Third-party quality management audits for automotive component manufacturing: Perceptions and insights into a necessary yet debatable practice

Third-party quality audits have been a continued practice within the manufacturing community since release of the ISO 9000 standard in 1987. In recent times, many within the manufacturing industry are questioning the value of the audit process. (Sayle, 1995, Sayle 1999, Douglas, 2000, Gordon, 2000, Dalgleish 2006) Consequently, a need exists to better understand the impacts and perceptions of the third-party auditing process. This research used a grounded theory approach to explore the following question: How do management representatives perceive the third-party audit process? Collection of data consisted of 25 in-depth interviews taken from management representatives within the automotive industry. Job titles of subjects included Quality Director, Quality Manager, and Quality Engineer. Results of the research include (a) the third-party audit process is adequate to assess an organization’s quality management system against the ISO/TS16949 standard, (b) the third-party audit process fails to add tangible value for the organization, (c) the relationship between the auditor (registrar) and auditee (organization) represents a significant conflict of interest, (d) the continued audit cycle is redundant and offers diminishing value, and (e) mature organizations fail to benefit from the third-party audit process. Results substantiate the views offered by Sayle (1995 & 1999), Douglas (2000), Gordon (2001), Karapetrovic and Willborn (2002), Beckmerhagen, Berg, Karapetrovic, and Willborn (2004), and Dalgleish (2006). Furthermore, a final model is offered to depict the fundamental changes recommended to improve the audit process. Suggestions for further research include (a) conducting a quantitative study to demonstrate the financial impact of the third-party audit process; (b) determining if an vii organization’s quality and customer performance improves over time after becoming ISO/TS certified; (c) conducting a quantitative study of management representatives within the automotive community to determine the percentage that support third-party audit process; (d) completing a case study on a successful, profitable non-ISO-certified manufacturing organization; (e) conducting a Delphi study on the Kluse Utopian Third-Party Audit Model; and (f) investigating alternatives to the audit process as a method to determine QMS compliance and effectiveness. Additionally a future researcher may seek to understand how factors such as human resources practices, organizational climate and knowledge management affect an organizations quality-related performance

Image use in field guides and identification keys: review and recommendations

We review image use in field guides and keys, and formulate a set of best practices for image use. The review covers the full range of guides, from those that consist only of species descriptions, to lavishly illustrated technical guides

Plant size, latitude, and phylogeny explain within-population variability in herbivory

Interactions between plants and herbivores are central in most ecosystems, but their strength is highly variable. The amount of variability within a system is thought to influence most aspects of plant-herbivore biology, from ecological stability to plant defense evolution. Our understanding of what influences variability, however, is limited by sparse data. We collected standardized surveys of herbivory for 503 plant species at 790 sites across 116° of latitude. With these data, we show that within-population variability in herbivory increases with latitude, decreases with plant size, and is phylogenetically structured. Differences in the magnitude of variability are thus central to how plant-herbivore biology varies across macroscale gradients. We argue that increased focus on interaction variability will advance understanding of patterns of life on Earth