Total Quality Management practices and role stressors in Iranian manufacturing SMEs

Management and staff are two important members and lifeblood of an organization or commercial enterprise. The organization‟s development and performance depends deeply on the relationship between management and staff, and between staff, and their sense of well-being, morale and commitment. In this regard, the Total Quality Management (TQM) has been showed to be a helpful management tool for improving the process of the management. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) comprise 90 percent of all enterprises in Iran. Thus they have a significant role in the development of the country. SMEs need to exploit management systems, especially quality systems such as total quality management (TQM) in their operations. Numerous studies have been done by other researchers on the quality revolution and implemented various TQM programs such as ISO 9000 series as a way to improve quality. However, there have been no reports of research on significant topic which affect the management-staff, and staff-staff relationships, namely, the impact of TQM on role stressors (role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload) variables. This study examines the multidimensional relationships between eight TQM practices and role stressors. The eight TQM practices are namely, Leadership, customer focus, process management, strategic planning, human resource focus, information analysis, employee management & involvement, and supplier management. The research model of this study is built from a widespread review of the literature, in particular, TQM and role stressors literature

Optimizing an integrated vendor-managed inventory system for a single-vendor two-buyer supply chain with determining weighting factor for vendor׳s ordering cost

This paper considers a two-echelon supply chain model with a single vendor and two buyers in which the vendor supplies the same item to both buyers at a finite production rate. The purpose of this study is twofold. First, mathematical models are developed for the integrated vendor-managed inventory (VMI) policy as well as the traditional retailer-managed inventory (RMI) system and solution algorithms are presented to determine the optimal lot size and total inventory cost of the supply chain. Then, the effect of key parameters including buyer[U+05F3]s demand, buyer[U+05F3]s transportation cost, vendor[U+05F3]s ordering cost, and vendor[U+05F3]s holding cost on lot size variation is studied in each policy. A weighting factor is also determined for the vendor[U+05F3]s ordering cost which is used to compare the two policies. Detailed numerical experiments are provided to illustrate efficacy of the proposed approach. Results indicate that greater reduction in total cost of supply chain can be achieved by using VMI and provide a comprehensive insight into selection of inventory policies to improve commercial business and supply chain performance

A note on the joint economic lot size model with stochastic demand and variable lead time

This paper considers the problem of choosing optimal production policy in an integrated production-inventory system comprising a single manufacturer and a single buyer. Two production scenarios are compared, namely continuous and lot-for-lot production policies, using a mathematical modelling approach and the expected total joint cost is considered as the performance measure. In addition, the lost opportunity cost due to production downtime in the lot-for-lot policy, including the cost of unemployment of human resources and stoppage of the production line, is incorporated into the model. Numerical experiment and sensitivity analysis in terms of setup and lost opportunity costs are provided to illustrate the theory and the percentage of difference in the expected total cost of the two policies is analysed. The presented approach helps managers to make the right decisions on the optimal production policy under different conditions, especially where expert and technical human resources and/or expensive production equipments are utilised

Safety and efficacy of RCP recombinant spike protein covid-19 vaccine compared to Sinopharm BBIBP: A phase III, non-inferiority trial

Background: We conducted a phase III, non-inferiority trial comparing safety and efficacy of RCP recombinant spike protein Covid-19 vaccine to BBIBP (Sinopharm). Methods: Adult Iranian population received RCP or BBIBP in a randomized, double blind and an additional non-randomized open labeled trial arms. Eligible participants signed a written informed consent and received two intramuscular injections three weeks apart. In the randomized arm, an intranasal dose of vaccine or adjuvant-only preparation were given to the RCP and BBIBP recipients at day 51 respectively. Participants were actively followed for up to 4 months for safety and efficacy outcomes. Primary outcome was PCR + symptomatic Covid-19 disease two weeks after the second dose. The non-inferiority margin was 10% of reported BBIBP vaccine efficacy (HR = 1.36). Results: We recruited 23,110 participants (7224 in the randomized and 15,886 in the non-randomized arm). We observed 604 primary outcome events during 4 months of active follow-up including 121 and 133 in the randomized and 157 and 193 cases in the non-randomized arms among recipients of RCP and BBIBP respectively. Adjusted hazard ratios for the primary outcome in those receiving RCP compared with BBIBP interval were 0.91 (0.71–1.16) and 0.62 (0.49–0.77) in the randomized and non-randomized arms respectively. The upper boundary of 99.1% confidence interval of HR = 0.91 (0.67–1.22) remained below the margin of non-inferiority in the randomized arm after observing the early stopping rules using O'Brien Fleming method. Conclusion: Our study showed that the RCP efficacy is non-inferior and its safety profile is comparable to the BBIBP