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The purpose of this paper is to attempt to provide a reference framework for the major properties of performance indicators, using the formalism of the Representation Theory.

Performance indicators shown are commonly used in many different areas of operations management in order to analyse process evolution. However, in practical applications many questions arise: “How many indicators should be used for representing a given process?”, “Is there an optimal set?”, “How to check whether the indicators used suitably represent the system investigated?”, etc. In the literature these questions have been addressed in relation to a number of different application fields. This has led to a maze of classifications and properties, which may create confusion in both the academic and the practitioner communities. In a previous work, the paper carried out an analysis of the existing literature, examining and comparing different approaches. This present work identifies and analyses the major properties which effective indicators should exhibit, and suggests an operational methodology to choose the “best” set of indicators.

The findings in this paper produce a detailed analysis of the properties of indicators and establish a schematic methodology facilitating the selection and verification of indicators. To make the process clearer, properties are explained by the use of practical examples.

Indicators are utilized in many different contexts for a variety of purposes (for example, logistics, business management, manufacturing, sports competitions, etc.). The paper provides a general analysis of the most important properties of indicators, without entering into specific application contexts.

The paper proposes an operational methodology to support the selection and testing of the best indicators for a given process. This methodology may also be used for integrating other existing approaches.

Properties of indicators are examined from a mathematical/symbolic point of view, using the formalism of the Representation Theory.

Nowadays, companies are increasingly adopting additive manufacturing (AM) technologies due to their flexibility and product customization, combined with non-dramatic increases in per unit cost. Moreover, many companies deploy a plurality of distributed AM centers to enhance flexibility and customer proximity. Although AM centers are characterized by similar equipment and working methods, their production mix and volumes may be variable. The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel methodology to (1) monitor the quality of the production of individual AM centers and (2) perform a benchmarking of different AM centers.

This paper analyzes the quality of the production output of AM centers in terms of compliance with specifications. Quality is assessed through a multivariate statistical analysis of measurement data concerning several geometric quality characteristics. A novel operational methodology is suggested to estimate the fraction nonconforming of each AM center at three different levels: (1) overall production, (2) individual product typologies in the production mix and (3) individual quality characteristics.

The proposed methodology allows performing a benchmark analysis on the quality performance of distributed AM centers during regular production, without requiring any ad hoc experimental test.

This research assesses the capability of distributed AM centers to meet crucial quality requirements. The results can guide production managers toward improving the quality of the production of AM centers, in order to meet customer expectations and enhance business performance.

Product-service systems (PSSs)’s popularity has expanded significantly throughout recent years. The purpose of this paper is to integrate products and services to achieve functional results that augment the offering’s value. Nevertheless, the intangibility of services hinders the diffusion of PSSs: services are characterized by imprecisions and ambiguities that render the assessment and prioritization of customer requirements problematic. An inadequate evaluation of the latter leads to an inconsistent PSS design that results in the customer dissatisfaction.

To address these concerns, the paper proposes an approach integrating the quality function deployment for product-service systems (QFDforPSS) method with Thurstone’s Law of Comparative Judgments. This approach was tested at a manufacturer in the medical sector seeking to improve his market stance through a PSS model.

Although the case study is based on a limited sample, the results achieved highlight the importance of the flow of information between the PSS provider and the customers (i.e. the PSS receivers) in the healthcare sector. The proposed approach can facilitate the company in collecting information even in the case of incomplete answers to surveys and questionnaires providing a practical method to handle the uncertainty due to incomplete data.

The study represents one of the first applications of the PSS approach in the healthcare sector, introducing a novel integration of easy-to-use management tools to augment the understanding of customer needs and expectations.

Measurement and evaluation issues have long represented the main criticality of accrual accounting adoption in the public sector. While professional accountants and scholars have mostly focused on the recognition and measurement of typical public assets (e.g. heritage and community assets), the authors contend that more attention should be paid to the equity (net assets). The equity requires additional evaluation criteria that stem from the representation of an accounting aggregate that does not exist per se but rather derives as a residual from all the other items reported in the balance sheet. This chapter proposes an illustrative case study on the evolution of the accrual accounting principle for Italian local governments (LGs). The findings enable the gaining of a deeper understanding of how the equity can be represented and discuss which informative objectives it can address in public administrations. Practical recommendations are delivered for national and international accounting standard setters for the public sector.

Analysis and comparison of three existing indicators of the air quality: the American air quality index, the French Atmo, and the Italian Indice di Qualità dell'Aria.

International general and organic regulations to control air quality do not exist yet. Consequently many countries have independently implemented specific indicators to monitor the air pollution and then alert people of resulting health risks. The paper focuses on three of them. Each one is independently presented showing the peculiarities. Therefore, these indicators are compared to identify the features they have in common, as well as those that set them apart, and to figure out which are either restrictive or permissive, and what are their qualities and drawbacks.

The three mentioned indicators convert the real health risk due to air pollution into numerical information, in different ways. Doing this, they carry out some simplifications or assumptions, which can be questionable. The main difficulty is to understand if the indicators aggregate the different pollutant concentrations consistently with the real effects on human health.

This paper analyses only three specific indicators of the air quality, selected among the existing ones.

Indicators should carefully be analysed to understand if they properly represents the real effects of pollutants on human health. The most critical aspect to consider is the aggregation of the different pollutant concentrations in one information.

This paper analyses the efficacy of representation of some air quality indicators. It discusses if indicators aggregation is consistent with the real effects on human health.

This paper aims to solve the problem of free-form tubes’ machining errors which are caused by their complex geometries and material properties.

In this paper, the authors propose a multi-view vision-based method for measuring free-form tubes. The authors apply photogrammetry theory to construct the initial model and then optimize the model using an energy function. The energy function is based on the features of the image of the tube. Solving the energy function allows to use the gray features of the images to reconstruct centerline point clouds and thus obtain the pertinent geometric parameters.

According to the experiments, the measurement process takes less than 2 min and the precision of the proposed system is 0.2 mm. The authors used simple operations to carry out the measurements, and the process is fully automatic.

This paper proposes a method for measuring free-form tubes based on multi-view vision, which has not been attempted to the best of authors’ knowledge. This method differs from traditional multi-view vision measurement methods, because it does not rely on the data of the design model of the tube. The application of the energy function also avoids the problem of matching corresponding points and thus simplifying the calculation and improving its stability.

This paper aims to propose an integrated use of balanced scorecard (BSC), data envelopment analysis (DEA) and game theory approach as an enhanced performance measurement technique to determine and rank the importance of manufacturing indicators of a steel company as a real case study.

An efficiency change ratio is defined to examine the characteristic function of each coalition which is super-additive. Then, the Shapley value index is used as the solution of the cooperative game to determine the importance of the BSC indicators of the company and rank order them.

The results reveal that “profitability rate” is the most important BSC indicator, whereas “customer satisfaction” is the least significant one. The ranking order of the importance of all BSC indicators makes it possible for the senior managers of the organization to realize the importance of each index separately and to improve the profitability and the number of customers by presenting programs according to the budget and time constraints.

The main contribution of this paper lies in the adoption of a game theory approach to performance measurement in the industrial sector that determines and ranks the importance of manufacturing indicators.

The goal of this paper is to suggest a new incentive model that is capable of creating the conditions for the autonomous growth of diffusion and credibility of the ISO 9000 national quality certification system.

The first part of this work contains some considerations about the general interest of organisations in quality certification systems, emphasising the advantages and the drawbacks in being certified. Next, the attention shifts to future scenarios. Specifically, a new model is proposed that is capable of encouraging certified organisations (COs) and certification bodies (CBs) that operate blamelessly and seriously, while at the same time penalising those that do not.

The suggested model consists of two inter‐connected sub‐models relative to COs and CBs, respectively. Each sub‐model includes different states with different incentives/penalties. The switch‐over from one state to another depends on the practical results recorded in recent years by the CO/CB of interest. The switching rules are based on a set of objective, transparent, and non‐manipulable indicators.

On‐site analyses and simulations are necessary so as to tune optimal switching rules to balance the whole model.

The (possible) future implementation of the model could have great impact on COs' and CBs' modi operandi, promoting the real implementation of quality management practices but – at the same time – not requiring significant additional effort from the state and the authorities accrediting/controlling CBs.

The proposed model is absolutely new and may represent a proper way to combine the interests and expectations of COs and CBs into a unique “virtuous circle” for improving the real implementation of quality management.