Sustainable Competitiveness Through Quality Transformation: A Longitudinal Analysis Of Quality Award Winners And A Proposed Framework

Quality management is a dynamic philosophy that underlines the organisational adaptation and proactive transformation that enables firms to reap real benefits from market opportunities. The faster the market changes, the quicker the transformation that is required for sustaining the firm's internal capabilities and its external competitiveness. Under a competitive pressure, a firm will need to learn faster and lead in best practice for operational excellence and continuously finding ways to shield its advantage from imitation. In the search for determinants for sustainability, this article analyses best practices adopted by quality award-winning organisations and synthesises a collection of critical factors that could assist organisations in improving their performance. From a longitudinal learning on how these leading organisations led themselves into a new sustaining paradigm, the article makes explicit the factors that were considered of paramount importance to sustainability. These success factors become a basis for others to leapfrog ahead into a new performance orbit. A proposed model for sustaining competitiveness has been developed from the creative learning of best practices of leading organisations. This proposed framework presents companies with an opportunity to emulate successful implementation of TQ-based initiatives, and to embed these pioneering concepts, particularly in the context of emerging countries

Knowledge and best practice management through benchmarking: A global survey

Developing best practice through benchmarking features as a critical activity in the business world as it is a vital approach for sharing and transferring knowledge.Companies across the globe have embraced these concepts but have done so with a varied level of success.Some have managed to create huge market place advantages whilst others have fared less favourably.The purpose of this research is to establish the level of benchmarking activity and application globally.The information gathered included both the hard and soft issues associated with benchmarking and following analysis,attempted to evaluate the level of benchmarking maturity reached across different industry fields and size of operation.This global survey helps understand what leads to effective benchmarking and development of best practices

Testing the criticality of HR-TQM factors in the Malaysian higher education context.

The aim of this paper is to provide evidence on the degree of criticality and reliability tests for human resource (HR) related critical success factors (CSFs) in TQM implementation. This involves identifying and defining the HR-related CSFs from an exhaustive source of literature reviews on quality initiatives. In higher education (HE) contexts, the CSFs in TQM programmes emphasise more management commitment, HR management and quality working attitudes for customer satisfaction. Therefore, the ‘soft’ or HR aspects in the literature review stand as the fundamental issue of concern for organizational management in quality planning and creating a quality working climate to ensure successful expected performance. Using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), the HR-related CSFs that have high mean scores and reliability coefficients, are teamwork spirit, competent staff, customer-focus orientation and visionary leadership. Other factors have reasonably high scores and are recommended to be included in similar research in contexts other than simply the HE context

HRM issues in quality initiatives for Malaysian universities

The aim of this paper is to provide evidence on the importance of human resource (HR) related factors in total quality management (TQM) implementation. This involves identifying and defining HR-related critical success factors (CSFs) from an exhaustive source of literature reviews on quality initiatives. The ‘soft’ or HR-related CSFs in the literature review stand as the fundamental issue in building a theoretical framework. Non-scheduled-structured interviews were conducted on seven Malaysian universities involved in IS09000 certification processes. Results from the qualitative survey suggest the importance of effective communication, visionary leadership, congruent objectives and recognition and motivation as the four most critical HR factors in TQM implementation in the HE context. Practically, quality HRM as suggested in this study is not only the listing of human resource management (HRM) factors, but also to recommend that H-R-related CSFs are the crucial factors that must go right to ensure successful quality initiatives. Quality HRM demands that the management of an organisation consider the factors required to produce excellent performance. The ‘soft’ aspect is always suggested theoretically to be important to ensure successful TQM implementation. The findings on HR-related CSFs put forward in this research serve as building blocks for the development of a comprehensive conceptual theory in TQM. This study suggests and validates those HR-related CSFs that play crucial roles in successful quality initiatives

Business process reengineering: Critical success factors in higher education

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine the critical success factors of business process reengineering (BPR) in higher education (HE).Design/methodolog/approach – Empirical case studies collected from three private higher education institutions in Malaysia, which have embarked on BPR successfully.Findings– Seven factors were found to be critical to BPR implementation success.The factors are teamwork and quality culture, quality management system and satisfactory rewards, effective change management, less bureaucratic and participative, information technology/information system, effective project management and adequate financial resources.Research limitations/implications – The paper provides a framework for future research to explore organisational development in making BPR happen successfully. Originality/value – This research contributes to studies of BPR in HE context, by considering the soft issues in its implementation

A Review on Sensor Node Placement Techniques in Wireless Sensor Networks

One way to provide Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) with maximum coverage, maximum connectivity, minimum deployment cost and minimum energy consumption is through an effective planning mechanism in arranging an optimum number of sensor nodes. Proper planning will provide a cost-effective deployment by having optimal placements for the sensor nodes. Sensor node placement schemes are needed to accommodate the balance of coverage and energy consumption since closer sensor nodes not only reduces the energy consumption but will result in the network coverage becoming smaller. This paper critically reviews the research and development work done in sensor node placement. Based on the review, the design objectives that need to be considered are identified. Most of the work reviewed focused on two or three design objectives

Human Emotion Detection via Brain Waves Study by Using Electroencephalogram (EEG)

Human emotion is very difficult to determine just by looking at the face and also the behavior of a person. This research was conducted to detect or identify human emotion via the study of brain waves. In addition, the research aims to develop computer software that can detect human emotions quickly and easily. This study aims at EEG signals of relationship and human emotions. The main objective of this recognition is to develop "mind-implementation of Robots". While the research methodology is divided into four; (i) both visibility and EEG data were used to extract the date at the same time from the respondent, (ii) the process of complete data record includes the capture of images using the camera and EEG, (iii) pre-processing, classification and feature extraction is done at the same time, (iv) the features extracted is classified using artificial intelligence techniques to emotional faces. Researchers expect the following results; (i) studies brain waves for the purpose of emotions, (ii) the study of human emotion with facial emotions and to relate the brain waves, (iii). In conclusion, this study is very useful for doctors in hospitals and police departments for criminal investigation. As a result of this study, it also helps to develop a software package

Advanced Manufacturing of an Aircraft Component (Fish-Head): A Technology Review on the Fabrication

The Airbus fish-head is machined using a 5-axis Computerized Numerical Control (CNC) milling machine, which consists of many complex shapes that are built into it. A conventional CNC machining requires tremendous effort in programming and investment due to the increasing in features complexity of the fish-head to be machined. An alternative method through advanced manufacturing processes namely vacuum casting, Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) and three dimensional printing (3DP) is reviewed. The fish-head prototypes are manufactured through the concept of reverse engineering and rapid prototyping. The fish-head master pattern is digitized using a three dimensional laser scanner and edited using a surface modelling software to generate the Standard Triangulation Language (STL), which is common to most rapid prototyping (RP) machines. The fish-head prototypes are fabricated through FDM and 3DP using the STL data files, whereas the master pattern is used to fabricated silicone mould for vacuum casting. The quality of the prototypes is accessed in terms of dimensional accuracy and time to produce a single prototype. The dimensional accuracy is analysed using coordinate measuring machine (CMM). The dimensional accuracy error is found to be less than 5%. However, all prototypes require secondary surface treatment processing in order to achieve the desired surface roughness quality. All three prototypes can be manufactured less than 24 hours per prototype. The advanced manufacturing processes allows parts to be fabricated similar to parts manufactured through CNC but at a lower cost and faster