Applications Of Statistical Techniques In Quality Systems

Untuk bersaing dan memenangi perniagaan baru dalam pasaran kini,setiap organisasi cuba mendapatkan pelbagai pengikhtirafan sistem pengurusan kualiti dengan bergantung kepada keperluan pelanggan. ISO 9000 adalah sistem pengurusan kualiti yang paling dikenali dan diamali oleh kebanyakan organisasi. In order to compete and gain new business in the market, every organization is trying to obtain certification of various types of quality management system (aMS) standards based on their customer needs. ISO 9000 is the most popular quality management system that are adopted by most of the organizations

CIRAS News (Vol. 36, No. 3)

Contents: Iowa metal casters publish vision and roadmap; How plant layout simulation can help your company; Distance education takes a virtual twist; President calls for major technology spending increase; ISO 9001-2000 focuses on customer satisfaction and loyalty; Cedar Falls Industry Outreach Center expands scope and services; IWE offers reuse and recycling options for manufacturershttps://lib.dr.iastate.edu/ciras_news/1008/thumbnail.jp

Auditing for ISO 9001 requirements in the context of agile software processes

ISO 9001 demands of (software) organizations that a rigorous demonstration of their software processes be implemented and a set of guidelines followed at various levels of abstraction. What these organizations need to show, in other words, is that their software processes have been designed and implemented in a way that allows for a level of configuration and operation that complies with ISO 9001 requirements. For software organizations needing ISO 9001 certification, it is important that they establish a software process life cycle that can manage the requirements imposed by this certification standard. However, software organizations that develop their software products using the agile software processes, such as Extreme Programming (agile-XP), face a number of challenges in their effort to demonstrate that their process activities conform to ISO 9001 requirements, major ones being: product construction, traceability, and measurement. Agile software organizations must provide evidence of ISO 9001 conformity, and they need to develop their own procedures, tools, and methodologies to do so. As yet, there is no consensus on how to audit the agile software organization to ensure that their software processes have been designed and implemented in conformity with ISO 9001 requirements. Moreover, it is challenging to ensure that such lightweight documentation methodologies meet these requirements for certification purposes. The motivation of this research is to help software organizations that use agile software processes in their effort to meet the ISO 9001 certification requirements. This research project is also aimed at helping IS auditors extract auditing evidence that demonstrates conformity to the ISO 9001 requirements that must be met by agile software organizations. Extreme programming (agile-XP) has been selected for improvement as a candidate agile process. This selection was based on the literature indicating a higher adoption of agile-XP over other agile software processes. The goal of this research project is to improve the ability of the agile-XP process to meet the auditing requirements of ISO 9001. The goal of the research also focuses on helping agile software organizations in their effort to become ISO 9001 certified. The main objective of this research project is to design an auditing model that covers the measurement and traceability requirements of ISO 9001. The auditing model should provide IS auditors with auditing evidence that the software projects developed with the agile-XP process have fulfilled the requirements of ISO 9001. The objective also proposes several sub processes to enhance the early planning activities of agile-XP according to ISO 9001 requirements. To achieve these objectives, the main phases of the research methodology are: Investigation of the capability of agile-XP to achieve the requirements of ISO 9001 software process certification; modification of the early phases of agile-XP (i.e. release planning phase) using CMMI-DEV; and design of an auditing model for ISO 9001 traceability and measurement requirements. The main outcome of this research study, which is an auditing model that is aligned with the principles of agile-XP and focuses on ISO 9001 traceability and measurement requirements to provide the IS auditors with a methodological approach for the auditing process. The auditing model has been assessed based on case studies selected from the literature

An Integrated OHSAS 18001, ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 Management System in the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements

In today's company climate, certification and/or accreditation by an appropriate body is becoming the norm. There are many reasons to explain this tendency and in IRMM's case (Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements, one of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre's (JRC) seven institutes), these were so as to enhance safety, health, environmental and security performances; assure compliance with regulatory requirements and with EC policies; improve customer satisfaction (quality); enhance image of the institute and improve cost efficiency. IRMM can be considered as similar, in some ways, to EU Member State national laboratories but being at EU level and having the other "Directorates-General" (DGs) of the Commission as customers. These customers need to be able to categorically state that the measurements carried out in the JRC laboratories are of top quality and that in striving to obtain these high quality results, all environmental and occupational health and safety regulations of the Commission and of the respective member state were followed. As mentioned above, having appropriate accreditation and triple certification provides a management system through which these demands can be met. Aiming to attain triple certification (OHSAS 18001, ISO 14001 and ISO 9001) in ~ 2 years would normally be considered too much of a burden to place on staff and internal auditors alike. However, approaching this in an integrated way, conversely provided not only the mechanism for achieving it in such a short time but also the vehicle for maintaining it, with minimal resources (if comparing against going for certification one by one), and dramatic simplification. IRMM's long (50 years) experience in the nuclear field meant that the long standing good practices in this area could be immediately applied to the bio-safety and chemical laboratories, so it would be untrue to say that the starting point was zero. Nevertheless, the triple certification process brought a synergy to the institute which had hitherto been unknown with the net encompassing: the legal register and how new or changed regulations are followed up; the methodology for risk assessments; the scoring of the environmental aspects; the integration of safety and environmental objectives in the staff evaluation system; certain Safety, Health, Environment (SHE) procedures with a management support overlap e.g. coding system for purchases; internal and external communication aspects; integrated auditing; the reporting of non conformances, incidents and accidents and the way management reviews are carried out. The integration process also involved an examination of the Performance Indicators (including core process and SHE indicators), highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. This work includes some newly chosen performance indicators and their respective targets in the areas of Safety, Health and Environment. It also includes the first score cards of our Integrated Management System which when displayed on a "dashboard" provide a straightforward means of benchmarking our institute with our fellow institutes in the JRC. Last but not least, the fact that this institute wide effort, fully supported by the director, resulted in improvements in inter-departmental communication, enhanced awareness by the hierarchical line of their SHE responsibilities and duties and involvement of all staff, in one way or another. How this was achieved in this 2 year period, starting in January 2006 and ending with the external audit in December, 2007 will be described in this work with the aim of showing all (including SHE) benefits of a truly integrated management system.JRC.D-Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (Geel

The influence of managerial experience and style on software development process

This paper presents the results of a study of how software process and software process improvement is applied in actual practice in the software industry using the indigenous Irish software product industry as a test-bed. This study focuses on the role and influence of both the Company Founder and the Software Development Manager on the initial formation of software development process practices. The results of this study contain useful lessons for software entrepreneurs who need to make decisions about process and process change within their organisations as they grow

Information system development in a process management environment: the dynamics of improvisation and bricolage during embedded software design

The main objective of this thesis is to make a contribution to knowledge regarding the nature of improvisation and bricolage activities in the practice of embedded software design and how the tensional relationship between process management and improvisation and bricolage can be balanced. There is a lack of understanding embedded systems development in practice, and how the difficulties correspond to prescribed and emergent processes in this context. In order to address this knowledge gap I conducted an in‐depth case study of an embedded system development project in the German automobile context between December 2004 and November 2008. The research adopted an interpretive approach, which involved the collection and analysis of qualitative data. Empirical data that was derived through interviews and observation revealed new insights as to how embedded systems are developed in practice. I adopt the position that emergent processes occur not randomly, but as purposeful agents that navigate through a turbulent environment of ongoing need to improvise with the items at hand. The finding indicates that the success to achieve the aims is bound to the capabilities to be continuously reflexive and induce corrective actions as appropriate. A theoretical conceptualisation disclosed measures that may enhance the capacity to be reflexive. The findings implied that process management frameworks help as scaffolding in order to practice improvisation and bricolage as a coping strategy. Moreover, improving the capabilities to cope with challenges means enhancing reflexive capabilities. The original contribution of this research is founded on rich descriptions and interpretations as to how embedded systems are developed in practice, and the theoretical conceptualisation that can aid to balance the tension between process management and improvisation and bricolage

Looking for a place to hide: a study of social loafing in agile teams

Social loafing refers to the behaviour of individual members of a team who have tendency not to work as hard as they could or should, because social groups provide a degree of anonymity such that individual team members feel that their poor performance will be hidden by the overall output of the team. Agile Software Development philosophy espouses the importance of cohesive project teams, the empowerment of these teams, and the collective ownership of the code produced by the team — social values similar to those of communities of practice. This paper posits that one of the unintended consequences of Agile Software Development is that it may give rise to social loafing, under certain conditions. In order to test this proposition, research was carried out on two software development teams over an eight month period to determine if the values inherent in Agile Software Development could give rise to social loafing The theoretical assumption adopted by the authors was that the project team which fully adopted the agile approach would exhibit a greater tendency for social loafing, in comparison to the other team. The findings of the study indicate, however, that the opposite was the case; accordingly, the study’s findings are interpreted to offer an explanation for this apparent paradox

The augmented audit service: Supporting value creation beyond assuring compliance

For most organisations, being competitive, performing with good quality, improving customer satisfaction and increasing operational are central. Concepts such as Total Quality Management, Six Sigma and Lean have been implemented to meet these requirements. Further, ISO management system standards such as ISO 9001 have gained widespread attention to meet these demands, and ISO 9001 is now implemented by more than 1.2 million organisations worldwide. Following this diffusion of the ISO management system standards, internal and external audits have become a universal activity among certified organisations. However, audits have been reported to have had a negative association within many organisations, as they are perceived as an inspection activity, focusing on compliance and documentation, and adding disputed value. As a result, management have started to ask for return on investment for the non-negligible costs associated with certification and periodical external and internal audits. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to describe how auditing of quality management systems can be improved to support value creation beyond assuring compliance to standard requirements. This thesis mainly builds on a qualitative research design and departs from quality management, value-creation and service quality. The five included papers contribute to the purpose of the thesis by bringing forward several findings: examples of how an organisation can operationalise practices for value-adding audits, factors that contribute to auditee satisfaction, challenges in the auditing context, and suggestions for future research. By viewing auditing as a service, these findings have been integrated into an augmented audit service model that addresses three critical areas for service quality; accessibility, interaction, and participation in the audit service. First, the accessibility of the audit service refers to how easy it is for an auditee to access the audit team/auditor and the audit service. Arguably, the accessibility is improved by adding functional experts to the audit team, being more knowledgeable about the organisation audited, and by shortening the time from audit to delivery of a target group-oriented audit report. Second, the interaction between the auditor and auditee can be improved by utilising easy and correct terminology and language, having an improvement attitude (such as focusing on process improvements), and being adaptable to the context of the quality management system. Third, by spending more time in the preparation phase of the audit, and by introducing an audit sponsor for each individual audit, closer dialogue with management is established, which enables auditees to improve their participation in the audit. This improved participation from auditees also enables auditors to better align their auditing to strategic plans and risks, thus abandoning the cyclical audit programme in favour of a more value-adding audit programme. By addressing all three areas – accessibility, interaction and participation – the audit service can be augmented to support value creation beyond assuring compliance to standard requirements