Raj Kumar, Dixit Garg and T.K. Garg
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the various factors important for total quality management implementation in various manufacturing organizations and to assess their…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the various factors important for total quality management implementation in various manufacturing organizations and to assess their relevance for Indian manufacturing organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature review was conducted for important factors and a survey approach was used to collect relevant data from industries. Further data were used to establish a model.
Findings
It is shown that customer focus must be the prime objective for various industries to achieve total quality management. All the factors must be used systematically to achieve total quality management (TQM) and it can be done efficiently by using a model having four phases to implement TQM.
Originality/value
The paper will be useful for manufacturing as well as service industries that are in the starting phase of TQM implementation or have already failed to implement TQM at their works.
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Raj Kumar, Dixit Garg and T.K. Garg
Total quality management (TQM) is a modern management philosophy and a journey, not a destination. TQM is a systematic management approach to meet the competitive and…
Abstract
Purpose
Total quality management (TQM) is a modern management philosophy and a journey, not a destination. TQM is a systematic management approach to meet the competitive and technological challenges which has been accepted by both service and manufacturing organizations globally. It defines the quality with emphasis on top management commitment and customer satisfaction. It focuses on attaining and maintaining impeccable quality in manufacturing as well as services, by improving the performance of products, processes and services to satisfy customers' expectations. Manufacturing and service industries recognize TQM differently. The purpose of this study is to find the benefits of TQM, shortcomings of TQM and significant difference, if any in the understanding of seven success factors of TQM in manufacturing and service industries of North India.
Design/methodology/approach
Success factors have been identified with a critical literature review and a survey approach has been used to collect relevant data from manufacturing and service industries. In total, 30 manufacturing industries and 30 service industries from North India were chosen for study, whom and all responded
Findings
The paper finds that success factors have different rankings in manufacturing and service industries, but both sectors comprehend that implementation of TQM success factors is very important. The results also verified were by rejection of the null hypotheses.
Originality/value
The paper can be useful for those manufacturing and service industries which are in the starting phase of TQM implementation.
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Sudhir Kumar Singh, Vijay Kumar Bajpai and T.K. Garg
This paper aims to study the changes in productivity for 25 state‐owned coal‐fired power plants (CFPPs) over a period of seven years (2003‐2010).
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study the changes in productivity for 25 state‐owned coal‐fired power plants (CFPPs) over a period of seven years (2003‐2010).
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology that is utilized in the study follows a non‐parametric approach of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and uses the Malmquist index to estimate the change in productivity of panel samples. In the calculations, the study considers installed capacity, fuel, labour, electricity used, and average operational time as inputs and considers net electricity produced as output.
Findings
The results indicate that the average total factor productivity regressed during the investigation period at an annual rate of 2 percent. The decrease in productivity is equally attributed to the technical efficiency change and technological change components, with an average decline in productivity of 1 percent per year. A plant‐wise analysis demonstrates that the Parichha plant recorded an average increase in productivity of 3.9 percent per year that was mainly driven by the technical efficiency change component (4.2 percent).There is little variation in the productivity of small‐size plants when compared with medium and large‐size plants. The productivity of multivaried plants is comparatively lower than BHEL (Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited) make plants.
Originality/value
The impact of size, make and region on change in productivity is examined. This study recommends specific policies that can be implemented to increase the productivity of power plants. The study also provides a contemporary overview of Indian CFPPs that can aid energy planners and plant operators in the monitoring and detection of changes in productivity.
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Shweta Bajaj, Ruchi Garg, Monika Sethi and Sujit Dey
The purpose of this paper is to classify the total quality management (TQM) practices and position them based on their importance in the implementation of TQM in steel industries…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to classify the total quality management (TQM) practices and position them based on their importance in the implementation of TQM in steel industries for obtaining improved business performance and customer satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
The study undergoes a deep literature review to recognise the TQM practices necessary for the implementation of TQM in the steel industry. The identified 17 practices were grouped under three activities such as “breakthrough activities”, “improvement activities” and “routine operational and maintenance activities” with experts’ suggestion. The positioning of 17 TQM practices and 3 activities of TQM was done using an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) technique as per their relevance in TQM implementation.
Findings
The findings of the research show that though all the 17 practices and 3 activities of TQM play a vital role in the successful implementation of TQM in steel industries, breakthrough activities have gained more weightage as compared to the other two activities. Top management commitment, quality system and continuous improvement are relatively more important than the other practices.
Research limitations/implications
The research has limitation analogous to the AHP technique. The technique considers all the sub-sets of each nod to be independent from each other, whereas in real world this does not stand true.
Practical implications
The study positions the TQM practices and activities on the basis of their relevance in TQM implementation in the steel industry, thus helping the managers in understanding which practice has to give how much importance for TQM implementation in steel industries. By following the practices according to the weights, the managers can achieve the results desired from TQM implementation.
Originality/value
The study gives the implementation priorities of TQM practices in the steel industry. To the best knowledge of researcher, it is the first study in the steel sector for TQM implementation. The lacuna was reported by the literature, and the researcher has made an attempt to fill that gap.
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Shweta Bajaj, Ruchi Garg and Monika Sethi
Due to its impact on business performance total quality management (TQM) has gained a lot of importance by businessmen, managers, practitioners, and research scholars over the…
Abstract
Purpose
Due to its impact on business performance total quality management (TQM) has gained a lot of importance by businessmen, managers, practitioners, and research scholars over the last 20 years. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to critically assess the literature on TQM and find out the areas where future research is required.
Design/methodology/approach
To achieve this purpose the articles published in the last 20 years were studied in a systematic way and a snapshot of the same was prepared in the tabular format with points such as year and journal of publication, application and country, statistical method used, and findings of the study such as practices and impact of TQM. After identifying the practices and impact of TQM a quality tool “Pareto Analysis” was applied on them for development of the model.
Findings
The findings provide the practices of TQM and its impact on the performance of a business. The gaps from the literature have been identified and areas for future research have been suggested. On the basis of the findings a generalized framework of TQM has been suggested which can be applicable irrespective of the sector.
Practical implications
The research will help academicians and future researchers to have a clear understanding of TQM in different rosters.
Originality/value
Ample literature is available on TQM but in the best knowledge of authors no study has taken place to integrate the reviews and findings of 102 research papers of the last two decades.
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Raj Kumar Mittal, Namita Garg and Sunil Kumar Yadav
This study aims to identify the key indicators for quality enhancement in an educational institute which affect student’s outcome in terms of employability and entrepreneurship…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to identify the key indicators for quality enhancement in an educational institute which affect student’s outcome in terms of employability and entrepreneurship. These indicators can be used for improving the quality of engineering institutions imparting technical education.
Design/methodology/approach
Review of conceptual and empirical literature has been done to establish a linkage between institutional factors and quality output. The paper further identifies existing quality gaps in engineering education that make their students misfit to the requirements of market.
Findings
The relevant literature reviewed suggests that quality of technical institutions can be viewed form two perspectives: first, students’ achievement in the form of placements, entrepreneurial output, enrollment in higher studies and university ranks. Second, faculty research output in the form of publication in refereed journals, consultancy projects and patents. The study concludes by stating that when these two important stakeholders are provided with the infrastructural support and environment to showcase their skill, the quality of technical institutions improves automatically.
Research limitations/implications
The study is conducted on technical institutions engaged in providing engineering education. This research can be extended to other disciplines.
Originality/value
The framework proposed in the study will help technical institutions in evaluating their service quality levels which will further help them in improving the same.
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Amit Kumar and Mangey Ram
Ensuring safe operation of a urea fertilizer plant (UFP) is a vital aspect for its functioning and production. Clearly the safe operation of such systems can only be archived with…
Abstract
Purpose
Ensuring safe operation of a urea fertilizer plant (UFP) is a vital aspect for its functioning and production. Clearly the safe operation of such systems can only be archived with proper and effective maintenance scheduling and through controlling its failures as well as repairs of the components. Also for this, the concern plant management must have the information regarding the failures that affects the system's performance most/least. The objective of this study is to analyze mathematically the factors that are responsible for the failure/degradation of the decomposition unit of UFP.
Design/methodology/approach
The considered system has been modeled by the aid of Markov's birth–death process with two types of failures for its components: variable (which are very similar in practical situations) and constant. The mathematical model is solved by the help of Laplace transform and supplementary variable technique.
Findings
In the present paper, the availability, reliability and mean time to failure (MTTF) are computed for the decomposition unit of the UFP. The critical components that affect the reliability and MTTF of the decomposition unit are identified through sensitivity analysis.
Originality/value
In this paper, a mathematical model based on the working of the decomposition unit of a UFP has been developed by considering two types of failure, namely, variable failures rates and constant failure rates (which has not been done in the literature for the decomposition unit). Conclusions in this paper are good references for the improvement of the same.
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The purpose of this paper is to present the technique for evaluating the performance of a condensate system of a coal-based thermal power plant situated in the northern part of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the technique for evaluating the performance of a condensate system of a coal-based thermal power plant situated in the northern part of India. The data which used for system availability evaluation are not precise and are uncertain and, further, collected from concerned power plant history sheets and from discussion through plant personnel.
Design/methodology/approach
In the proposed model, traditional Markov birth-death process using a probabilistic approach is used to analyze the performance of a complex repairable condensate system of power plant up to a desired degree of accuracy. This approach has been demonstrated by breaking the condensate system into six subsystems arranged in series with two feasible states, namely, working and failed, labeled in a transition diagram and modeled as a Markov process, using Chapman–Kolmogorov equations, which are used for development of a probabilistic stochastic model for availability analysis in a more effecting manner, considering some suitable assumptions.
Findings
This study of analysis of reliability and availability can help in increasing the plant production and performance. The analysis is done with the help of availability matrices, which are developed using different combinations of failures and repair rates of all subsystems. To achieve the goal of maximum power generation, it is required to run the various subsystem of the concerned system of plant, failure free for a long duration. Therefore, the present approach may be a more powerful analysis tool to access the performance of all subsystems of a condensate system in terms of availability level achieved in availability matrices. The results of present study are found to be highly beneficial to the plant management for making maintenance decisions.
Originality/value
The present paper suggests a suitable technique for stochastic modeling and availability evaluation of an industrial system using Markovian approach and drawing a transition diagram to represent the operational behavior of the system. The present methodology includes the advantage of the ability to model and develop a more complex industrial system and helps in improving the performance and handling the uncertainties and possibilities of an industrial system.
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Nursuhana Alauddin and Shu Yamada
The availability of daily assessment data in a centralized monitoring system at school provides the opportunity to detect unusual scores soon after the assessment is carried out…
Abstract
Purpose
The availability of daily assessment data in a centralized monitoring system at school provides the opportunity to detect unusual scores soon after the assessment is carried out. This paper introduces a model for the detection of unusual scores of individual students to immediately improve performances that deviate from a normal state.
Design/methodology/approach
A student's ability, a subject's difficulty level, a student's specific ability in a subject, and the difficulty level of an assessment in a subject are selected as factor effects of a linear ANOVA model. Through analysis of variance, a case study is conducted based on 330 data points of assessment scores of primary grade students retrieved from an international school in Japan.
Findings
The actual score is below the lower control limit, which is recognized as an unusual score, and the score can be detected immediately after sitting for an assessment and is beneficial for students to take immediate remedies based on daily assessment. This is demonstrated through a case study.
Originality/value
The detection of unusual scores based on a linear model of individual students soon after each assessment benefits from immediate remedy aligns with a daily management concept. The daily assessment data in a school system enable detection based on individual students, subject-wise and assessment-wise to improve student performances in the same academic year.
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Mahendra Sahu, Vinay Singh and Sachin Kumar
The study aims to explore the dimensions of Quality 4.0 adoption, prioritization of these dimensions and the influential dimensions and their causal relationships that can guide…
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to explore the dimensions of Quality 4.0 adoption, prioritization of these dimensions and the influential dimensions and their causal relationships that can guide the smooth adoption of Quality 4.0 to boost organizational performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The Quality 4.0 dimensions are explored from the extant literature. The qualitative data were captured from 12 highly experienced experts from diverse industries and academia through structured interview questions and group discussions in multiple phases. The inputs obtained from the experts were analyzed using Fuzzy-Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution for dimension priority, and Fuzzy-Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory was employed to reveal the influential relationship between them.
Findings
The analysis reveals that quality scalability, quality culture and quality conformance are investigated as primary drivers of Quality 4.0 adoption. Data-driven analytical thinking and customer centricity emerge as dynamic dimensions that act as quality deliverable ends. Integrating these methodologies provides a robust framework for understanding and managing Quality 4.0 complexities, offering actionable insights for prioritizing initiatives and addressing interdependencies to ensure successful adoption and implementation.
Practical implications
The practical implications guide industries in creating strategic action plans tailored to their needs and fostering a quality-focused culture. The study also offers valuable insights into government policies, promoting sustainability, efficiency and a circular economy.
Originality/value
The study’s novelty lies in its prioritization and examination of the most influential causes and effects within the Quality 4.0 dimensions. This approach highlights core drivers and critical factors, providing a comprehensive framework for successful implementation.