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The purpose of this study is to challenge bridging the gap between the problems of the existing quality profession and the existing and emerging challenges of quality with regard to people, organizations and societies, hence broadening the traditional coverage of quality from the organizations to these three hierarchial societal levels.

Through professional involvement with researching, developing and practicing quality principles, methodologies and solutions in practice for decades, the authors became convinced that the prevailing conceptual thinking of quality is not based on the valid scientific basis and contains the problem of superficiality. Hence also the practical quality applications are fragmented and vague. As a reaction to the situation, the authors clarify the conceptual essence of quality, its historical background and usage in today’s everyday and professional contexts.

In this article, the authors present a solid scientific baseline for the ontological fundamentals of the quality discipline, on which also the epistemological pondering can be built, hence establishing the robust foundation for the practical quality management applications.

This conceptual article is an original research and review paper, contributing to the revival process of the quality profession in its entirety, including quality research, education and practices. The study is based on the authors’ multidisciplinary experience, theoretical reflecting and recognized references.

The purpose of this paper is to provide various perspectives on the future of quality professionals from a number of leading academics and practitioners around the world.

The approach taken was to collate opinions from a number of leading academics and practitioners from different countries. It was also important to ensure that all participants in the study had a good knowledge and expertise in the field of quality and operations management. Most of the participants had over 30 years of experience in quality and related disciplines and some of them are pioneers in their respective fields of quality management/engineering.

As the global economic forces were radically changing, it is essential that quality managers face the future with quality-based integrated management programmes that fit the new business era rather than continuing with systems that may have worked in the past.

Due to time constraints, the number of people participated in the study was relatively small. However, the author is currently pursuing a larger study looking into the future of quality professionals within the context of Scottish Manufacturing and Service companies.

The paper provides an excellent resource for many researchers and practitioners equally who are engaged in research and applications on this topic. Moreover it was observed during the review of current literature that very few studies are related to the topic on the future of quality professionals and their future roles in modern organisations.

This study examines whether certification improves the dimensions of total quality management (TQM) and whether the impact of certification is similar across companies of different sizes and industries. The benefits of certification for companies have been widely discussed in recent years. The general debate has been partly marked by the dispute about whether companies will benefit more from certification or the implementation of TQM. This debate has led to numerous studies on the benefits of certification; however, few studies simultaneously have examined traditional TQM issues and the requirements of the new quality standard, ISO 9001: 2015, as well as the updated European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) criteria.

This study was conducted via a survey of Finnish SMEs and covered both industrial and service companies. The study comprehensively compared industrial companies with service companies and small companies with medium-sized companies.

In industrial and small enterprises, certification clearly has a positive effect on the dimensions of TQM, but a similar effect was not observed in medium-sized enterprises or in the service sector.

This is one of the first studies to examine the effect of certification on TQM in different types of SMEs while simultaneously considering EFQM and ISO 9001:2015 in Finland. The significant originality of this research lies in the formation of a comprehensive research framework for the dimensions of TQM.

To present theories for total cost of ownership (TCO) methodology in assembly system trade‐off analysis and to show benefits of the methodology as a decision support in system selection.

The developed TCO methodology is a combination of factory simulation, system performance and loss factor evaluation using overall equipment efficiency, system life cycle costing, and assembled unit cost analysis including cost of bad quality and rework.

The purchase price of equipment is just one cost element in the comparison. TCO shows how important it is to analyse all the cost, direct and indirect, incurred throughout the life cycle of an equipment, including acquisition and installation, operations and maintenance, and end‐of‐life management. TCO methodology pinpoints costs that could be easily underestimated, such as quality and rework as well as all the costs of running the system.

The methodology is partially based on semiconductor industry standards and other asset comparison methodology, which are now integrated and applied also for electromechanical final assembly. Development continues.

The methodology is useful in system integrator and end‐user collaboration, where both can use similar formulae in system evaluation and trade‐off analysis. Integration to component‐based simulation adds system visualisation and simulation analysis and combines system configuration with cost analysis into a tool for the sales engineer.

Integration of different analysis methods improves the quality of decisions. The TCO methodology is a systematic way to analyse system cost and performance issues. With proper use of the TCO methodology it is possible to justify investments to automation and modular re‐configurable hardware.