Total Quality Management and Six Sigma

In order to survive in a modern and competitive environment, organizations need to carefully organize their activities regarding quality management. TQM and six sigma are the approaches that have been successful in solving intricate quality problems in products and services. This volume can help those who are interested in the quality management field to understand core ideas along with contemporary efforts done in the field and authored as case studies in this volume. This volume may be useful to students, academics and practitioners across diversified disciplines

Review of environmental training practices in selected businesses in Durban.

Master of Science in Environmental Science. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2015.Environmental management has moved from a policy concept to a proactive strategy defining business responsiveness to stakeholder and market-related pressures for more environmentally sustainable business practices. Paradoxically, the financial benefits accrued to businesses at the often externalised expense of environmental goods and services, is the very advantage that best positions it to respond to the environmental crisis. The importance of a systematic and proactive environmental response from the business community is compelled by the fact that environmental impacts are predominantly caused by errant pollutant and non-compliant business activities which is increasingly regulated through South African environmental legislation. The business response through corporate sustainability and environmental management is considered a sweeping change to business as usual. Increasing environmental regulations make the adoption of environmental management systems such as ISO 14001 more commonplace. In adapting to these changes in the workplace, it makes environmental training and awareness of employees a material avenue of investigation which further directs the aim of this study. In applying the ISO 14001 certification criterion, through a purposive and nonprobable sampling technique, twenty-four (24) Durban businesses have participated in this study. Similarly, in addition, fifteen (15) employees undergoing environmental training along with five (5) other role-players and stakeholders that relevantly bear on environmental training practices participated in this research, which was conducted through the use of survey questionnaires. The extent of adoption of environmental training and its effective reach across company structures has been assessed against seven (7) developed environmental training principles of this study. The selected businesses and other respondents in Durban show keen awareness, attitudes and perceptions regarding environmental training. Environmental training is a widely practiced activity across all the businesses sampled with topic coverage focussed predominantly on waste management, hazardous chemicals, and environmental auditing. The environmental training activities are largely combined with other Safety and Health priorities. Whilst this has no perceived negative impact on the content of environmental training, there is an indication that environmental training budget allocations are not effectively prioritised in combination with other training activities. The implementation of training across the company tiers shows executive levels in need of greater exposure to this activity. While the respondents predominantly showed limited satisfaction with environmental training received, various areas of improvement became clear such as greater management commitment, greater institutional assistance for clarity of training standards, course offerings and inter-industry collaboration in environmental training

Proceedings of the 11th Toulon-Verona International Conference on Quality in Services

The Toulon-Verona Conference was founded in 1998 by prof. Claudio Baccarani of the University of Verona, Italy, and prof. Michel Weill of the University of Toulon, France. It has been organized each year in a different place in Europe in cooperation with a host university (Toulon 1998, Verona 1999, Derby 2000, Mons 2001, Lisbon 2002, Oviedo 2003, Toulon 2004, Palermo 2005, Paisley 2006, Thessaloniki 2007, Florence, 2008). Originally focusing on higher education institutions, the research themes have over the years been extended to the health sector, local government, tourism, logistics, banking services. Around a hundred delegates from about twenty different countries participate each year and nearly one thousand research papers have been published over the last ten years, making of the conference one of the major events in the field of quality in services

Management: A bibliography for NASA managers

This bibliography lists 706 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in 1984. Entries, which include abstracts, are arranged in the following categories: human factors and personnel issues; management theory and techniques; industrial management and manufacturing; robotics and expert systems; computers and information management; research and development; economics, costs, and markets; logistics and operations management; reliability and quality control; and legality, legislation, and policy. Subject, personal author, corporate source, contract number, report number, and accession number indexes are included

Regulating sustainable public procurement in Turkey in the context of the European Union membership

This thesis examines the regulation of sustainable public procurement in the Republic of Turkey in the context of Turkey’s membership negotiations with the European Union. Sustainable public procurement is the procurement whereby contracting authorities take account of all three pillars of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental) when procuring goods, services or works. The thesis aims to clarify whether and to what extent sustainable development concerns can be taken into account under the Public Procurement Act numbered 4734, which is the main legal framework of public procurement in Turkey. Furthermore, it aims to identify possible options for improving sustainable development-oriented public procurement regulation in Turkey. The thesis essentially uses black letter and comparative legal research methods in order to achieve its objectives. This thesis argues that the correlation between public procurement and sustainable development is strong in the EU, whereas such a correlation shows a weak profile in Turkey. In that regard, this thesis proposes the rules that need to be improved for establishing a sustainable public procurement system in Turkey, taking into account the local dynamics of the Turkish public procurement system, and in the context of the membership negotiations with the EU. This thesis argues that the existence of a clear mandate for sustainability concerns, putting forward a strong political backing, establishing a coherent institutional framework and laying down a consistent and clear legal framework and an effective enforcement/remedy system are the essential peripheral conditions for promoting sustainable public procurement in Turkey. [CD-ROM accompanying print thesis contains text in PDF form.

Regulating sustainable public procurement in Turkey in the context of the European Union membership

This thesis examines the regulation of sustainable public procurement in the Republic of Turkey in the context of Turkey’s membership negotiations with the European Union. Sustainable public procurement is the procurement whereby contracting authorities take account of all three pillars of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental) when procuring goods, services or works. The thesis aims to clarify whether and to what extent sustainable development concerns can be taken into account under the Public Procurement Act numbered 4734, which is the main legal framework of public procurement in Turkey. Furthermore, it aims to identify possible options for improving sustainable development-oriented public procurement regulation in Turkey. The thesis essentially uses black letter and comparative legal research methods in order to achieve its objectives. This thesis argues that the correlation between public procurement and sustainable development is strong in the EU, whereas such a correlation shows a weak profile in Turkey. In that regard, this thesis proposes the rules that need to be improved for establishing a sustainable public procurement system in Turkey, taking into account the local dynamics of the Turkish public procurement system, and in the context of the membership negotiations with the EU. This thesis argues that the existence of a clear mandate for sustainability concerns, putting forward a strong political backing, establishing a coherent institutional framework and laying down a consistent and clear legal framework and an effective enforcement/remedy system are the essential peripheral conditions for promoting sustainable public procurement in Turkey. [CD-ROM accompanying print thesis contains text in PDF form.

Proceedings / 6th International Symposium of Industrial Engineering - SIE 2015, 24th-25th September, 2015, Belgrade

editors Vesna Spasojević-Brkić, Mirjana Misita, Dragan D. Milanovi

Proceedings / 6th International Symposium of Industrial Engineering - SIE 2015, 24th-25th September, 2015, Belgrade

editors Vesna Spasojević-Brkić, Mirjana Misita, Dragan D. Milanovi