Building an agile culture of excellence to address the unstable business environments of the XXI century

The pursuit of quality and excellence drives the efforts of companies wishing to improve and gain competitive advantage. Operational excellence programs are thus used as one of the most common approaches to promote structured change, with organizations implementing them in search for consistent strategies that match their customers' requirements. However, while being undeniably successful approaches in achieving organizational improvement, truth is that engaging in operational excellence programs has also proven to not be enough to ensure the long-term success, and companies do not develop the ability to quickly adapt to the demands of quickly changing markets. Economic, social and political transformations are hitting the world, adding to a fast-technological evolution and creating deeply unstable business environments. The development of agile capabilities becomes essential for organizations to stay competitive and address the changing demands of its stakeholders. Accordingly, we believe that developing an enduring capacity to change must be considered as one of the desired outputs of the implementation of any quality and operational excellence programs. However, being agile demands transversal support from the entire organization, under the risk of finding resistance to its implementation. It is necessary to work and transform the culture of organization to allow a closer fit to the strategic choices made to face the marketplace. Our proposal is to bring together organizational culture, operational excellence and organizational agility, structuring the pursuit of adaptability in a strong social and technical framework. We present a conceptual model interrelating the three concepts and the methodology in use for identifying the elements and enablers that help acquire the necessary capabilities for an organization to become adaptable.- (undefined

Business Excellence Models: supporting the cultural perspective to operationalize excellence sustainability in manufacturing organizations

Over the past 25 years, Business Excellence Models - such as the one supporting the Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award or the Excellence Model and corresponding Awards given by the European Foundation for Quality Management - have been used in the scope of helping organizations attain performance excellence and sustain that organizational level. In the last few years, however, the engagement of manufacturing and operations firms has been declining consistently. Based on the available evidence from literature and on official figures of the engagement with Business Excellence Models, we analyze some of the possible reasons for that decline and review the main organizational challenges in sustaining excellence over time. The contribution of this paper is to raise the discussion over the role and current challenges of these Models in promoting and sustaining Excellence, and draw some conclusions on the key importance of people (both the leadership and the workforce) in making Business Excellence initiatives sustainable. With this work, we hope to clarify perspectives around these initiatives and to reinforce the importance for an excellence-oriented culture in sustaining excellence in manufacturing organizations.This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013. Furthrmore, the first author gratefully acknowledges the support of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT – “Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia”) to this project through the scholarship PD/BD/114149/2016, as well as all the support of the MIT Portugal Program and the ALGORITMI Research Centre at the University of Minho

ISO 9001 and organizational excellence models in small and medium sized enterprises: current state and comparative analysis

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to understand the current state of quality management practices in Small and Medium Enterprises. The main concepts of Quality Management and its practices in Small and Medium Enterprises were reviewed from the literature in order to understand the key practices in these organizations, and a data analysis on their use was performed. Design/methodology/approach - Analysis was performed by consulting and understanding the evolution of Organizational Excellence Models and Quality Management Systems. This research incorporates data since the beginning of the 90's from the last century and allows us to comprehend how these models and management systems have evolved and if there is any correlation between the adoption of each one of them- evaluation of interdependencies. Findings - The findings suggest that while the number of ISO 9001 certified companies has increased over the years, the number of organizations accessing Business Excellence frameworks have been decreasing. The available data suggests that Small and Medium Enterprises seem to follow these trends. It is particularly noticed that there is a considerable gap between Small and Medium Enterprises and Large Enterprises in the usage of Business Excellence frameworks. Originality/value - This article offers a global perspective of the current state in the use of ISO 9001 and Organizational Excellence Models by Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME's).INCT-EN - Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia para Excitotoxicidade e NeuroproteçãoThis work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2019

Findings from the First Global Assessment on the current state of organizational excellence

Over 20 years, global research has validated the positive relationship between implementing the best management practices found in Excellence models and improving organizational performance. However, the global panorama of the engagement of organizations with excellence at a global scale lacked a definite analysis and comprehension. At the same time, much of the research on the field of excellence has focused on the organizations that have applied to the major excellence awards such as the Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award (US) or the European Excellence Award promoted by the European Foundation for Quality Management. In face of a growing number of excellence models and awards, the objective of this research is also to gather data from a more varied population. In order to do this, the Organizational Excellence Technical Committee (QMD, ASQ) launched in 2015 the 'First Global Assessment on the Current State of Organizational Excellence'. This research intendeds to provide data on the extent to which organizations have a culture committed to excellence and have deployed best management practices common to high performing organizations. Findings provide a snapshot of the current state of excellence around the world, and allow a more comprehensive view of the strengths and opportunities for improvement by organization size, industry sector and geographical region.- (undefined

Small and medium enterprises pursuing organizational excellence: a toolkit for improvement

Purpose - This paper presents the development of a new organizational excellence tool specifically for use by small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) while implementing business excellence models. A literature review was conducted to analyse the current state of business excellence models and their content and application around the world, including the identification of key principles that drive their creation and implementation. In this paper, we present a framework that has been validated by an Expert Panel of Organizational Excellence Professionals, considering the unique characteristics of SME and their industry contexts. It is hoped that this toolkit will allow these companies to strive for organizational excellence through a framework that is better suited to their context and needs. Design/methodology/approach - An initial extensive literature review was conducted on the topics of Excellence Frameworks, Excellence Programs, Excellence Awards and the different contextual environments between LE and SME. Based on the literature review, we began by reviewing several scientific articles aimed at understanding the different contexts of LE and SME. From this point of view, and with a focus on small and medium-sized enterprises, we emphasized the themes that offered a better fit to the needs of these organizations and that, as a result, should be integrated into this framework. The Quality and Organizational Excellence Framework for Small and Medium Enterprises (QOE-SME) was built based on the weaknesses and shortcomings found in the use and implementation of SME's excellence models. The model was then validated by a group of quality experts through an online survey. This group was chosen based on criteria for reaching out to people who, in both academia and industry, have carried out significant and appropriate research in the field of organizational excellence and/or in the field of quality promotion and superior performance in SME. Findings - Organizational excellence programs have created a catalyst and frameworks for improved success and productivity within large organisations. However, small and medium-sized organizations often try to achieve the same results using these same structures. However, evidence suggests that some of these frameworks are seen as unrealistic and difficult to implement. These implementation levels and records of positive implementation of OE models in SME are still small. The question is seen by both practitioners and researchers because of the various implementation difficulties faced by SME. Such perceived difficulties contributed to the development of the QOE-SME Framework.INCT-EN - Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia para Excitotoxicidade e NeuroproteçãoThis work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020

Quality, excellence and culture in the pursuit of organizational agility

Operational excellence programs have proved to be valuable in helping companies improve their quality practices and their performance. However, after some time, these programs seem to stagnate and to be unable to keep pushing organizations forward. We believe that this problem is due to the lack of integration between excellence and agility, which we see as a natural goal for organizations that wish to promote a true culture of excellence in face of highly unstable business environments. This paper presents our research approach to the problem, and early results from investigating the influence of a culture of excellence in promoting an enduring capacity to change.- The Authors acknowledge the support of Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (Portugal) to this project through grant PD/BD/114149/2016

Numerical models for seismic analysis of arch dams

This paper presents a study on the seismic behaviour of large arch dams under strong earthquakes. The numerical simulations are carried out using DamDySSA, a 3D finite element program developed for dynamic analysis of concrete dams, which includes calculation modules for linear seismic analysis and for non-linear seismic analysis, considering the effects of joint movements and tensile and compressive damage in concrete. The case studies are the 132 m-high Cabril dam, in Portugal, and the 170 m high Cahora Bassa dam, in Mozambique. The seismic response results computed using linear and non-linear models are compared, in order to investigate the influence of the joint movements on the structural response, and to analyse the resulting concrete damage under a strong seismic load. Overall, there was a release of arch stresses in the upper part of both dams, due to the opening of the vertical joints, and consequently an increase of vertical stresses along the main cantilevers, causing concrete tensile failure. Furthermore, this study emphasized the potential of the developed numerical methods and thus of DamDySSA for predicting the non-linear seismic behaviour of arch dams.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio