TQM may be defined as something that is both complex and ambiguous; nevertheless, some key elements or principles can be mentioned which are common to all of them: customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, commitment and leadership on the part of top management, involvement and support on the part of employees, teamwork, measurement via indicators and feedback. There are, in short, two main reasons for it having spread so widely: on the one hand, the successful diffusion of ISO 9000 standards for the implementation and certification of quality management systems, standards that have been associated to the TQM paradigm, and, on the other, the also successful diffusion of self evaluation models such as the EFQM promoted by the European Foundation for Quality Management and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the USA, promoted by the Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. However, the quality movement is not without its problems as far as its mid and long term development is concerned. In this book some research findings related to these issues are presented