Creation of Defects Catalogue for Nonconforming Product Identification in the Foundry Organization

The paper deals with system of casting defects classification problematics and creation of defects catalogue in the foundry organization. There is described the value of correct defects classification and identification in the literature review and also some tools for defects classification are mentioned. Existing defects classifications and catalogues are often unusable for particular production processes and casting technology. Many foundries therefore create their own defects catalogues. The sample of created catalogue, which classifies and describes defects occuring in the aluminium foundry organization and its benefits are presented in the paper. The created catalogue primarily serves as a visual support for production operators and quality control processes

Corporate social responsibility standards: is it possible to meet diverse customer requirements?

The purpose of the study is to review the internationally recognised CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) standards, codes of conduct (cross-industry and industry-specific used in electronics, automotive and steel industry) and selected codes and supplier evaluation approaches applied by individual customer organisations. It also aims to identify problems related to CSR compliance demonstration from the view of supplier organization supplying its products for more industry sectors. Literature review, interview with the selected large manufacturing organisation and synthesis of information were conducted to achieve the purpose of the study. The difficulties for supplier organisations during CSR verifications and audits conducted by customers or third parties according to a variety of standards are discussed in the paper. It often results from different structure, terminology and content of the CSR standards and codes. One of the possible solutions is to create and maintain the intelligent database of CSR requirements of customer organisations. There is a lack of studies dealing with the existence of various CSR standards and codes and its impact on suppliers supplying their products to more industry sectors. The paper contributes to fill the knowledge gap and extend the existing literature

UTILIZATION OF STATISTICAL METHODS WITHIN THE EUROPEAN PERFORMANCE SATISFACTION INDEX (EPSI) RATING METHODOLOGY

The paper deals with the customer satisfaction quantification and factors influencing customer satisfaction. It describes the EPSI Rating methodology, the EPSI causal model and statistical methods, which can be used for estimation of components and magnitude of the connections between components in the EPSI model. This methodology allows to quantify customer satisfaction and to estimate the impact magnitude of factors influencing it. The results of customer satisfaction measurement realized in the service organization according to EPSI Rating methodology are presented in the paper

Application of the EFQM Model in the Education Institution for Driving Improvement of Processes towards Sustainability

Effective process management is a basic prerequisite for increasing the quality and performance of educational organizations. The aim of the paper is to point out the potential for the application of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Model 2020 to improve and perfect the processes in a Slovakian vocational school towards sustainability. We used the latest version of the EFQM Model and applied the questionnaire method to conduct a self-assessment. A study of the documentation was also carried out to get more insight into the processes of the school. The application of the EFQM Model 2020 pointed out weaknesses in areas such as those titled Organizational Culture, Driving Performance & Transformation, and Stakeholder Perceptions—namely, the perceptions of employees and partners. Improvements were primarily recommended in the fields of culture management to support changes, motivational processes to support creativity and innovation, human resource planning processes, employee training and development, performance indicators and performance management, and employees’ and partners’ perception measurement to enhance sustainable value for the students and key stakeholders. The paper contributes to the body of knowledge in the field of quality and performance management of Vocational Education and Training (VET) providers

Forecasting the Future Excellence: 30 Years of Evaluating Service Organizations in Slovakia

The aim of this paper is to model and interpret the results obtained from the assessment of the Level of Excellence of Slovak service organizations using the criteria of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model. The Gompertz logistic function is effectively employed to fit the incremental improvement and predict the values of future Levels of Excellence. The EFQM model is usually used to improve organizational development and performance. The study focuses on the problem of the slow growth or even stagnation of Slovak service organizations towards Excellence. The questionnaire method was used to assess the Level of Excellence of the selected organizations, and the approach of measuring efficiency as a ratio of results and enablers was used to evaluate the organization’s ability to transform inputs into outputs. Data were collected from 30 service organizations over a period of 20 years. The first finding of the study is the demonstration of the applicability of the Gompertz function to model the evolution of the Level of Excellence. The accuracy of the model is very high, and this predisposes this function to be used to forecast the scores of organizations over time. Examining efficiency yielded a second finding, that organizations were failing to capitalize on the effort put into translating it into results. After the first few years of growth, efficiency stagnates and then even declines. This suggests that the application of the original EFQM excellence model has reached the end of its ability to improve the effectiveness of organizations as a whole. Individual firms may have been growing or declining, but the average service score across the country had no longer the capacity to improve anymore

Forecasting the Future Excellence: 30 Years of Evaluating Service Organizations in Slovakia

The aim of this paper is to model and interpret the results obtained from the assessment of the Level of Excellence of Slovak service organizations using the criteria of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model. The Gompertz logistic function is effectively employed to fit the incremental improvement and predict the values of future Levels of Excellence. The EFQM model is usually used to improve organizational development and performance. The study focuses on the problem of the slow growth or even stagnation of Slovak service organizations towards Excellence. The questionnaire method was used to assess the Level of Excellence of the selected organizations, and the approach of measuring efficiency as a ratio of results and enablers was used to evaluate the organization’s ability to transform inputs into outputs. Data were collected from 30 service organizations over a period of 20 years. The first finding of the study is the demonstration of the applicability of the Gompertz function to model the evolution of the Level of Excellence. The accuracy of the model is very high, and this predisposes this function to be used to forecast the scores of organizations over time. Examining efficiency yielded a second finding, that organizations were failing to capitalize on the effort put into translating it into results. After the first few years of growth, efficiency stagnates and then even declines. This suggests that the application of the original EFQM excellence model has reached the end of its ability to improve the effectiveness of organizations as a whole. Individual firms may have been growing or declining, but the average service score across the country had no longer the capacity to improve anymore

Analysis of Fault Conditions in the Production of Prestressed Concrete Sleepers

Industries demand that their products are high quality with the least number of defects due to the rapid improvement in manufacturing technology. Quality is a critical criterion for evaluation in manufacturing firms. The production of a final product that can meet customer requirements is essential in a sustainable supply chain system to reduce costs, increase productivity and provide high-quality products. The aim of the study is to identify the root cause of defects emerging in the production process of prestressed railway concrete sleepers. Ishikawa diagram and Pareto analysis were used to identify the root cause. The results showed that the cause of the faulty concrete sleeper is the breaking of the bolts, which are supplied by the external provider. Since the supplier refused to accept the complaint, chemical analysis and measuring of hardness and microhardness of bolts were realized. It showed that the hardness of the bolts does not achieve the values, which should be achieved after the declared heat-treatment. As a corrective action, the input control of bolts hardness was proposed as well as establishing the team cooperating with the supplier to improve the heat treatment process, which will be the objective of further study