Organisational performance improvement through quality award process participation

Purpose – The purpose of the study is to describe the activities initiated based on participation in a quality award process and with the intention to improve performance. Design/methodology/approach – This study presents a case study of three organisations that have participated in the Swedish Quality Award process. The cases were selected in order to clarify how this award process could be used to improve organisational performance. Findings – Several examples of activities on how to improve organisational performance are provided. Specifically, the areas of customer orientation, process orientation, continuous improvement, committed leadership and participation by everyone have been improved due to the initiated activities. Furthermore, the studied organisations have been successful in their development and communication of visions, and in their empowerment of employees. Research limitations/implications – An interesting area of further research would be to compare different methodologies for performance improvement with one another. Practical implications – Findings from the case studies, and of importance for organisations applying for quality awards, indicate that, if the goal is to get lasting results, it is not sufficient to participate in a quality award process only once. Instead one should participate in the process several times, with enough time in between the applications in order to complete as many as possible of the improvement projects resulting from the evaluations. Originality/value – It is the authors’ intention that the guidelines presented in the paper might be helpful for organisations considering a participation in a quality award process

Quality and legal aspects in public care procurement

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the applicability of care quality concepts as contract award criteria for public procurement of health and social care, using the case of Sweden. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a literature review, European and Swedish legal texts, government regulations as well as 26 Swedish court review cases concerning care procurement have been analysed. Findings – Methods used for assessing care quality are seldom useful for predicting the quality to be delivered by a potential contractor. Legal principles of transparency and equal treatment of tenderers make it necessary to apply strict requirements for verification. Research limitations/implications – Results refer primarily to a Swedish context but could be applicable throughout the EU. Further studies of relations between award criteria and public/private collaborative practices for improving care quality during contractual periods are desirable. Practical implications – Local and regional procurement officials should benefit from a better understanding of how quality criteria should be designed and applied to the award procedures for care contracts. Care providers in the private sector would also be able to develop their quality strategies and present their abilities more efficiently when tendering for public contracts. Social implications – Issues of quality of health and social care are of obvious importance for social sustainability. Public awareness of care quality problems is evident and often a cause of media concern. Originality/value – This investigation pinpoints the difference between traditional care quality thinking and the legal principles underlying contract award in public procurement of care services

Exploring Quality Challenges and the Validity of Excellence Models

\ua9 2016, \ua9 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore important quality-related challenges facing organizations, and investigate how current excellence models incorporate these challenges. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on a Delphi study of Swedish organizations. Forty-nine challenges were generated and ranked according to importance and the ten top-ranked challenges were compared to the principles of four excellence models. Findings: The excellence models still seem to be relevant since their content matches many of the identified challenges. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and the Swedish Institute for Quality models were found to have the most comprehensive coverage, while the International Organization for Standardization model had limited coverage. Research limitations/implications: Three areas for further research were identified: first, how quality management (QM) can evolve in different contexts that have varying needs in terms of adaptive and explorative capabilities; second, the interfaces of QM and sustainability, and ways to understand how customers and stakeholders can be active contributors to improvements; and third, the roles of the owners and board of directors regarding QM, and how to organize and distribute responsibilities of the QM work. Practical implications: There are three important challenges that future revisions of excellence models could address: first, making QM a strategic issue for company owners; second, involving customers in the improvement activities; and third, developing processes that are robust yet still easily adaptable. Originality/value: The Delphi study identified upcoming challenges in the QM area based on input from 188 quality professionals

Short-term versus long-term benefits: balanced sustainability framework and research propositions

Sustainability research has been expanding rapidly during recent decades. Such research takes various forms with the identification of mixed results. Even though there are several review articles on sustainability with valuable insights, the time dimension aspect of sustainability is totally missing in addition to lack of well-developed framework. This paper systematically reviews previous sustainability studies published in the refereed scientific journals for the past two decades to understand the evolution of sustainability issues in the business context and solutions proposed until now. The study categorizes the popular sustainability practices into short- and long-term practices based on the time effect, and link them with different forms of organizational capabilities and sustainability performance. The paper further proposes a two-dimensional sustainability framework that incorporates practices, capabilities and performance, and the balancing issues between short- and long-term sustainability. At the end, it suggests potential research directions for future research as well

Processförbättring vid tillverkning av konstruktionskeramer

This thesis is about implementing Design of Experiments in enterprises manufacturing high performance ceramics. The manufacturing of ceramics is a complex process which involves problems with variation in product properties and in process performance. Every system in operation generates information that can be used to improve it. To be able to improve, measurements must be made and recorded data must be transformed into information. Design of Experiments is about performing tests using a minimum of resources to receive a maximum of information about a process or a system. Today most of the development of processes and products is done supported by expensive, and often misleading, one-factor-at-a-time experiments. To examine the possibilities of facilitating implementation of Design of Experiments, case-studies of two Swedish manufacturers of high performance ceramics were carried out. A model of implementing Design of Experiments is presented based on theory and the case-studies. The proposed model consists of three major phases: 1.Planning and education. 2.Pilot project with new ways of working. 3.Assessment, maintenance and improvement. Design of Experiments appears to be a well suited technique for structuring the development of manufacturing high performance ceramics. The implementation of Design of Experiments could be facilitated by long-term planning for process improvement. To make assessment and evaluation possible, process performance should be documented not only after but also before an implementation takes place. Both knowledge about statistics and knowledge about the studied processes should be present in the teams carrying out experiments.Godkänd; 1998; 20070404 (ysko)</p

Process management in small organisations : experiences of a Swedish study

Godkänd; 2001; 20080917 (ysko

Process management and sustainable development in a quality perspective : implementation and measurement related to small and medium sized enterprises

This thesis aims at contributing to increased knowledge regarding sustainable competitive performance of small and medium sized enterprises in harmony with nature and society. The overall purpose has been specified in the following three parts: to explore implementation of statistically designed experiments, to describe experiences of introducing process management, and to contribute to the development of a conceptual framework for integration of business excellence and sustainable development, all with a focus on small and medium sized enterprises. During the last few decades the interest and industrial use of systems, tools and methodologies related to quality has grown considerably. Some of these were originally developed with the large company in mind, but today many small and medium sized organisations also try to implement them. However, management strategies developed for large organisations do not generally translate well into small and medium sized organisations. The research presented in this thesis has been divided into three research projects. An initial longitudinal study of two case companies within the industry of high performance ceramics resulted in a three step model for implementing statistical techniques, especially design of experiments. The approach adopted for the second project was a quantitative-qualitative research design divided into three parts: a mail survey of 1,500 enterprises, followed by telephone interviews with representatives of 62 of these enterprises, and finally case studies of seven selected firms. The results indicate that the proportion of small and medium sized enterprises in Sweden that has introduced process management is in the region of 10 percent of the total population. The findings were that, in general, the studied companies had not changed directly from a functional orientated organisation to a process orientated organisation. Instead many were still in, or had recently passed through, an intermediate state characterised by a team and project based organisation where focus was shifted towards internal efficiency and shorter lead times. The transitions described have been summarized schematically in a model with three different stages: starting with functions, continuing via teams and projects, and ending with processes. As a result of the third research project, suggestions are presented regarding how the requirements of critical global processes could be translated to areas of organisational concern. A conceptual business excellence model, including measurements of sustainable development, has been developed. The triple bottom line of economy, environment and ethics (3E) are proposed as main dimensions for measuring sustainable organisational performance.Godkänd; 2002; 20061110 (haneit

Organisational sustainability management through minimised business excellence models

Godkänd; 2005; 20070531 (ysko

Evaluating Quality of Higher Education by Assessing its Output : The Swedish Example

Godkänd; 2013; 20130910 (bjarne