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This study responds to calls from industry and the literature to cope with the enormous challenges faced by companies operating in competitive business sectors. The main objective of this paper is to investigate how managers can optimise product quality and process efficiency of complex systems.

In this paper, a design of experiments (DoE) method was used to improve the development of complex products and manufacturing processes in the industry of automotive audio components. To identify the optimal combination that minimises quality problems occurring with subwoofer speakers in the marketing, this study proposed a full Factorial experiment 24 with three replications in a single block summarised in an analysis of the interaction among the factors.

The research findings revealed the factors and levels regarding both the product development and manufacturing processes that significantly impact the quality and reliability performance of the subwoofer speaker analysed. The findings from the article allowed the company to prioritise internal improvements to enhance product quality and process efficiency. Other automotive firms will benefit from the research findings obtained.

From a managerial perspective, this research presented the DoE methodology as a real opportunity to deal with the inherent complexity of the manufacturing process in the automotive audio components sector. This research assist managers with insights into how they can improve the quality performance in production systems and in the market.

This study is an original contribution to the advance of theory and empirical implementation of DoE in competitive industrial sectors.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a multiple item scale for measuring perceived quality in e-service provided by a university.

The authors used a two-step methodology: a qualitative part to identify relevant dimensions and indicators in e-service and a numerical survey to assess preferences and evaluations of 252 users, regarding indicators of e-service quality, as well as a global degree of satisfaction with the overall e-service. Multivariate and structural techniques helped extracting guidelines for improving perceived quality.

The authors refined a scale by factor analysis, remaining five dimensions and 15 items. The five dimensions are: trust, convenience, responsivity, empathy and personalization. The authors found out that trust, responsivity and empathy, at a 0.01 level, are directly related with the overall satisfaction with e-service.

Specific results are not generalizable to others universities, but the method can be replicated in others e-service providers. For continuity, the authors recommend multicriterial methods for prioritizing indicators. For confirmatory analysis, the authors suggest a new survey with a larger sample, aggregating new indicators by more qualitative research.

The method can help universities to evaluate and eventually reformulate their strategies in dealing with e-services users.

The paper helps clarify how to structure and organize indicators related to e-service perceived quality and how to identify those activities that can help managers to improve it.

The purpose of this paper is to present a case of integration between the processes modeling by using the Value Stream Mapping (VSM) and the Thinking Process of the Theory of Constraints (TP-TOC) through the analysis of productive processes of an organization, indicating the complementary aspects between them and their benefits to the organization.

The paper uses a company of the Brazilian automotive industry as the administering site. The research began by identifying the organization's processes and choice of a family of products to model according to the VSM approach. The integrated view between the losses in the process (VSM) and the unwanted effects of the adding value process were analyzed by using the Current Reality Tree. After the analysis, different improvement procedures are proposed based on the lean principles. Finally, a work plan is presented based on the previous steps aiming to achieve the proposed future state.

The analysis of this case helps to understand and identify the causes of the current problems in the processes studied, providing an integrated view between the losses in the process and the prioritization of steps for the elimination of such losses. The approach in its initial administration was robust and the solution steps were promising. By integrating these approaches, it was possible to verify improvement opportunities by identifying the losses and the basic causes that sustain the unwanted effects in the processes at the same time.

The study proposes an approach that enables a systematic and systemic analysis of the processes at organizations through the combined use of process modeling through the VSM and TP-TOC. Simultaneously, the losses in the processes and the unwanted effects are identified. Thus, through the construction of an effect-cause-effect robust logic, both losses in particular and the unwanted effects in general can be prioritized in order to maximize the improvement efforts in the processes.