Comment

To survive in the competitive market, most organizations of today work with quality improvement of some kind in their business. Many organizations use concepts like Six Sigma and Lean, either applied as the structure for the entire improvement work, or as inspiration where elements of the concepts are used in the business development. Within Lean and Lean Product Development (LPD) literature, Japanese terms are frequently used, something that companies have applied to different extents. In Six Sigma and Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) abbreviations are equally common. Furthermore, in non-English speaking countries the frequent use of English terms sometimes obstructs the understanding of the constructs. Altogether, independent of which quality improvement concept an organization chooses to work with, the possibilities of using advanced terminology in some form are numerous. The present study investigates possible consequences of using advanced terminology of any kind in quality management, using experience and examples from large Swedish organizations. The paper thoroughly discusses advantages and disadvantages with usage of specialist language, indicating both increased benchmarking opportunities that come with a common use of terms between companies and the risk that too advanced denominations leads to misunderstandings within an organization. Conclusively, the paper emphasizes the importance of making a distinction between terms that are constructs used in the quality management field as a profession and at the everyday work in an organization and to make intentionally conceived choices of what terms that are used within the organization.QC 20140708</p

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

Swedish Lean Product Development Implementation

Lean Product Development is based on the same philosophy as Lean, applied in a research and development environment. The concept aims to create flow, quality and resource efficiency in the product development process. This paper investigates the implementation strategies of three Swedish companies that have been working with the concept for several years. The results from this study indicates that concrete methods like visual planning are good starting points for Lean Product Development implementation, but that the real results start to show first when the organizations work with methods and principles in parallel. Also, it may not necessarily be an advantage to have an experience of Lean in production environment before starting implement LPD.QC 20130211</p

Effects of Advanced Terminology in Quality Management : A survey investigation from Swedish organizations

To survive in the competitive market, most organizations of today work with quality improvement of some kind in their business. Many organizations use concepts like Six Sigma and Lean, either applied as the structure for the entire improvement work, or as inspiration where elements of the concepts are used in the business development. Within Lean and Lean Product Development (LPD) literature, Japanese terms are frequently used, something that companies have applied to different extents. In Six Sigma and Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) abbreviations are equally common. Furthermore, in non-English speaking countries the frequent use of English terms sometimes obstructs the understanding of the constructs. Altogether, independent of which quality improvement concept an organization chooses to work with, the possibilities of using advanced terminology in some form are numerous. The present study investigates possible consequences of using advanced terminology of any kind in quality management, using experience and examples from large Swedish organizations. The paper thoroughly discusses advantages and disadvantages with usage of specialist language, indicating both increased benchmarking opportunities that come with a common use of terms between companies and the risk that too advanced denominations leads to misunderstandings within an organization. Conclusively, the paper emphasizes the importance of making a distinction between terms that are constructs used in the quality management field as a profession and at the everyday work in an organization and to make intentionally conceived choices of what terms that are used within the organization.QC 20140708</p

Applying a Systems Perspective on the Notion of the Smart City

This paper focuses on the need for a widened definition of the notion of technology within the smart city discourse, with a particular focus on the “built environment”. The first part of the paper describes how current tendencies in urban design and architecture are inclined to prioritize high tech-solutions at the expense of low-tech functionalities and omits that information and communication technology (ICT) contrasts the art of building cities as an adaptable and habitually smart technology in itself. It continues with an elaboration on the need for expanding the limits of system boundaries for a better understanding of the energy and material telecouplings that are linked to ICT solutions and account for some perils inherent in smart technologies, such as rebound effects and the difficulty of measuring the environmental impacts of ICT solutions on a city level. The second part of the paper highlights how low-tech technologies and nature-based solutions can make cities smarter, representing a new technology portfolio in national and international policies for safeguarding biodiversity and the delivery of a range of ecosystem services, promoting the necessary climate-change adaption that cities need to prioritize to confer resilience.Urban Studi