International Preliminary Examination Essay Example for Free

International Preliminary Examination Essay International preliminary examination is an optional feature of the international phase available under Chapter II of the PCT. It is performed by an International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA), one of the Offices which are also International Searching Authorities (ISAs) [see Module 7]. The receiving Office with which you filed your PCT application has appointed the IPEA which is à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“competentà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  to perform international preliminary examination. If your receiving Office has appointed more than one competent IPEA, you can choose between them, taking into account differing requirements relating to search, such as language, fees, etc. The international preliminary examination gives you the benefit, before entering the national phase, of an assessment from an IPEA on whether your invention appears to be novel, involves an inventive step (non-obvious), and is industrially applicable. This may provide you with greater certainty on your chances of obtaining a patent. You may consider international preliminary examination if, as a result of the international search and the written opinion of the ISA, your PCT application needs to be amended in order to overcome objections previously raised in the written opinion of the ISA. During the international preliminary examination procedure, you can amend the description, claims and drawings of your PCT application. This enables you to further refine your PCT application, which will be useful during the patent granting procedures in the national phase. While international preliminary examination is not binding for the purposes of national or regional examination, it is increasingly seen by national and regional Offices as highly persuasive. It may, in some Offices, result in a reduced examination fee in the national or regional phase. 9.1 The Demand The à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“demandà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  is a PCT term that is used to describe the request for international preliminary examination. The demand automatically indicates that you intend to use the results of international preliminary examination in all PCT countries. The Offices of the countries where the international preliminary examination results will be used are referred to as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“electedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  Offices. The demand must be made on a printed or computer generated form [Form PCT/IPEA/401] and must contain certain indications, all of which are clearly identified on the form. It must be submitted, with very limited exceptions, to a competent IPEA within three months from the date of transmittal to the applicant of the ISR and the written opinion of the ISA, or within 22 months from the priority date, whichever period expires later. If the demand is filed with an IPEA which is not competent for carrying out international preliminary examination, or with a receiving Office, an ISA or the International Bureau, it will be transmitted by that Office or Authority either directly to the competent IPEA, or first to the International Bureau which will in turn transmit it to the competent IPEA. Generally, the original filing date of the demand will be retained. If the language in which your PCT application was searched or the language in which it was published is not accepted by the IPEA, you will be invited to furnish a translation within one month from the date of the invitation. If you do not furnish the missing translation in time, the IPEA will consider the demand not to have been submitted. 9.2 Amendment of the Description, Claims, Drawings When you file the demand, or before the start of international preliminary examination, you have an opportunity to amend your PCT application (description, claims, and drawings). These amendments are commonly referred to as Article 34 amendments. Any amendments that you make may not go beyond the disclosure of your PCT application as originally filed. As far as the claims are concerned, this is a second opportunity for amending them before the international preliminary examination starts (the first being by way of Article 19 amendments submitted to the International Bureau after receipt of the international search report). In practice, most applicants filing a demand for international preliminary examination do not make use of the possibility of amending the claims under Article 19, unless publication of the amendments is desired [see Module 8 section 8.2]. Where it is clear from the references cited in the ISR and the written opinion of the ISA that the PCT application requires amendments, applicants typically furnish their amendments to the IPEA together with the demand. 9.3 Written Opinion of the IPEA The written opinion of the ISA is generally used as the first written opinion of the IPEA, particularly if the ISA and the IPEA are the same. In this case, you will most likely not receive a à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“secondà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  written opinion from the IPEA. You should therefore file any Article 34 amendments and/or any arguments in relation to the written opinion of the ISA together with the demand. International preliminary examination does not usually start until after the ISA has drawn up the ISR and the written opinion. You may wait for these documents before deciding whether to proceed further with the PCT application by filing a demand for international preliminary examination. The cost of the examination need not be incurred before it is clear, from the results of the ISR and the written opinion of the ISA, that the invention claimed in the PCT application is not clearly lacking novelty and inventiveness. If the IPEA and ISA are the same, the Office may decide to start international preliminary examination at the same time as the international search, except where, under certain circumstances, the applicant has requested that international preliminary examination be postponed. If, exceptionally, a second written opinion is established by the IPEA, you may have additional opportunities to file amendments during the international preliminary examination. The number of opportunities for filing amendments which will be available depends very much on the time available for international preliminary examination. The international preliminary examination report must in general be drawn up not later than 28 months from the priority date. Any amendments you file after the examiner has begun to draw up the report can no longer be taken into account. Should you wish to make further amendments (which can no longer be filed during the international phase), they can still be filed with elected Offices on entering the national phase. No elected Office may grant or refuse a patent before the expiration of the time limit for amending the application for the purposes of the grant procedure in the national phase. Each national chapter of the PCT Applicants Guide gives details as to when and how amendments may be filed during the national phase [see Module 10]. 9.3.1 Response to the Written Opinion of the IPEA Exceptionally, you may receive an additional written opinion from the IPEA [Form PCT/IPEA/408], with an invitation to respond, before the international preliminary examination report is drawn up. In such a case, you may present further amendments or arguments. Informal communications between the IPEA and the applicant are expressly provided for under the PCT. Consistent with the non-binding, preliminary nature of the international preliminary examination, there is no provision for a formal review of an examiners opinion, except on disputed findings of lack of unity of invention [see Module 7 section 7.1.2]. International preliminary examination can thus be compared to a regular patent examination in an examining patent Office with one exception; namely, in that the time limits set by the examiner for the response are usually much shorter than under the normal examination procedure. A prompt reaction is required from you during preliminary examination in order for the international preliminary examination to be completed within the limited time available. 9.4 The International Preliminary Report on Patentability (Chapter II) International preliminary examination ends with the drawing up of an International Preliminary Report on Patentability (Chapter II) as prescribed under Chapter II of the PCT à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" commonly referred to as an IPRP (Chapter II) [Form PCT/IPEA/409]. The IPRP Chapter II is typically drawn up before the expiration of 28 months from the priority date. The IPRP (Chapter II) is a non-binding opinion, which essentially contains a statement, in relation to each claim, on whether it appears to satisfy the criteria of novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability as defined in the PCT. The statement is accompanied by the citation of the documents believed to support that conclusion. Further explanations are given where the circumstances of the case so require. No statement may be made on the question whether the invention would be patentable under the national law of any elected State. If the report is based on the PCT application in an amended form, a copy of all sheets containing amendments will be annexed to the report. The IPEA transmits the IPRP (Chapter II) to the applicant and to the International Bureau. The report is established in the language in which the PCT application concerned is published or, if the international preliminary examination is carried out on the basis of a translation of the PCT application, in the language of the translation. The International Bureau must then translate, if necessary, the report into English to meet the language requirements of some elected Offices. Only the IPRP (Chapter II) is translated, not the annexes. The transmittal of the IPRP (Chapter II) completes the international procedure under Chapter II. The IPRP (Chapter II) is not accessible to persons other than the applicant and the elected Offices during the international phase. Neither the International Bureau nor the IPEA may, unless requested or authorized to do so by the applicant, give information on the issuance of an IPRP (Chapter II) or on the withdrawal or non-withdrawal of the demand or of any election, except for communications or access provided to elected Offices. Upon receipt of the IPRP (Chapter II) (at the latest, at about the 28th month from the priority date), you have until the expiration of 30 months from the priority date in which to evaluate it and to decide whether to proceed further by entering the national or regional phase before the elected Offices. If a translation of the PCT application must be furnished to the elected Office upon entry into the national phase, it must usually include a translation of the PCT application as originally filed, and of the amendments appearing in the annexes to the IPRP (Chapter II). The translation requirements of the annexes vary somewhat among the elected Offices. The national chapter relating to each elected Office in the PCT Applicants Guide indicates the applicable requirements.

Ford Motor Companys Human resource management

Ford Motor Companys Human resource management Executive Summary Human resource management is one of the pillars on which stands the foundation of any and every organization. It deals with various aspects of organizational structure and looks into several organizational policies thereby playing a vital role in strategic planning of an organization. Though human resource management is a vast topic, job analysis and recruiting processes are highly significant. Thus, through this weekly summary, this paper will answer various discussion questions pertaining to the same. This essay will look at Ford pertaining to the organizational infrastructure including recruiting procedures, job descriptions, its elements, classifications, job analysis and methodologies as well as elements has a major scope in the corporate world. However, what I found the most important as well as the most interesting and pragmatic sub topic through this weeks learning experience is all about performance appraisal or performance evaluation. Performance appraisal is a â€Å"distinct and formal management procedure used in the evaluation of work performance† (Introduction: Performance Appraisal) or as the detailed definition of the procedure suggests, performance evaluation a structured formal interaction between a subordinate and supervisor, that usually takes the form of a periodic interview (annual or semi-annual), in which the work performance of the subordinate is examined and discussed, with a view to identifying weaknesses and strengths as well as opportunities for improvement and skills development† (Introduction: Performance Appraisal). Hence, the importance of performance evaluation becomes obvious and can be applied to our organization through various methodologies including graphic scale, checklist, forced choice, ranking, paired comparison, forced distribution, MBO, and BARS (Dessler, 2000) as well as with the aid of incentives, bonuses and word of appreciation and a pat on the back. Research by Luis et al. (2001) suggests that performance evaluation when applied adequately can reap massive fruitful results including improved customer satisfaction diffusing from employee satisfaction, ameliorated work performance and product quality, ease in retaining trained and diligent work force and so on and so forth. Business Strategy Review: Ford Motor Company is a global corporation made up of the worlds most recognizable cars, trucks, and Suvs (www.fordmotorcompany.com). It consists of eight major companies that can be separated into three categories based on their origins. First there is Mazda, which comes from Japan. Next we have the American automotives, which are Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury. The third group consists of European cars, and they are Land Rover, Aston Martin, Jaguar, and Volvo. Together they make the Ford Motor company the worlds second largest manufacturer of cars and trucks. The Japanese company offers consumers a wide range of prices, because of this people of all economical stature buy their products. Together the three American companies provide the same price ranges. Finally, the European line is strictly for the high rollers. In this essay, I have researched these eight companies and found that the reason for the Ford Motor Companies success lies within the fact that they have all the consumer gr oups covered. The only company in the first group is Mazda. For the less financially endowed, they have the Protege, and the 626.Those with a little more money might go for the luxury of the Millenia, or perhaps the Miata if they are looking for a sportier car. Mazda also makes a minivan, for all the soccer moms and large families, called the MPV. Price ranges for all of these automotives come from $12,000 and go up to $33,000. The second group also covers the price ranges fairly well. Ford takes care of the cheaper cars with its Focus and Escort, which go for $11,000-12,500. The Explorer is the most purchased SUV in the world, probably because its right in the price range of most working Americans at $16,000-35,000 (except for teachers of course). One of the most popular cars that Ford produces is the Mustang, its got a legacy in America that is backed up by the thousands of people who purchase it ever year, most of which are males that have been blessed with money at an early age. A Mustang starts at $21,000 and goes up to $32,000. Then we have the Lincoln, purchased by the rich retired people and the Mafia. All the Lincolns are sleek, luxurious, and expensive. These cars are large and powerful, giving both safety and comfort to their owners. Recently the Navigator was developed, and provided the wealthy people of America with an SUV of their own. At last we come to the third group. All these companies fit well together because of their prices, they are all priced over $36,000. Land Rover provides amazing SUVs to those who have the ability to purchase them. The next three, with the addition of Lincoln, make up the Ford Motor Companies Premier Automotive Group. These three companies aim their sales at upscale consumers worldwide. The Aston Martin is known for its high-tech products, and its high prices as well. Jaguar is an amazing car that combines sportiveness, elegance, and raw power. Volvo itself stands for safety, durability, and a premium mode of transp ort. One cannot drive down any road without seeing a Volvo at some point. The European cars provide toys for even the wealthiest of people and back their prices by producing the most precise and breathtaking cars to hit the road. HR Strategy Planning and strategic decisions about recruiting include both internal and external recruiting. There are various internal sources of recruiting that work effectively to accomplish the targeted organizational goals. As Buford, Bedeian Lindner (1995) Zoller (1996) define, â€Å"recruiting is the process of generating a sufficiently large group of applicants from which to select qualified individuals for available jobs† and apart from the external sources including media advertising, walk-ins, public and private employment agencies, educational institutions, state agencies, government programs, direct recruiting (Lindner Zoller), there are internal sources that are effective. These internal sources of recruiting include employee referrals and internal job postings (Lindner Zoller). Good, experienced, trained and hard working employees when make referrals, organizations must feel obliged. This is because, employee referral is one internal source that has so far proved quite effective in the recruiting procedure worldwide. Employee referrals minimize the work load and share the responsibility with the management which otherwise remains solely responsible for recruiting the right people at the right time (Lindner Zoller). What makes this internal source effective is the reason that those applicants that are referred by the working employees have a clearer picture of the organizational expectations, aims and vision and can shape their expectations from the organization and their duties accordingly in a better fashion than applicants that are recruited directly through other sources (Lindner Zoller). Another very effective internal source of recruiting is internal job postings. Vacancies year round can be filled in by the working as well as the deserving employees that can be found, located and analyzed internally through the application of performance appraisal. â€Å"These vacancies may represent promotions (upward moves) or transfers (lateral moves). Posting and circulating notices of vacancies maximizes employee awareness of job openings. The notice should include such items as title, department, job summary, qualifications, and salary and should be placed on bulletin boards, announced in meetings, and otherwise communicated to employees† (Lindner Zoller). Thus, this internal source of recruiting remains effective to date as it involves internal inspection and review of the working employees without having to tap the external sources. Interviewing is one of the principal elements of recruiting and obviously the most crucial of all. Both the interviewer as well as the interviewee need to be well-prepared, focused, confident and most of all considerate and well- informed. However, an interviewer must have a clear knowledge what he or she can and must or should ask. The kinds of questions depend basically on the types of interviews. There are roughly and generally three kinds of interviews that classify the types of questions that an interviewer can ask the applicant during the process of recruitment (Insurance Staffing Consultants Inc). These types include: (Insurance Staffing Consultants Inc.) Ø Structured Interview (Insurance Staffing Consultants Inc.) Ø Unstructured Interview (Insurance Staffing Consultants Inc.) Ø Behavioral Interview (Insurance Staffing Consultants Inc.) Hence, an interviewer can ask direct, highly focused, rigid, limited, specific and definitive questions with the aid of â€Å"Structured interviews† (Insurance Staffing Consultants Inc.). These questions include pointed questions that belong to a particular set of questions or are a part of the sequence. Through unstructured interviews, an interviewer can ask questions that are more â€Å"conversational† and involve a rather â€Å"give and take of information† (Insurance Staffing Consultants Inc.). In addition to the above, an interviewer can ask questions as classified by the behavioral interviews wherein â€Å"the interviewer will ask very pointed questions regarding how you have handled specific kinds of situations, or how you would anticipate dealing with the kinds of challenges presented on the job. A sample question in a behavioral interview might be describe a situation in which you were able to use persuasion to successfully convince someone to see thing s your way or describe a time you dealt with a difficult customer or co-worker† (Insurance Staffing Consultants Inc.). Sample questions that an interviewer may ask, include the following: (*All questions are taken verbatim from the research sources under consideration) What are your career goals and objectives? (Insurance Staffing Consultants Inc.) Tell me something about yourself. (Insurance Staffing Consultants Inc.) What do you see yourself doing five years from now? (Mulligan) How do you make yourself indispensable to a company? (Mulligan) Whats your greatest strength? (Mulligan) Whats your greatest weakness? (Mulligan) Tell me about a time when your course load was heavy. How did you complete all your work? (Mulligan) Tell me about a time when you had to accomplish a task with someone who was particularly difficult to get along with. (Mulligan) How do you accept direction and, at the same time, maintain a critical stance regarding your ideas and values? (Mulligan) What are some examples of activities and surroundings that motivate you? (Mulligan) Tell me how you handled an ethical dilemma. (Mulligan) Tell me about a time when you had to resolve a problem with no rules or guidelines in place. (Mulligan) However, where there are certain guidelines for interviewers for asking the possible questions that can be termed as positive. Interviewers must be very careful regarding the critical as well as responsible job that they are shouldering. On the same account, interviewers must not ask certain questions that should be avoided. These interview questions include those questions that might provoke the interviewee. In addition to the above, questions that are capable of or have even a slight probability of providing a cultural clash or serve as communication barriers or are too personal must not be inquired by the interviewee who is the prospective employee of the company. Questions that are capable of compelling the applicants to get off the track and get offended or burst out must be avoided at all costs. Discriminatory questions or questions that reflect the interviewers bias or prejudice or suggest offensive remarks or the â€Å"systems† prejudice must be avoided at the time of the interview. Moreover, in case of the interviewer and the interviewee belonging to different genders, questions that suggest gender discrimination thereby arousing sentiments of resentment must also be avoided. Thus all sorts of questions or statements that have even the slightest possibility of creating negative emotions including irritation, mental disturbance, feelings of resentment, hatred or might offend (and so on and so forth) the interviewee must be avoided by the interviewer during the process of recruitment that is while interviewing. Budget: Flexible Staffing Flexible staffing options have various advantages as well as disadvantages. Here is a list pertaining to the same: Ø â€Å"Temporary reassignment† is one of the primary flexible staffing options. With the help of temporary reassignment, organizations can â€Å"cross-train† their employees thereby generating â€Å"generalists and specialists† (Flexible staffing Options).however, disadvantages include affected employee morale. This is because â€Å"the employee may feel that management is using him or her. Clear and positive communication is essential in these situations† (Flexible staffing Options). Moreover, â€Å"managers must monitor the assignment and determine a course of action should the assignment become permanent† (Flexible staffing Options). Ø â€Å"Job Sharing† is another form of flexible staffing. It also has various advantages and disadvantages. Advantages include the following: Ø Organizations benefit economically in a way that they save fifty percent of the performance incentives when employees share duties and do not hold full-time status (Flexible staffing Options). Moreover, the over time charges are also occasionally applicable and â€Å"employee satisfaction and productivity is often increased because the job structure has provided the hours needed to meet personal concerns and he/she generally has the energy and motivation to produce more in less time† (Flexible staffing Options). Ø However, there are several jobs that cannot have a dual nature and therefore cannot simply be shared among employees. Furthermore, the â€Å"paperwork† increases to almost double when more employees are working on the similar tasks. â€Å"Job sharers would need to have similar organizational styles, be able to communicate effectively and efficiently, and work together well and if one job sharer resigns, it can sometimes be difficult to recruit another person in a timely manner to share the position† (Flexible staffing Options). Conclusion Hence from the above discussion, it is evident that human resource management is a vast field with a wide scope and offers a rich array of sub fields regarding personnel management as the weekly summary suggests. Success of the recruitment plan can be gauged with the aid of constant review and weekly or bi- monthly or monthly and quite often annual evaluation of the recruitment plan. Thorough scrutiny can reveal the weaknesses and strengths of the recruitment plan thereby revealing the success factor of the recruiting and staffing strategies. The performance of the recruiters both the recently hired employees and the previously more trained employees can be used as one of the most obvious, pragmatic, clear and expedient metric to evaluate the success of the recruitment plan. Sound and professionally efficient performance of the recruiters will imply that the recruitment plan is successful. Lethargic and upsetting performance by the recruiters that might disturb the organizational equilibrium and serve as the obstacle in the path of the organizations success can be used as the evaluation tool for the success of the recruitment plan. Moreover, review of the recruitment plan in terms of the guid elines given by various consulting firms and other organizations can also help in gauging the success of the recruitment plan. The best way to handle a candidates competing job offer is to exactly know the requirements or simply put the demands of the candidate. If money is the motivator or professional prestige in terms of the designation or a fancy title is what the candidate is looking for, simply hit the point and provide him with better incentives, bonuses or an attractive package which he finds far better than the opposing firm. Moreover, look for the weaknesses of the competing firm and try to focus on your strengths and bargain accordingly both with the candidate and the competitor if need arise. In order to make a recruiting plan work for the well-being of ones organization, it is highly significant that ALL the strategic recruiting considerations must be addressed by the human resource managers in a recruiting plan. This is because if the strategic recruiting considerations are not addressed, chances are that the organization might fall prey to the highly competitive nature of the corporate world. With the world rapidly transmuting into a global village, firms need to be strategically sound in their recruitment procedures in order to hire the best possible employees available to the market thereby generating huge profits and augmenting customer satisfaction as well as establishing their reputation as a successful brand name. Hence, if the strategic recruiting considerations have loopholes, the organization will fail to have an experienced and well-trained as well as competent workforce essential for the accomplishment of the organizational goals. References 1. Introduction to performance appraisal. Retrieved July 6, 2003 from: http://www.performance-appraisal.com/intro.htm 2. Dessler G (2000). Human Resource Management, Eighth Edition. Copyright 2000, 1997, 1994, 1991, 1988 by Prentice-Hall, Inc. Compilation. Copyright _ 2002 by Pearson Custom Publishing. 3. Luis R. Go ´ mez-Meji ´a, Balkin D. Robert L Managing Human Resources, Third Edition. Copyright _ 2001 by Prentice-Hall A Pearson Education Company, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458. 4. Buford, J. A., Jr., Bedeian, A. G., Lindner, J. R. (1995). Management in Extension (3rd ed.). Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Extension. Zoller, C. (1996). Filling a Position in a Small Business, Extension Fact Sheet: Small Business Series, Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Extension 5. Lindner Zoller. Recruiting employees for small businesses: a little planning goes a long way. . Retrieved July 6, 2003 from: http://ohioline.osu.edu/cd-fact/1382.html 6. Interview Tips. Insurance Staffing Consultants. Retrieved July 6, 2003 from: http://www.insurancestaffing.net/interview_tip00.htm 7. Mulligan B. Interviewers Favorite Questions and Answers. Retrieved July 6, 2003 from: http://www.jobweb.com/Resources/Library/Interviews__Resumes/Interviewers_92_01.htm 8. Flexible Staffing Options. Retrieved July 6, 2003 from: http://www.ps.vt.edu/supervisorscorner/flexstaff/

Web-base Quality Management Systems

Web-base Quality Management Systems Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Defining Quality, History and Achieving International Quality Standards Quality is a perceptual, conditional and somewhat subjective attribute and may be understood differently by different people in different spheres of life. It is a degree or grade of excellence or worth, a characteristic property that defines the apparent individual nature of something or totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs. In recent years, many organisations have adopted quality management systems to improve the quality of both goods and services through the application of efficient quality management methods and principles (Feigenbaum, 2000). The reason why so many organisations have started on the journey is either because of customer pressure for ISO 9000 certification or because the firms themselves have realised the strategic advantage of having this certificate, i.e. it would give them an edge over their competitors. Most of the firms which started out on the journey to ISO 9000 still may not have completed that journey. In general, it takes 2 years, and obtaining this coveted certificate is only a first step towards the ultimate goal: total quality management (TQM). Reaching this goal may take at least 5 years. In the next sections of the dissertation we will take a closer look at the characteristics of the different quality management systems. In this section, we concentrate on the concept of quality itself. We start with the two types of quality, namely: Objective quality, which is simply the products total number of quality attributes. Subjective quality, which is a result of the consumers experience of the products objective attributes. Subjective quality is thus defined as the degree of fulfillment of consumers expectations (Feigenbaum, 2000). Beyond the customers desirable expectations, there are always the customers latent expectations. Manufacturers and the service providers must therefore find the hidden expectations in order to keep the customer satisfied. It is subjective quality which matters to the company, and it is this definition which Deming used in his renowned eight-day quality seminars for Japanese top managers in 1950. Demings message to them was simple but powerful: The consumer is the most important part of the production line. The idea that customers should be seen as a part of the production line was in itself a revolutionary one at that time. A logical conclusion is that quality production is only possible if it is systematically and continuously based on customer desires and needs. It is simple in theory but difficult in practice because there are many obstacles to overcome along the way. Demings 14 points, which we have taken the liberty of calling stations along the way, are among the most important means of overcoming these obstacles. You may ask this important question: Why have the Japanese been better at understanding Demings message than the Western world? There are many reasons for this, but one of the most intriguing reasons may be found in the Japanese language, and thus in Japanese culture. In the Japanese language, quality management can be translated as quality is equal to the attributes of the things (i.e. what peoples talk about). This interpretation results in the following definition of quality management: Control of the attributes of a product which consumers talk about. To understand why consumers talk about a products attributes, we will delve into motivation theory. Herzberg has divided motivation into two factors: Factors which create satisfaction (satisfiers). Factors which create dissatisfaction (dissatisfiers). Similarly, many objective attributes of a product or service can be categorised. We may talk about the basic attributes that the consumer expects when he/she buys the product. If these are not present in sufficient quantities, the consumer experiences dissatisfaction. If the expected attributes are present, naturally the consumer is satisfied, but the interesting and crucial thing is that the degree of satisfaction will not necessarily be particularly high. The experience will be more or less neutral. Apart from the attributes which the customer expects to find, it is always possible to build attributes into the product or service which the customer does not expect to find, i.e. attributes which will delight or satisfy him/her. The more of these attributes that are present in the product or services, the greater the satisfaction, and this satisfaction will, in many cases, increase significantly. We call these attributes value-added quality. However, in Japan they use the term charming quality, whereas in the US they interpret this as exciting quality. We believe that value-added quality covers both. One example of expected quality in air travel is safety. Korean Air lost its reputation as a quality airline in the wake of the tragic incident of a passenger airline being shot down over Soviet territory. Prior to this incident, Korean Air was rated as one of the top quality airlines in the world. Afterwards, Korean Airs quality ratings dropped significantly. In our view, the only thing which can adequately explain this is that Korean Air had failed to deliver the customers expected quality. As an example of value-added quality, let us consider the added service offered by ISS Laundry Service, a subsidiary of International Service Systems (ISS). This company which, among other activities, changes bed-linen in hotel rooms, suddenly had an idea. As they were there to change the sheets, they might as well see if anything else needed doing, e.g. small repairs, changing light-bulbs, etc., and report this to the hotel management. This unexpected service, which hardly costs ISS anything, created an enormous amount of goodwill for the company among its customers. The understanding behind Demings assertion, that the consumer is the most important aspect of the production line, lies precisely in the subjective definition of quality, which we will be discussing in this dissertation. The introduction of quality management theory towards the end of the 1980s led to the development of a new concept called total quality. This concept was defined as follows (Kanji, 2002): Qualityis to satisfy customers requirements continuously. Total qualityis to achieve quality at low cost. Total quality managementis to obtain total quality by involving everyones daily commitment. These definitions will become clearer as we proceed through the dissertation. The objective of TQM is to improve continuously each and every activity in the company focusing on the customer. Every product has some deficiency, i.e. risks for making customers dissatisfied. These deficiencies must be continually eliminated and, at the same time, the firm must ensure that its product or service always incorporate the quality attributes which satisfy its customers. 1.2 Total quality management The concept of TQM is a logical development of total quality control (TQC), a concept first introduced by A. V. Feigenbaum in 2000 in a book of the same name. Though Feigenbaum had other things in mind with TQC, it only really caught on in engineering circles, and thus never achieved the total acceptance in British companies that was intended. TQC was a hit in Japan, on the other hand, where the first quality circles were set up in 1962, which later developed into what the Japanese themselves call company-wide quality control (CWQC). this is identical to what people in the West today call TQM. One of the main reasons for the failure of TQC in British companies was a management misconception that responsibility for implementing TQC could be delegated to a central quality department. In doing so, management overlooked one of the most important points in TQC, namely managements wholehearted commitment to quality improvements. The aim of the new concept, TQM, is to ensure that history does not repeat itself. Thus, management have been directly included in the definition of the concept, making it impossible for them to avoid their responsibility. To include the word management here sends an unmistakable signal straight into executive offices that this is a job for top management, including the board of directors. TQM will be further discussed in following chapters. Chapter 2 Quality Perspectives The inadequacy of traditional management in UK Japan Traditional British forms of management are based on a philosophy which divides responsibility for decisions into strategic, tactical and operational levels, i.e. the so-called management pyramid. We now know that this management conception is totally inadequate for modern, complex companies, since it does not give the connection between top management and the main processes at the bottom responsible for customer satisfaction. As a result, the management is ignorant of the real problems on the operational level, and do not provide the support and backing that the operation level needs for the creation of customer satisfaction (Feigenbaum, 2000). The decisions which cascade down from top management are often exclusively budgetary in nature, containing instructions which are forced on lower levels without due consideration of their problems. Many local branches of a bank have similar experiences. A typical example of this was noted after some Danish bank mergers took place at the, end of the 1980s. Branch managers of these banks received orders by internal post to cut staff numbers by a certain figure with no indication of how this could be achieved without drastically reducing the quality of products and services offered to their customers. Hiromoto (2002) describes this as management by terrorism. In discussing British and Japanese management philosophy, Konosuke Matsushita, founder of one of the worlds biggest companies, Matsushita Electric (Panasonic, National, Technics, etc.), said: We are going to win and the industrial West is going to lose out: theres nothing much you can do about it, because the reasons for your failure are within yourselves. Your firms are built on the Taylor model; even worse, so are your heads. With your bosses doing the thinking while the workers wield the screwdrivers, youre convinced deep down that this is the right way to run a business. For you, the essence of management is getting the ideas out of the heads of the bosses into the hands of labour. (p). Hoinville (2002) feels that the emphasis of managements commitment has its origin in the system, the reason for quality defects. It has been estimated that 85% of all defects are caused by system errors, i.e. errors which only management has the authority to change. Management must show by its actions that it has understood the message. It must constantly strive to reduce system errors by setting up quality goals, drawing up quality policies and quality plans, and participating actively in the follow-up auditing phase. Finally, management must concede its own lack of knowledge in the quality field and take the lead in acquiring new knowledge. If management does all this, it will have created a firm foundation on which future quality can be built. Conversely, there would be little point in building quality on a shaky foundation. We have already pointed out that the customer is the most important part of the production line. Deming (2002) introduced this idea to top Japanese managers in 1950 by means of a basic outline of an arbitrary production system, or part of a production system. This outline, which must today be considered traditional, shows that both customer and supplier are part of the production system, and that information for improving this comes from two sources: consumer research and process tests. Since this outline also applies to an arbitrary sub-system, it shows that customer and supplier concepts embrace much more than just external customers and suppliers. Internal customers and suppliers, i.e. employees, are at least as important as the external ones. Any person, or process, which forms part of the production system must recognise that it serves a number of internal customers, and the quality of the output delivered to these customers is crucial to the end result, i.e. the quality of the output delivered to the external customer. Deming (2002) himself concedes that, in 1950, this was a formidable challenge for the Japanese top managers, but they accepted the challenge, and the result is there for us all to see today. In Demings words: A new economic age had begun. Today it is difficult to understand that such a simple message presented the Japanese with such a difficult challenge. Our experience of top managers is that they accept the message without question. However, this does not lessen the difficulty of the challenge, because it implies that firms traditional information systems are totally inadequate. A culture must be established to ensure that internal customer research functions just as well as external. Here, it is important to point out that internal analysis is based on entirely different principles from external analysis. Communication and team-building are the key words here. Obviously, the participation of top management is necessary in building up this culture. It can be seen that the Focus on the customer and the employee is much more comprehensive than just the focus on the customer, which is the norm in service management. The latter refers solely to external customers. The former, while including these, also stresses the internal customer/supplier relationship. This relationship is one of the most important innovations which TQM has introduced. Quality Management In Todays Era As we have discussed above that how the management of quality is vital to the output product of any organization it has made clear that without an excellent quality management system an organization can not implement total quality management. In todays era new ways of quality management have been introduced that can make quality management a much easier and effective job for the management body. Technology has been quiet advance in todays world and every organization is trying to get its hand on the most advance technology that can take it to a much higher level from its competitiors. A new emerging technology for managing quality in well established organizations is the use of Web-Based Quality Management Systems. Why this technology is vital today is beacuse of organizations expanding their businesses worldwide or operating at different geoghraphical locations. It is much easier to manage the quality in an organization that is operating at one location but if it has its operations going on at different locations it is much harder to implement and manage total quality management. But these new systems have overcome this gap by providing a centralized hub to manage the quality. No matter how scattered the operations of the organizations are and how many stake holders are involved, by implementing these systems organizations need not to worry about the distance and communication gap. Competition and cost consciousness on the one side an increasing demand for quality and reliability on the other side are contrary requirements in present production engineering. This must be considered also from the point of view of the international standards about quality management and quality assurance. The origins of quality management and quality assurance in a modern sense began in manufacturing organizations at about the beginning of the twentieth century [1], and many of the tools for quality analysis and improvement were developed for manufacturing problems. Through the 1980s, this manufacturing emphasis dominated the profession. In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, business began to recognise the importance of quality service in achieving customer satisfaction and competing in the global marketplace. In the late 1990s also the public domain and governmental departments became aware of the general importance of quality issues. In a very important sense, this recognition has expanded the definition and  concept of quality to include nearly any organisational improvement such as the reduction of manufacturing cycle time and improved worker skills. And also the public sector is now starting to take care of quality management within its structures. In addition to industrial organisations and the manufacturing industry also service organisations build up quality systems. Ancillary services in manufacturing companies as well as stand-alone service organisations such as hospitals and banks are beginning to realise the benefits of a focus on quality. A number of different industries are successively doing business around the globe and the quality systems that are availaible in the market does not mostly cater a specific industry and all of them provide different features, tools and options, so it is a complex decision to choose the best availaible solution from a wide range of variety. In this dissertation different availaible web-based quality management systems are reviewed and their shortnesses are pointed out and a model is proposed in the end that covers all gaps in the currently availaible systems. Chapter 2: Literature Review In this chapter literature review is carried out and analyzed that which tools and schemes are imperative for the management of quality and how they cooperate in the quality management. This will enable to know how different branches of an organization can be indulged with quality by using what sort of tools and how these tools can benifit any organization. â€Å"The approach to quality most extensively adopted by Western companies in recent years has been the application of national and international (ISO 9000 or equivalent) quality management standards. This approach is following firmly along the quality assurance path. It is more proactive than reliance on detection/inspection and allows for the use of quality tools primarily to stop non-conforming products being produced or non-conforming services being delivered in the first place. Hence there is a switch implied from detection to prevention via quality systems, procedures and a quality manual.† [18] 2.1 Quality Management Tools Techniques Numerous definitions and methodologies have been created to assist in managing the quality-affecting aspects of business operations. Many different techniques and concepts have evolved to improve product or service quality. Tools and techniques like charts, graphs, histograms and complex tools like Statistical Process Control, Quality Function Deployment, Failure Mode and Effect Analysis and Design of Experiments have been used for quality management for a number of years. All of these tools are very effective for quality evaluation and implementation when applied rightly and at correct situation. Juan Jose Tari and Vicente Sabater {Quality management tools} in their research on â€Å"Quality tools and Techniques† has outlined few important tools and techniques that can be luminously helping in managing and increasing organizations quality standards. The very basic tools, the management tools for quality and techniques for quality management are outlined in the table below: Basic Quality Management Tools Management Tools Techniques Cause Effect Diagram Affinity Diagram Benchmarking Check Sheet Arrow Diagram Design of Experiments Control chart Matrix Diagram FMEA Graphs Matrix Data Analysis Fault Tree Analysis Histoghram Process Decision Poka Yoke Pareto Diagram Program Chart Quality Costing Scatter Diagram Relations Diagram QFD Statistical Process Control Table 1 Quality Management Tools and Techniques Each indivisual tool has its own speciality and benifits the organization in its own manner. The implementation and benifits of few of these tools are discussed in the next section. 2.2 Quality Control, Assurance and Improvement The scholars of quality assume that the computer is only the linking force and they put less emphasis on it, and frequently do not consider at all, the modern practices linked to quality management such as employee involvement or continuous quality improvement. Indeed, they concentrate their attention on the computer integration/automation model.† But for quality control, quality assurance and quality improvement insists on involving all these aspects. {Good one} Quality control is defined as operational with activities aimed both at monitoring a process and eliminating causes of unsatisfactory performance for relevant stages of the quality loop to achieve economic effectiveness. Quality control is a technique to achieve, maintain and improve the quality standard of products and service. Defects or failures in constructed facilities or products can result in very large costs. {500} the emphasis on quality control is clear to achieve complete quality management and for this quality control tools are vital to be implemented. Quality improvement requires improvement of processes in process based quality improvement approach. To improve the quality hence several inspection tools can be applied to access the processes and find the ways to improve it to get better and better results. Also the basic goal of using quality control techniques is to streamline the manufacturing system by minimizing the occurrence of quality related problems. Most of the time, problems related to quality of products have many controllable sources, be it the vendors of raw materials, equipment used to process such materials, methods used for processing, the personnel involved or any other specific source as identified by the organization. {800} has suggested following significant tools for the quality management in respect of each quality component: Quality Control Quality Assurance Quality Improvement Statistical process control Regression Process capability analysis, Rule-based reasoning (Expert Systems) Factor analysis Pareto analysis Model-based reasoning and case-based reasoning Cause and effect diagram Process mapping, design of experiments Failure Mode and Effect Analysis Quality function deployment Design of Experiments Design of experiments Analysis of variance Table 1 Above mentioned tools when used in combinations as best suitable for the processes and enterprise could produce massive increase in overall performance of the organization. Few of these tools and their significance in quality managemet is illustrated below: 2.3 Statistical Process Control The appearance of computers on the shop floor has enhanced the increased adoption of SPC. Computers have greatly reduced the efforts required by production personnel to collect and analyze data.{very good journal} â€Å"High quality products and services, far from being random or probabilistic events, are actually anticipated and managed outcomes that can contribute to organizational survival in the marketplace. This realization has encouraged organizations to embrace and implement numerous approaches, some novel and some re-discovered, aimed at achieving the objective of continuous quality improvement. One popular and widespread implementation in the name of quality management is that of statistical process control, or SPC. [19] Statistical Process Control or SPC can be used in a organization for the quality control purpose. It when applied to a process gives the stability of that process which can eventually help in identifing the root causes and take corrective actions.â€Å"The basic goal of using quality control techniques is to streamline the manufacturing system by minimizing the occurrence of quality related problems. Most of the time, problems related to quality of products have many controllable sources, be it the vendors of raw materials, equipment used to process such materials, methods used for processing, the personnel involved or any other specific source as identified by the organization.†[20] SPC is an effective tool for controlling quality of a manufacturing process rather it can be applied to most of the processes in any organization and can aid in controlling the quality as per requirements. It identifies the sources that affects the quality of the process outputs and hence can be eradicated as identified. But there lies a problem with the use of it that is interpreting the results of SPC which can be only well understood by quality control specialists. This can create communication gaps and a lot of other misconceptions about its use. But still SPC is being used to control quality from a number of years and it has proved itself to be giving enormously positive results to the organizations. â€Å"The popularity of SPC as a quality management practice has been fostered, in part, by a wealth of publications ascribing quality and cost benefits to it. The literature is dominated by anecdotal â€Å"success† stories, attributing higher market share, lower failure costs, higher product quality, and higher productivity to the implementation and practice of SPC (Dondero, 1991). Reports of SPC failures, on the contrary, have been few and, again, case-oriented (Dale Shaw, 1991; Lightburn Dale, 1992).†[22] Evans and Lindsay (1989, pp. 313-3 14), define SPC to be a methodology using control charts for assisting operators, supervisors, and managers to monitor quality of conformance and to eliminate special causes of variability of a process a technique to control quality using probability and statistics to determine and maintain the state of statistical control.[23 Hence the advantages and effectiveness can well be understood from the above discussion and its can be c oncluded that SPC can play a major role in controling any process and eliminating any cause that disturbs the process as its main idea is to enable the quality of conformance to be monitored and special causes of process variability to be eliminated. 2.4 Failure Mode and Effect Analysis Failure Mode and Effect Analysis is tool that can be used to analyse the failures that can occur in the near future or after the implementation of the system and identify the effects that it would cause to the system. â€Å"Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (FMEA) is known to be a systematic procedure for the analysis of a system to identify the potential failure modes, their causes and effects on system performance. The analysis is successfully performed preferably early in the development cycle so that removal or mitigation of the failure mode is most cost effective. This analysis can be initiated as soon as the system is defined: FMEA timing is essential.† [24] 1 below shows some random forms as an example of FMEA version 1, 2 3 charts. For FMEA to be effective its is very important to use this tool in the early development phase as catching errors and fixing them in earlier stages is more effectual and less costly. FMEA can be implemented to the highest level of block diagram to the functions of the of the discrete components. Also FMEA can be used again and again as the design is developed. â€Å"The FMEA is an iterative process that is updated as the design develops. Design changes will require that relevant parts of the FMEA be reviewed and updated.† [24] Hence FMEA could play an imperative role in going for the process changing for improvement. The change planned for the process for improving it can be verified by the application of this technique. 2.5 Quality Function Deployment (QFD) QFD has been used along with the integration of other effective tools to achieve quality in processes and products, reducing cycle times and improving performance. {600} found out that in the span of the first seven years, between 1977 and 1984, the Toyota Auto body plant employed QFD and claimed that with its use: Manufacturing startup and pre-production costs were reduced by 60%. The product development cycle (that is, time to market) was reduced by 33% with a corresponding improvement in quality because of the reduction in the number of engineering changes. Quality function deployment QFD is based on the concept of companywide quality control. The company wide quality control philosophy is characterised by customer orientation, cross functional management and process rather than product orientation. Also the roots of Japanese companywide quality control are the same concepts of statistical quality control and total quality control as originated in the USA. 2.6 Quality Improvement A Need or A Neccessity In the technological advanced manufacturing industry today, organziations are trying their level best to imorove their quality standards yet reducing their cycle times and time to reach the market. This pushes them to adopt the latest availaible technologies to manage and inject quality into their products and processes, so that the production time is not effected by increasing concern of quality management. Nowadays there is a tough competition in every . Aberdeen Group has done an extensive research on Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence and it says that the best in class organzaitions are â€Å"ensuring that continuois improvement programs yeild the expected results help to unlock hidden capabilities as well as allows for greater flexibility in altering schedule to meet shifting demands. It is essential that executives are provided visibility across plants, product lines and demand when making decisions on delivery, discounts and staffing. Many companies can manufacture the sam e product in mutiple facilities and are continually evaluating the most cost effective loaction to manufacture based on a mutitude of factors. Finally, establishing key performance indicators mapped to corporate goals allows shop floor process across different plants to be standardized and alligned to the goals of senior management.† [27] The focus is on ensuring continuous improvement programs and establishing key performance indicating targets that eventually supports corporate goals. Also what is part of best in class manufaturers strategic goals is to provide visibility across the plants, production lines and demands, This would help the exectives of the organzaition to understand monitor the performanc of ongoing processes. In the survey carried out by aberdeen group following percentage was calculated of the best in class organizations of the top three strategic actions taken by them: The above research indication shows the top three strategic actions of the Best-In-Class organizations and all of these actions are quality related. This very well proves that for the organizations that wants to be included in the best in class list or that wants to stay in best in class list must improve their quality standards as per the market and industries requirements. Hence quality improvement could be termed as the necessity of todays era and to survive in todays market an organization needs to update it quality management systems. All the indicators from research above points towards the advancements in quality management and that lead us to the topic of quality management systems of today that is Web-based quality management. CHAPTER 3 Quality Management Systems From time to time quality gurus and scholars have only been focusing and trying to develope appropriate control charts for processes, but now due to the advancements in technology and shifting towards real time quality management Web-base Quality Management Systems Web-base Quality Management Systems Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Defining Quality, History and Achieving International Quality Standards Quality is a perceptual, conditional and somewhat subjective attribute and may be understood differently by different people in different spheres of life. It is a degree or grade of excellence or worth, a characteristic property that defines the apparent individual nature of something or totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs. In recent years, many organisations have adopted quality management systems to improve the quality of both goods and services through the application of efficient quality management methods and principles (Feigenbaum, 2000). The reason why so many organisations have started on the journey is either because of customer pressure for ISO 9000 certification or because the firms themselves have realised the strategic advantage of having this certificate, i.e. it would give them an edge over their competitors. Most of the firms which started out on the journey to ISO 9000 still may not have completed that journey. In general, it takes 2 years, and obtaining this coveted certificate is only a first step towards the ultimate goal: total quality management (TQM). Reaching this goal may take at least 5 years. In the next sections of the dissertation we will take a closer look at the characteristics of the different quality management systems. In this section, we concentrate on the concept of quality itself. We start with the two types of quality, namely: Objective quality, which is simply the products total number of quality attributes. Subjective quality, which is a result of the consumers experience of the products objective attributes. Subjective quality is thus defined as the degree of fulfillment of consumers expectations (Feigenbaum, 2000). Beyond the customers desirable expectations, there are always the customers latent expectations. Manufacturers and the service providers must therefore find the hidden expectations in order to keep the customer satisfied. It is subjective quality which matters to the company, and it is this definition which Deming used in his renowned eight-day quality seminars for Japanese top managers in 1950. Demings message to them was simple but powerful: The consumer is the most important part of the production line. The idea that customers should be seen as a part of the production line was in itself a revolutionary one at that time. A logical conclusion is that quality production is only possible if it is systematically and continuously based on customer desires and needs. It is simple in theory but difficult in practice because there are many obstacles to overcome along the way. Demings 14 points, which we have taken the liberty of calling stations along the way, are among the most important means of overcoming these obstacles. You may ask this important question: Why have the Japanese been better at understanding Demings message than the Western world? There are many reasons for this, but one of the most intriguing reasons may be found in the Japanese language, and thus in Japanese culture. In the Japanese language, quality management can be translated as quality is equal to the attributes of the things (i.e. what peoples talk about). This interpretation results in the following definition of quality management: Control of the attributes of a product which consumers talk about. To understand why consumers talk about a products attributes, we will delve into motivation theory. Herzberg has divided motivation into two factors: Factors which create satisfaction (satisfiers). Factors which create dissatisfaction (dissatisfiers). Similarly, many objective attributes of a product or service can be categorised. We may talk about the basic attributes that the consumer expects when he/she buys the product. If these are not present in sufficient quantities, the consumer experiences dissatisfaction. If the expected attributes are present, naturally the consumer is satisfied, but the interesting and crucial thing is that the degree of satisfaction will not necessarily be particularly high. The experience will be more or less neutral. Apart from the attributes which the customer expects to find, it is always possible to build attributes into the product or service which the customer does not expect to find, i.e. attributes which will delight or satisfy him/her. The more of these attributes that are present in the product or services, the greater the satisfaction, and this satisfaction will, in many cases, increase significantly. We call these attributes value-added quality. However, in Japan they use the term charming quality, whereas in the US they interpret this as exciting quality. We believe that value-added quality covers both. One example of expected quality in air travel is safety. Korean Air lost its reputation as a quality airline in the wake of the tragic incident of a passenger airline being shot down over Soviet territory. Prior to this incident, Korean Air was rated as one of the top quality airlines in the world. Afterwards, Korean Airs quality ratings dropped significantly. In our view, the only thing which can adequately explain this is that Korean Air had failed to deliver the customers expected quality. As an example of value-added quality, let us consider the added service offered by ISS Laundry Service, a subsidiary of International Service Systems (ISS). This company which, among other activities, changes bed-linen in hotel rooms, suddenly had an idea. As they were there to change the sheets, they might as well see if anything else needed doing, e.g. small repairs, changing light-bulbs, etc., and report this to the hotel management. This unexpected service, which hardly costs ISS anything, created an enormous amount of goodwill for the company among its customers. The understanding behind Demings assertion, that the consumer is the most important aspect of the production line, lies precisely in the subjective definition of quality, which we will be discussing in this dissertation. The introduction of quality management theory towards the end of the 1980s led to the development of a new concept called total quality. This concept was defined as follows (Kanji, 2002): Qualityis to satisfy customers requirements continuously. Total qualityis to achieve quality at low cost. Total quality managementis to obtain total quality by involving everyones daily commitment. These definitions will become clearer as we proceed through the dissertation. The objective of TQM is to improve continuously each and every activity in the company focusing on the customer. Every product has some deficiency, i.e. risks for making customers dissatisfied. These deficiencies must be continually eliminated and, at the same time, the firm must ensure that its product or service always incorporate the quality attributes which satisfy its customers. 1.2 Total quality management The concept of TQM is a logical development of total quality control (TQC), a concept first introduced by A. V. Feigenbaum in 2000 in a book of the same name. Though Feigenbaum had other things in mind with TQC, it only really caught on in engineering circles, and thus never achieved the total acceptance in British companies that was intended. TQC was a hit in Japan, on the other hand, where the first quality circles were set up in 1962, which later developed into what the Japanese themselves call company-wide quality control (CWQC). this is identical to what people in the West today call TQM. One of the main reasons for the failure of TQC in British companies was a management misconception that responsibility for implementing TQC could be delegated to a central quality department. In doing so, management overlooked one of the most important points in TQC, namely managements wholehearted commitment to quality improvements. The aim of the new concept, TQM, is to ensure that history does not repeat itself. Thus, management have been directly included in the definition of the concept, making it impossible for them to avoid their responsibility. To include the word management here sends an unmistakable signal straight into executive offices that this is a job for top management, including the board of directors. TQM will be further discussed in following chapters. Chapter 2 Quality Perspectives The inadequacy of traditional management in UK Japan Traditional British forms of management are based on a philosophy which divides responsibility for decisions into strategic, tactical and operational levels, i.e. the so-called management pyramid. We now know that this management conception is totally inadequate for modern, complex companies, since it does not give the connection between top management and the main processes at the bottom responsible for customer satisfaction. As a result, the management is ignorant of the real problems on the operational level, and do not provide the support and backing that the operation level needs for the creation of customer satisfaction (Feigenbaum, 2000). The decisions which cascade down from top management are often exclusively budgetary in nature, containing instructions which are forced on lower levels without due consideration of their problems. Many local branches of a bank have similar experiences. A typical example of this was noted after some Danish bank mergers took place at the, end of the 1980s. Branch managers of these banks received orders by internal post to cut staff numbers by a certain figure with no indication of how this could be achieved without drastically reducing the quality of products and services offered to their customers. Hiromoto (2002) describes this as management by terrorism. In discussing British and Japanese management philosophy, Konosuke Matsushita, founder of one of the worlds biggest companies, Matsushita Electric (Panasonic, National, Technics, etc.), said: We are going to win and the industrial West is going to lose out: theres nothing much you can do about it, because the reasons for your failure are within yourselves. Your firms are built on the Taylor model; even worse, so are your heads. With your bosses doing the thinking while the workers wield the screwdrivers, youre convinced deep down that this is the right way to run a business. For you, the essence of management is getting the ideas out of the heads of the bosses into the hands of labour. (p). Hoinville (2002) feels that the emphasis of managements commitment has its origin in the system, the reason for quality defects. It has been estimated that 85% of all defects are caused by system errors, i.e. errors which only management has the authority to change. Management must show by its actions that it has understood the message. It must constantly strive to reduce system errors by setting up quality goals, drawing up quality policies and quality plans, and participating actively in the follow-up auditing phase. Finally, management must concede its own lack of knowledge in the quality field and take the lead in acquiring new knowledge. If management does all this, it will have created a firm foundation on which future quality can be built. Conversely, there would be little point in building quality on a shaky foundation. We have already pointed out that the customer is the most important part of the production line. Deming (2002) introduced this idea to top Japanese managers in 1950 by means of a basic outline of an arbitrary production system, or part of a production system. This outline, which must today be considered traditional, shows that both customer and supplier are part of the production system, and that information for improving this comes from two sources: consumer research and process tests. Since this outline also applies to an arbitrary sub-system, it shows that customer and supplier concepts embrace much more than just external customers and suppliers. Internal customers and suppliers, i.e. employees, are at least as important as the external ones. Any person, or process, which forms part of the production system must recognise that it serves a number of internal customers, and the quality of the output delivered to these customers is crucial to the end result, i.e. the quality of the output delivered to the external customer. Deming (2002) himself concedes that, in 1950, this was a formidable challenge for the Japanese top managers, but they accepted the challenge, and the result is there for us all to see today. In Demings words: A new economic age had begun. Today it is difficult to understand that such a simple message presented the Japanese with such a difficult challenge. Our experience of top managers is that they accept the message without question. However, this does not lessen the difficulty of the challenge, because it implies that firms traditional information systems are totally inadequate. A culture must be established to ensure that internal customer research functions just as well as external. Here, it is important to point out that internal analysis is based on entirely different principles from external analysis. Communication and team-building are the key words here. Obviously, the participation of top management is necessary in building up this culture. It can be seen that the Focus on the customer and the employee is much more comprehensive than just the focus on the customer, which is the norm in service management. The latter refers solely to external customers. The former, while including these, also stresses the internal customer/supplier relationship. This relationship is one of the most important innovations which TQM has introduced. Quality Management In Todays Era As we have discussed above that how the management of quality is vital to the output product of any organization it has made clear that without an excellent quality management system an organization can not implement total quality management. In todays era new ways of quality management have been introduced that can make quality management a much easier and effective job for the management body. Technology has been quiet advance in todays world and every organization is trying to get its hand on the most advance technology that can take it to a much higher level from its competitiors. A new emerging technology for managing quality in well established organizations is the use of Web-Based Quality Management Systems. Why this technology is vital today is beacuse of organizations expanding their businesses worldwide or operating at different geoghraphical locations. It is much easier to manage the quality in an organization that is operating at one location but if it has its operations going on at different locations it is much harder to implement and manage total quality management. But these new systems have overcome this gap by providing a centralized hub to manage the quality. No matter how scattered the operations of the organizations are and how many stake holders are involved, by implementing these systems organizations need not to worry about the distance and communication gap. Competition and cost consciousness on the one side an increasing demand for quality and reliability on the other side are contrary requirements in present production engineering. This must be considered also from the point of view of the international standards about quality management and quality assurance. The origins of quality management and quality assurance in a modern sense began in manufacturing organizations at about the beginning of the twentieth century [1], and many of the tools for quality analysis and improvement were developed for manufacturing problems. Through the 1980s, this manufacturing emphasis dominated the profession. In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, business began to recognise the importance of quality service in achieving customer satisfaction and competing in the global marketplace. In the late 1990s also the public domain and governmental departments became aware of the general importance of quality issues. In a very important sense, this recognition has expanded the definition and  concept of quality to include nearly any organisational improvement such as the reduction of manufacturing cycle time and improved worker skills. And also the public sector is now starting to take care of quality management within its structures. In addition to industrial organisations and the manufacturing industry also service organisations build up quality systems. Ancillary services in manufacturing companies as well as stand-alone service organisations such as hospitals and banks are beginning to realise the benefits of a focus on quality. A number of different industries are successively doing business around the globe and the quality systems that are availaible in the market does not mostly cater a specific industry and all of them provide different features, tools and options, so it is a complex decision to choose the best availaible solution from a wide range of variety. In this dissertation different availaible web-based quality management systems are reviewed and their shortnesses are pointed out and a model is proposed in the end that covers all gaps in the currently availaible systems. Chapter 2: Literature Review In this chapter literature review is carried out and analyzed that which tools and schemes are imperative for the management of quality and how they cooperate in the quality management. This will enable to know how different branches of an organization can be indulged with quality by using what sort of tools and how these tools can benifit any organization. â€Å"The approach to quality most extensively adopted by Western companies in recent years has been the application of national and international (ISO 9000 or equivalent) quality management standards. This approach is following firmly along the quality assurance path. It is more proactive than reliance on detection/inspection and allows for the use of quality tools primarily to stop non-conforming products being produced or non-conforming services being delivered in the first place. Hence there is a switch implied from detection to prevention via quality systems, procedures and a quality manual.† [18] 2.1 Quality Management Tools Techniques Numerous definitions and methodologies have been created to assist in managing the quality-affecting aspects of business operations. Many different techniques and concepts have evolved to improve product or service quality. Tools and techniques like charts, graphs, histograms and complex tools like Statistical Process Control, Quality Function Deployment, Failure Mode and Effect Analysis and Design of Experiments have been used for quality management for a number of years. All of these tools are very effective for quality evaluation and implementation when applied rightly and at correct situation. Juan Jose Tari and Vicente Sabater {Quality management tools} in their research on â€Å"Quality tools and Techniques† has outlined few important tools and techniques that can be luminously helping in managing and increasing organizations quality standards. The very basic tools, the management tools for quality and techniques for quality management are outlined in the table below: Basic Quality Management Tools Management Tools Techniques Cause Effect Diagram Affinity Diagram Benchmarking Check Sheet Arrow Diagram Design of Experiments Control chart Matrix Diagram FMEA Graphs Matrix Data Analysis Fault Tree Analysis Histoghram Process Decision Poka Yoke Pareto Diagram Program Chart Quality Costing Scatter Diagram Relations Diagram QFD Statistical Process Control Table 1 Quality Management Tools and Techniques Each indivisual tool has its own speciality and benifits the organization in its own manner. The implementation and benifits of few of these tools are discussed in the next section. 2.2 Quality Control, Assurance and Improvement The scholars of quality assume that the computer is only the linking force and they put less emphasis on it, and frequently do not consider at all, the modern practices linked to quality management such as employee involvement or continuous quality improvement. Indeed, they concentrate their attention on the computer integration/automation model.† But for quality control, quality assurance and quality improvement insists on involving all these aspects. {Good one} Quality control is defined as operational with activities aimed both at monitoring a process and eliminating causes of unsatisfactory performance for relevant stages of the quality loop to achieve economic effectiveness. Quality control is a technique to achieve, maintain and improve the quality standard of products and service. Defects or failures in constructed facilities or products can result in very large costs. {500} the emphasis on quality control is clear to achieve complete quality management and for this quality control tools are vital to be implemented. Quality improvement requires improvement of processes in process based quality improvement approach. To improve the quality hence several inspection tools can be applied to access the processes and find the ways to improve it to get better and better results. Also the basic goal of using quality control techniques is to streamline the manufacturing system by minimizing the occurrence of quality related problems. Most of the time, problems related to quality of products have many controllable sources, be it the vendors of raw materials, equipment used to process such materials, methods used for processing, the personnel involved or any other specific source as identified by the organization. {800} has suggested following significant tools for the quality management in respect of each quality component: Quality Control Quality Assurance Quality Improvement Statistical process control Regression Process capability analysis, Rule-based reasoning (Expert Systems) Factor analysis Pareto analysis Model-based reasoning and case-based reasoning Cause and effect diagram Process mapping, design of experiments Failure Mode and Effect Analysis Quality function deployment Design of Experiments Design of experiments Analysis of variance Table 1 Above mentioned tools when used in combinations as best suitable for the processes and enterprise could produce massive increase in overall performance of the organization. Few of these tools and their significance in quality managemet is illustrated below: 2.3 Statistical Process Control The appearance of computers on the shop floor has enhanced the increased adoption of SPC. Computers have greatly reduced the efforts required by production personnel to collect and analyze data.{very good journal} â€Å"High quality products and services, far from being random or probabilistic events, are actually anticipated and managed outcomes that can contribute to organizational survival in the marketplace. This realization has encouraged organizations to embrace and implement numerous approaches, some novel and some re-discovered, aimed at achieving the objective of continuous quality improvement. One popular and widespread implementation in the name of quality management is that of statistical process control, or SPC. [19] Statistical Process Control or SPC can be used in a organization for the quality control purpose. It when applied to a process gives the stability of that process which can eventually help in identifing the root causes and take corrective actions.â€Å"The basic goal of using quality control techniques is to streamline the manufacturing system by minimizing the occurrence of quality related problems. Most of the time, problems related to quality of products have many controllable sources, be it the vendors of raw materials, equipment used to process such materials, methods used for processing, the personnel involved or any other specific source as identified by the organization.†[20] SPC is an effective tool for controlling quality of a manufacturing process rather it can be applied to most of the processes in any organization and can aid in controlling the quality as per requirements. It identifies the sources that affects the quality of the process outputs and hence can be eradicated as identified. But there lies a problem with the use of it that is interpreting the results of SPC which can be only well understood by quality control specialists. This can create communication gaps and a lot of other misconceptions about its use. But still SPC is being used to control quality from a number of years and it has proved itself to be giving enormously positive results to the organizations. â€Å"The popularity of SPC as a quality management practice has been fostered, in part, by a wealth of publications ascribing quality and cost benefits to it. The literature is dominated by anecdotal â€Å"success† stories, attributing higher market share, lower failure costs, higher product quality, and higher productivity to the implementation and practice of SPC (Dondero, 1991). Reports of SPC failures, on the contrary, have been few and, again, case-oriented (Dale Shaw, 1991; Lightburn Dale, 1992).†[22] Evans and Lindsay (1989, pp. 313-3 14), define SPC to be a methodology using control charts for assisting operators, supervisors, and managers to monitor quality of conformance and to eliminate special causes of variability of a process a technique to control quality using probability and statistics to determine and maintain the state of statistical control.[23 Hence the advantages and effectiveness can well be understood from the above discussion and its can be c oncluded that SPC can play a major role in controling any process and eliminating any cause that disturbs the process as its main idea is to enable the quality of conformance to be monitored and special causes of process variability to be eliminated. 2.4 Failure Mode and Effect Analysis Failure Mode and Effect Analysis is tool that can be used to analyse the failures that can occur in the near future or after the implementation of the system and identify the effects that it would cause to the system. â€Å"Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (FMEA) is known to be a systematic procedure for the analysis of a system to identify the potential failure modes, their causes and effects on system performance. The analysis is successfully performed preferably early in the development cycle so that removal or mitigation of the failure mode is most cost effective. This analysis can be initiated as soon as the system is defined: FMEA timing is essential.† [24] 1 below shows some random forms as an example of FMEA version 1, 2 3 charts. For FMEA to be effective its is very important to use this tool in the early development phase as catching errors and fixing them in earlier stages is more effectual and less costly. FMEA can be implemented to the highest level of block diagram to the functions of the of the discrete components. Also FMEA can be used again and again as the design is developed. â€Å"The FMEA is an iterative process that is updated as the design develops. Design changes will require that relevant parts of the FMEA be reviewed and updated.† [24] Hence FMEA could play an imperative role in going for the process changing for improvement. The change planned for the process for improving it can be verified by the application of this technique. 2.5 Quality Function Deployment (QFD) QFD has been used along with the integration of other effective tools to achieve quality in processes and products, reducing cycle times and improving performance. {600} found out that in the span of the first seven years, between 1977 and 1984, the Toyota Auto body plant employed QFD and claimed that with its use: Manufacturing startup and pre-production costs were reduced by 60%. The product development cycle (that is, time to market) was reduced by 33% with a corresponding improvement in quality because of the reduction in the number of engineering changes. Quality function deployment QFD is based on the concept of companywide quality control. The company wide quality control philosophy is characterised by customer orientation, cross functional management and process rather than product orientation. Also the roots of Japanese companywide quality control are the same concepts of statistical quality control and total quality control as originated in the USA. 2.6 Quality Improvement A Need or A Neccessity In the technological advanced manufacturing industry today, organziations are trying their level best to imorove their quality standards yet reducing their cycle times and time to reach the market. This pushes them to adopt the latest availaible technologies to manage and inject quality into their products and processes, so that the production time is not effected by increasing concern of quality management. Nowadays there is a tough competition in every . Aberdeen Group has done an extensive research on Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence and it says that the best in class organzaitions are â€Å"ensuring that continuois improvement programs yeild the expected results help to unlock hidden capabilities as well as allows for greater flexibility in altering schedule to meet shifting demands. It is essential that executives are provided visibility across plants, product lines and demand when making decisions on delivery, discounts and staffing. Many companies can manufacture the sam e product in mutiple facilities and are continually evaluating the most cost effective loaction to manufacture based on a mutitude of factors. Finally, establishing key performance indicators mapped to corporate goals allows shop floor process across different plants to be standardized and alligned to the goals of senior management.† [27] The focus is on ensuring continuous improvement programs and establishing key performance indicating targets that eventually supports corporate goals. Also what is part of best in class manufaturers strategic goals is to provide visibility across the plants, production lines and demands, This would help the exectives of the organzaition to understand monitor the performanc of ongoing processes. In the survey carried out by aberdeen group following percentage was calculated of the best in class organizations of the top three strategic actions taken by them: The above research indication shows the top three strategic actions of the Best-In-Class organizations and all of these actions are quality related. This very well proves that for the organizations that wants to be included in the best in class list or that wants to stay in best in class list must improve their quality standards as per the market and industries requirements. Hence quality improvement could be termed as the necessity of todays era and to survive in todays market an organization needs to update it quality management systems. All the indicators from research above points towards the advancements in quality management and that lead us to the topic of quality management systems of today that is Web-based quality management. CHAPTER 3 Quality Management Systems From time to time quality gurus and scholars have only been focusing and trying to develope appropriate control charts for processes, but now due to the advancements in technology and shifting towards real time quality management

Living Through God: The Meaning of a Christian :: social issues

Living Through God: The Meaning of a Christian "Without God, the thinkers of the world will never grasp the meanings of life, origin and destiny†, so the strong spirited young woman remarks about life. Teenagers today appraise their lives through school, work, and friends. Often times, there is one type of teenager that displays a greater attitude, in which whom goes beyond the obvious by simply shining a little brighter. A courageous teen of determination, providing inspiration, possesses such positive attributes, gives reason to classify her by inspiring and strengthening the youth of today. On October 25, 1985, an individual, so concise, diminutive, or what seemed to be not much of great impact of this world, was born. Subsequently, becoming one that gives profound importance in the hearts of those she will touch. Arica Helaine Ingratta, a teenager of uniqueness in every way, persists by perceiving life by one entity, God. Initially, Arica procures from a family consisting of a younger brother, an older sister, a set of parents, one dog, two cats, and a hamster. Indeed, one may perceive this family to be a little unconventional; it is. Born and raised in Windsor, Ontario, Arica grew up with a strong grasp on life from the very beginning. Her story entitles one to be unique, inspiring, and meaningful. â€Å"Arica Helaine†, derives from her father’s name, Ericolino, and Helen, the name of her mother. Her beginnings of education sets out at St. Gabriel’s catholic school where, in grade 4, she transferred schools to the Maranatha Christian Academy and later to First Lutheran Christian Academy where she developed a fundamental Christian basis. She was an intelligent, little princess that was often called â€Å"peanut†. An asset to her character is her genuine smile. Filled with energy and ambitions, she carries a strong spirit in whatever she does or is determined in becoming; so on to discover the meaning of life. Having acquired from a Christian family, she learns the meaning of God through her parents and school. While the world celebrated the coming of the New Year on December 31st of 1998, Arica was celebrating a rather different event. At a Christian concert, she became saved by accepting God into her life. She developed a personal relationship with God while continuing to live through Him. While many young teenagers were thriving about their girlfriends or boyfriends, their physical appearances, or the newest pop artist, Arica, by age 14, determined in becoming a youth Evangelist.

Ethnocentrism Essay example -- essays research papers

Webster’s dictionary defines ethnocentrism as â€Å"The tendency to evaluate other groups according to the values and standards of one's own ethnic group, especially with the conviction that one's own ethnic group is superior to the other groups.† When first reading this definition, one would naturally agree that ethnocentrism does exist in our world and society, often confusing it with patriotism. However, many do not realize that ethnocentrism is, has been, and continues to be a leading cause for violence in America. Different ethnic groups such as African Americans and Native Americans have suffered through years of violent crimes against them because of the white man’s ethnocentric views of themselves when compared with other races and cultures.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ethnocentrism began to develop in America long before we were officially a nation. When Europeans first came to America and had their initial encounters with the Native Americans, the Europeans were so surprised about how different the Natives were. Their differences in language, dress, and skin color made them doubt that the Native Americans were even human. Stemming from this notion, the Europeans eventually began to consider the Natives as the â€Å"other† and felt that they were more civilized than the â€Å"others.† Amerigo Vespucci wrote that the Native Americans were â€Å"worse than heathen; because we did not see that they offered any sacrifice, nor did they have a house of prayer.† Consequently, these feelings...

Assault and Battery

Introduction In the context of criminal law, â€Å"assault and battery† are typically components of a single offense. In tort law, â€Å"assault† and â€Å"battery† are separate, with an assault being an act which creates fear of an imminent battery, and the battery being an unlawful touching. Assault and battery are intentional torts, meaning that the defendant actually intends to put the plaintiff in fear of being battered, or intends to wrongfully touch the plaintiff.The wrongful touching need not inflict physical injury, and may be indirect (such as contact through a thrown stone, or spitting). This article describes the law of assault and battery as it is commonly applied, although the law may vary in any specific jurisdiction. Assault An assault involves: 1. An intentional, unlawful threat or â€Å"offer† to cause bodily injury to another by force; 2. Under circumstances which create in the other person a well-founded fear of imminent peril; 3. Where there exists the apparent present ability to carry out the act if not prevented.Note that an assault can be completed even if there is no actual contact with the plaintiff, and even if the defendant had no actual ability to carry out the apparent threat. For example, a defendant who points a realistic toy gun at the plaintiff may be liable for assault, even though the defendant was fifty feet away from the plaintiff and had no actual ability to inflict harm from that distance. Battery A battery is the willful or intentional touching of a person against that person’s will by another person, or by an object or substance put in motion by that other person.Please note that an offensive touching can constitute a battery even if it does not cause injury, and could not reasonably be expected to cause injury. A defendant who emphatically pokes the plaintiff in the chest with his index finger to emphasize a point may be culpable for battery (although the damages award that results ma y well be nominal). A defendant who spits on a plaintiff, even though there is little chance that the spitting will cause any injury other than to the plaintiff's dignity, has committed a battery.

Deconstruction of an Advertisement

COMM 10265 DECONSTRUCTING AN ADVERTISEMENT ASSIGNMENT Sexy Subaru Car Wash Sexy Subaru Car Wash Sexy Sumo Car-Wash Video. flv – YouTube Subaru puts a new Eastern satirical twist on the tradition Western sexy car wash in their advertisement for the Forrester which in place of Heidi Klum or Jessica Simpson sumo wrestlers scantily washing the new vehicle. This advertisement starts off with a dirty Forrester pulling into the car wash with seductive music playing in the background.Most audiences expect a group of supermodels in bikinis to come out and wash the car, however the elderly couple and the audience is surprised to see six sumo wrestlers come out in uniform to wash the car. The sumo wrestlers whip their rags and rub their stomachs up against the car to depict a scene of what the average sexy car wash would be like when sumo wrestlers take the place of bikini models. Give credit to Subaru for taking this substance of style approach to advertising, with the humor doing their cause no harm. What social groups is the advertisement aimed and what social groups are represented in the advertisement?This advertisement by Subaru is aimed at automobile consumers in Canada, as well as an unintentional client base which see the advertisement as an activist-like change to the way car commercials are being produced. Its humorous and non-conformist provocativeness of the ad engages a different kind of audience than the average car purchaser. There is no specific age or gender that this commercial is aimed at, and by replacing supermodels with sumo wrestlers the car is now being advertised more broadly to include women in the target market.Does the advertisement violate or reinforce social/cultural norms? By using sumo wrestlers the Japanese car company Subaru has put an eastern cultural twist to the advertisement and this contrast is meant to be satirical in nature. In traditional western advertisements particularly in the automobile industry the use of a stereotyp ical â€Å"bombshell† would be used to promote products. This is to give the impression that the sleek new product will help you attain these stereotypical man/women of your dreams.This ad violates social and cultural norms by replacing beautiful women who normally would advertise cars with sumo wrestlers, a reference to the origin of the cars manufacturer. In an article published in Motor Authority it was quoted that â€Å"Unlike the bikini-wearing models in other ads, you're not left wondering where the car is†¦If anything your eyes seek out the [car], if only for aesthetic relief. † (Lienert 2011) In this advertisement Subaru Canada is also portraying a sense of Japanese pride. Sumo wrestlers are honored in Japan and by replacing a Canadian or American supermodel with a symbol of Japanese pride, the sumo wrestler.This connects viewers with the pride of a Japanese manufactured car that the ad is trying to sell. What else is the ad selling? Subaru Canada is selli ng a new type of car advertisement which shows deviance to societal norms by changing the image of what people think is sexy. Sex sells is a long standing phrase that can be used to define the advertising industry and before this commercial was released many manufacturers marketed â€Å"sexy† car advertisements using Sports Illustrated swimsuit models or models of a similar stature.Subaru in lieu of the sexy bikini models has chosen to express their individuality by chosen a cultural representation to poke fun at traditional advertising. Subaru takes a humorous approach to the commercial, selling the attributes of the vehicle. The trend of substance over style is now more apparent as consumers are much more educated especially in regards to the auto industry. Buyers are now more likely to be concerned with mileage, service ability/availability and resale value rather than whether or not their ride can get them a date for Saturday night.Works Cited Hall, S. (2011, 11 30). Retr ieved from http://www. adrants. com/2011/11/car-brands-still-using-sex-to-sell. php Lienert, A. (2011, 02 17). Subaru lampoons supermodel ads with sexy sumo wrestlers. Retrieved from http://www. insideline. com/subaru/forester/2011/subaru-lampoons-supermodel-ads-with-sexy-sumo-wrestlers. html Norm (social) . (2012, 11 10). Retrieved from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Norm_(social) Sexy sumo car wash. (2010, 05). Retrieved from