Improvement to quality function deployment methodology : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Statistics at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Content removed from thesis due to copyright restrictions: Iqbal, Z., Grigg, N. P., Govindaraju, K., & Campbell-Allen, N. M. (2016). A distance-based methodology for increased extraction of information from the roof matrices in QFD studies. International Journal of Production Research, 54(11), 3277-3293. doi:10.1080/00207543.2015.1094585 Iqbal, Z., Grigg, N. P., & Govindaraju. (2017). Performing competitive analysis in QFD studies using multipole moments and bootstrap sampling. Quality Engineering, 29(2), 311-321. doi:10.1080/08982112.2016.1181181 Iqbal, Z., Grigg, N. P., Govindaraju, K., & Campbell-Allen, N. (2014). Statistical comparison of final weight scores in quality function deployment (QFD) studies. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 31(2), 184-204. doi:10.1108/IJQRM-06-2013-0092 Iqbal, Z., Grigg, N. P., Govindaraju, K., & Campbell-Allen, N. M. (2015). Enhancing prioritisation of technical attributes in quality function deployment, 64(3), 398-415. doi.10.1108/IJPPM-10-2014-0156Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a quality improvement methodology which translates true customer requirements into technical solutions. The major purposes in implementing QFD are enhancing quality, decreasing production cycle time, and lowering costs. QFD methodology utilises a system of matrix like structures known as the House of Quality (HOQ) which work collectively to determine final weightings of the technical characteristics. The derivation of final weights of the technical characteristics and their prioritisation is the final key in QFD process. One of the main theoretical difficulties in employing QFD is that it deals with multidimensional categorical (ordinal) data variables. The rating data of these categorical variables varies from person to person and case study to case study. In prioritising the technical characteristics, QFD practitioners often fail to fully integrate the diverse information extractable from ordinal data and ignore some sections of QFD, House of Quality (HOQ). It is also observed that in each matrix of QFD-HOQ, numerous heuristics have been introduced to suppress the variation, uncertainty and vagueness. During the QFD process, any mistakes such as selection and interpretation of rating scales, application of methods, or integration of various matrices can fail the whole process. In this project with the rationale to improve QFD methodology, a systematic emphasis is placed on the following issues i) Application of methods, procedures, techniques for the appropriate selection of likert scales within each matrix of QFD-HOQ. ii) Application to each matrix, data and their integration towards statistically valid conclusions. iii) Close observation and interpretation of the final prioritisation of technical characteristics (TCs), and its enhancement

Impact of Global Financial Crisis on IDB Member Countries: The Case of Gulf Cooperation Council and Sub-Saharan Africa

2008 was a challenging year for the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Group as well as its member countries because of unprecedented crises (food, energy, financial and economic crises). In particular, the ongoing global financial and economic crisis is source of concern for the IDB Group because of the magnitude of its impact on member countries. The banking sector faced unexpected challenges in terms of business growth, profitability, assets quality and liquidity, especially in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. The year also witnessed steep fall in the stock markets in GCC and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) regions. 2009 is also expected to be another challenging year as the global financial meltdown is causing rising unemployment and pushing more people into the poverty trap. IDB member countries may face a sizable decline in foreign capital inflows both from public and private sources. Due to weakening global economy, economic growth is to decelerate in both GCC and SSA regions. The current account surplus in GCC region is to squeeze, while in SSA region it is likely to turn into deficit. These trends portend a setback for member countries, especially in SSA region in achieving the millennium development goals (MDGs). However, the GCC region is relatively well placed to weather the ongoing financial crisis due to huge oil surpluses accumulated during the last few years, lower public debt levels, and more than one trillion sovereign wealth funds, which have cushioned the adverse impacts on investment plans in the region. In response to these crises, IDB Group has continued to enhance its development assistance and taken a number of special initiatives to help member countries mitigate the adverse impacts of these crises on their socio-economic development. However, economic recovery in member countries in the coming years will critically depend upon the deepness of the economic recession and their policy actions to revive their economies through effective socio-economic reforms. The instruments of Islamic finance can be considered a possible cure for the ailing global financial markets.Global Financial Crisis, IDB Member Countries, Gu lf Cooperation Council, Sub-Saharan Africa

Foreign Aid and the Public Sector: A Model of Fiscal Behaviour in Pakistan

The main aim of this paper is to demonstrate the impact of foreign capital inflows on government’s fiscal behaviour in Pakistan. Government’s fiscal response is measured in terms of social, non-development, and development expenditures as well as revenues. This paper specifies and estimates a fiscal behaviour model for the period 1976–95. The threestage least squares results suggest that foreign capital flows into the public sector have strong positive impact on social and non-development expenditures and, in contrast to what the government and donor agencies believe, have little effect on development spending. In other words, proceeds from foreign loans and aid are largely consumed rather than invested productively. The results also reveal the strong substitutable interdependence between social and non-development expenditures. Furthermore, the finding clearly demonstrates that foreign assistance causes a strong shift of public domestic resources from development projects to non-development activities. In addition to the above, the results show that a large fraction of government revenues is used to finance social and non-development expenditures. The results also demonstrate that foreign assistance enhances taxation efforts of the Government of Pakistan.

Husband-wife Roles as a Correlate of Contraceptive and Fertility Behaviour

In this paper, an investigation of reproductive behaviour within the socioeconomic and cultural frameworks is carried out to find the extent to which socioeconomic, cultural, and attitudinal variables (such as husband and wife’s education, family income, husband’s occupation, child mortality, exposure to the mass media, and husbandand- wife relationship in terms of egalitarian roles, role-segregation, husband’s authority, and domination in family and non-family decisions) influence the fertility decision-making process. The quantitative and qualitative techniques are used for exploring the respondents’ views regarding contraceptive and fertility behaviour. Principle Component Analysis (PCA) is applied to identify new meaningful underlying variables and to reduce the multi-dimensionality of variables. The chi-square test is employed to explore the relationships between the predictor variables and the dependent variables. Multiple linear regression is also used to establish the relative importance of each of the predictor variables. Bivariate, multiple linear regression and qualitative analysis demonstrate that preferences for smaller families and contraceptive use were found to be consistently associated with modern attitudes and behaviour towards the husband-and-wife relationship. Family income, husband’s occupation, child mortality, and age at marriage offered no explanation of the reproductive behaviour. It is concluded that cultural setting and tradition exert an important influence on reproductive behaviour independent of development in economic realities. It is suggested that for the attainment of demographicdevelopmental objectives, the issue of women’s status is not incidental; it is essential. The argument is not that improvements in women’s status need to be pursued only for population policy purposes, but rather that they comprise a crucial social developmental goal in their own right.

The Impact of Structural Adjustment on Income Distribution in Pakistan A SAM-based Analysis

Domestic poverty and income distribution are closely related to the state of the economy, which is linked with internal and external economic policies. Since 1988, under the rubric of structural adjustment programme (SAP), Pakistan has made use of fiscal, monetary and trade policies to correct her macro economic imbalances. It is hard to substantiate with proof that these programmes protect the poor. A number of studies have found that income distribution has been getting worse during the adjustment period in Pakistan.1 For example, Kemal (1994); Jaffery and Khattak (1995) and Anwar (1996) found that SAP accompanied with rising income inequality and poverty in Pakistan. But these studies are restricted as they did not employ an adequate methodology to assess the impact of structural adjustment reforms on income distribution.2 This paper, however, uses a simple static fixed-price SAM-based framework to analyse distributional outcome of incomes for rural and urban households. This methodology is useful because social accounting matrix (SAM) represents the whole economy and it does not need a large data set.

TARIFF REDUCTION AND FUNCTIONAL INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN PAKISTAN: A CGE Analysis

This paper analyses impact of one of the major trade liberalisation policies of Structural Adjustment reforms, tariff rate reduction, on functional income distribution to households in Pakistan through CGE modelling, that is well known for this type of analysis. Using SAM-based CGE model, simulation exercises are undertaken to describe the impact of key adjustment policy i.e., reduction in tariff rate by 80% on industrial imports. Simulation results of CGE model simply show the direction of change in various variables as a result of tariff reduction. The main conclusions are as follows. The results show the impact on income of households through change in factor prices. It shows that real income of households’ has increased due to decline in prices. The percentage share of labour in GDP has increased while of capital has declined. The study by Siddiqui and Iqbal (1999) shows that higher percentage of income from capital goes to rich and higher percentage of wages and salaries goes to poor segment of population). This implies that the gap between the rich and poor has reduced. The study shows that consumption of all goods but education has increased and consumption of non-food items increases more as compared to food items. This implies that tariff reduction has welfare enhancing impact on households.Indeed the analysis with disaggregated households sector will give the relatively better picture. Due to decline in import prices, industrial imports have increased by 10% while all other imports have declined. All exports increase. But industrial exports increases more as compare to exports from all other sectors.CGE,Trade,Income Distribution

Salient features of social accounting matrix of Pakistan for 1989-90: Disaggregation of the households sector

This report compiles a latest social accounting matrix (SAM) of Pakistan for the year 1989-90. The SAM framework provides useful information about the structure of Pakistan’s economy. Within this framework, the preferred classifications of various accounts are undertaken according to the policy objectives and later model building. The SAM presents four types of accounts: factor account, institution account, production account, and capital account. Theses accounts are disaggregated on the basis of requirement and availability of data. The account of factors of production is disaggregated into labour and capital. Institution accounts consist of households, firms, government, and rest of the world. Household account is further disaggregated by four income categories for rural and urban areas. Production account is disaggregated into agriculture, industry, education, health and other sectors. Further disaggregation of production account is also made on the basis of goods for domestic market and for export market. Finally, it presents consolidated capital account. This study also aims to undertake a multiplier analysis, which provides backward and forward linkages in production, consumption, distribution, and accumulation accounts of the economy. The multipliers for all endogenous accounts imply a high degree of integration of the accounts. For the production sectors, backward linkages are strongest for the education, followed by agriculture, health, other sector and industry. The largest forward linkage multipliers are found for industry, followed by other sectors, agriculture, health and education. Regarding the households income groups, the largest backward linkage is found for the urban poorest and smallest for the rural rich. While, the largest forward linkage is for the rural poorest and smallest for the urban poorest.SAM; Pakistan

Macroeconomic Determinants of Economic Growth in Pakistan

The main purpose of this paper has been to examine the effects of some of the key macroeconomic variables on Pakistan’s economic growth. Multiple regression framework is used to separate out the effects of key macroeconomic factors on growth over the period 1959-60 to 1996-97. The quantitative evidence shows that primary education to be an important prerequisite for accelerating growth. Similarly, increasing the stock of physical capital would help to contribute to growth. The empirical results also suggest that openness of Pakistan’s economy promotes economic growth. Alternatively, the budget deficit is negatively related to both output growth variables. The external debt is also negatively related to growth, suggesting that relying on domestic resources is the best alternative to finance growth. However, the results presented in this study reinforce the importance of sensible long-run growth-oriented policies to obtain sustainable growth.