Kommentarer inaktiverade för Excellence for sustainability – maintaining the license to operate
Av Raine Isaksson
The Planetary Boundaries, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and The Natural Step have been used to identify performance targets for stakeholder needs. Results indicate that People and Planet could be defined as the main stakeholders and that these stakeholders could be further detailed in order to more easily link them with company business. Critical Planet stakeholders could be such as the Atmosphere and Biosphere.
Based on the Pareto principle, People needs focus should be on alleviating poverty with a highest priority given to those living in extreme poverty. Absolute and relative indicators for sustainability performance with focus on core stakeholders have been proposed. The indication is that a paradigm shift from Profit to Planet and People focus is needed. The proposed strategy is to combine customer wants focus with a focus on defined critical stakeholder needs.
Kommentarer inaktiverade för Important drivers for customer satisfaction – from product focus to image and service quality
By Jacob Hallencreutz & Johan Parmler
A high level of customer satisfaction is argued to lead to stronger company image, protection of current market share, increased customer loyalty, decreased customer complaints and strengthened financial performance.
Thus, understanding the drivers behind how customer satisfaction evolves over time is therefore crucial. This paper presents a longitudinal quantitative study based on customer perception data from the Swedish market research consultancy Svenskt Kvalitetsindex AB. A PLS-SEM analysis is performed to unravel how important latent variables drive customer satisfaction over time.
Study findings indicate that it has been a paradigm shift during the last decade – product quality is substituted by service quality as one of the most crucial drivers for customer satisfaction throughout industries and societal sectors. The study findings suggest a need for new principles, practices and tools to enhance internal customer centricity and strengthen satisfaction and loyalty.
Kommentarer inaktiverade för Exploring the emergent quality management paradigm
Av Anders Fundin, Thomas Backström och Peter E. Johansson, Mälardalens högskola
There are a number of key challenges in terms of the involved dichotomies for future innovative quality improvements in operations. These dichotomies are part of four interrelated processes that are the central elements of a production system. As such, aiming for stability or change is a production process dilemma in terms of the production and distribution of offerings and solutions. Control and creativity are the main dilemmas of the innovation process, that is, the creation and implementation of new offerings and solutions, while exploitation and exploration are the dilemmas of the knowledge creation process and efficiency and effectiveness of the value creation process.
As the simultaneous existence of both parts of the dichotomy seems to be a paradox, this paper suggests the emergent quality management paradigm as an alternative perspective providing the guidance, examples, and practical solutions necessary to solve these dilemmas by recognising the dichotomies as mutually dependent.
Kommentarer inaktiverade för Quality for a sustainable future
av Willy W. Vandenbrande
Very often small or medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are not involved, although they form the vast majority of companies.
Quality management has the methods and the tools to bring sustainability to the SME level, facilitating action and leading to tangible results for the organisation. We present a general framework that allows any SME to take steps in sustainability by using quality management methods. An implementation path is given, related to the current maturity level of the company. This allows the sustainability movement to gain momentum and be spread out much more widely. But as many planetary problems are bringing us dangerously close to tipping points (global warming, mass extinction of species, …) this may not be enough.
A new definition of sustainability is presented that can be used as a starting point for developing quality based economic and social systems.
Kommentarer inaktiverade för Creating a culture for sustainability and quality – a lean-inspired way of working
Av Yvonne Lagrosen, Mälardalens högskola och Stefan Lagrosen, Linnéuniversitetet.
The ambition is to contribute to the development of sustainable quality management. In order to identify and describe their ways of working, a case study was carried out at Sky Factory, an award-winning innovative manufacturing company which utilises Lean principles. In-depth interviews were performed with the CEO and a number of employees focusing on exploring their way of working as well as their value base, attitudes and practices regarding quality and sustainability. The data collection also included document studies and observation. The research was inductive, based on the Grounded Theory methodology and the data was analysed with the constant comparative technique. The analysis revealed a set of categories in the form of dimensions which, combined with theory, resulted in a tentative framework.
One limitation is that the study only included a single company, which may limit the possibilities for generalisation. Nonetheless, the dimensions that were identified and the framework that integrates them should be useful as a vantage point for further research.
Kommentarer inaktiverade för Towards a quality management competence framework: exploring needed competencies in quality management
Av Jason Martin, Linköpings universitet, Mattias Elg, Linköpings universitet, Ida Gremyr, Chalmers och Andreas Wallo, Linköpings universitet.
This paper is based on an embedded, qualitative multiple-case study design incorporating four Swedish large size organisations where designated quality management practitioners (n = 33) were selected and interviewed. A quality management competence framework incorporating four main quality management competence dimensions is presented: the human, the methods & process, the conceptual and the contextual competence dimensions. Four generic quality management role responsibilities are also posited: centralised & strategic, centralised & operational, local & strategic and local & operational role responsibilities. The competencies and role responsibilities are discussed in relation to the notion of emergent quality management and the emerging need of more integrative and business excellence-oriented quality management.
Introduction
What are the competencies needed to be a quality management practitioner? This fundamental question is rarely asked (nor answered) within quality management research. Given the current debate on the changing and emerging nature of quality management (e.g. Weckenmann, Akkasoglu, & Werner, 2015; Zhang, Linderman, & Schroeder, 2012), it should be a highly relevant question to ask for any organisation striving for business excellence (Fundin, Bergquist, Eriksson, & Gremyr, 2018). Within the field of quality management, this question should also strike somewhat of an existential note. Indeed, there are studies anticipating a possible ‘phasing out’ of quality management, perhaps dispersing its practices to other professions and professionals (e.g. Waddell & Mallen, 2001). The heart of the matter is that if it is not really known what quality management practitioners are, nor how to use them, why should an organisation be expected to employ quality management practitioners at all? This paper is an effort to demystify the role of the quality management practitioner and take a closer look on what it actually takes to be one.
Focusing on the competencies of quality management practitioners, this paper adheres to the notion of competence as the potential for performance in a given situation (|Ellström, 1992, 1997). The term quality management is conceptually established as practices, principles and techniques facilitating customer focus, continuous improvement and teamwork (Dean, Jr. & Bowen, 1994) and product quality (Sousa & Voss, 2002). The use of professional and/or profession in quality management research and reports is widespread (e.g. Antony, 2013; Fundin, 2018; Kolb & Hoover, 2012; Sörqvist, 2014).
However, using professional and profession entails certain theoretically grounded obligations, e.g. formal education, legitimacy, licencing and codes of ethics (e.g. Abbott, 1988; Evetts, 2003; McClelland, 1990), none of which can be said to be adequately prominent within the field of quality management. In this paper, the rather less ambitious occupational labels of practitioner and practice (Schatzki, 2001) are preferred. A practice is a defined set of rule-based actions, guided by specific and affectively agreed purposes, collectively understood and agreed upon within the practitioner community, thus establishing a social order (Schatzki, 2001). Quality management practitioners represent a social order of employees responsible for performing quality management practices.
Kommentarer inaktiverade för Organisationers främsta utmaningar – en studie med fem års horisont. Delphistudie 2019.
Bibehållen konkurrenskraft förutsätter ständig förbättring av produkter, tjänster och processer i alla typer av verksamheter. Med förändrade förutsättningar i omvärlden följer nya möjligheter och hot som företag och organisationer har att förhålla sig till.
Rankning av de utmaningar som förväntas bli de främsta på fem års sikt
Under våren 2018 har ca 500 kvalificerade representanter från industri- och tjänstesektor, myndigheter, kommunal- och landstingsverksamhet samt ideell sektor, givits möjlighet att delta i studien som genomförts i tre steg. Utifrån sina samlade erfarenheter av verksamheter i Sverige, rankade och motiverade deltagarna de utmaningar som förväntas bli de främsta på fem års sikt. Utfallet kan beskrivas i ett antal kategorier eller områden av utmaningar med kopplingar till varandra. Hur väl företag och organisationer hanterar dessa utmaningar kommer högst sannolikt att få en stor betydelse för graden av framgång och måluppfyllnad.
Med denna nationella, branschöverskridande studie vill vi ge en aktuell bild av de främsta utmaningarna som ledare och medarbetare kan och bör förbereda sig för. Ambitionen är dessutom att söka kunskap som stödjer organisationernas utveckling inom områden där svaren idag inte är givna.
Studien har initierats av SQMA – Swedish Quality Management Academy, bestående av forskare från nio svenska universitet och högskolor samt SIQ, Institutet för Kvalitetsutveckling. Via behovsstyrd forskning fungerar SQMA som en brygga mellan vetenskap och praktisk tillämpning.
Stefan Krook, vd på Kivra:
– Precis som studien visar så kan ett hot vara kortsiktigheten, för att möta denna utmaning så är det viktigt att söka möjligheter att bli hållbara i alla dimensioner, kommenterar Stefan Krook vd på Kivra och en av de företagsledare som uttalar sig i studien. Det handlar även om att ha långsiktiga ägare, att vi hela tiden söker happy-happy samarbeten och en sådan sak som att vi strävar efter balans i livet för våra medarbetare.
Lena Olving, vd på Mycronic:
– Digitalisering är något som alla företag behöver förhålla sig till. Vi har valt att titta på hur denna utveckling kan stärka verksamheten och affären. Detta inkluderar exempelvis vårt erbjudande till kunderna, intern effektivitet och kompetenssäkring, kommenterar Lena Olving, vd på Mycronic, i studien.
Att lyckas utveckla mer hållbara verksamheter, ekonomiskt, socialt och miljömässigt förutsätter olika strategiska initiativ som var och ett ger förutsättningar för nästkommande led. Samtidigt blir effekten av en mer hållbar verksamhet i de olika dimensionerna en förutsättning för att lyckas driva verksamheten framgångsrikt på lång sikt.
Kommentarer inaktiverade för Fredrikshovs slotts skola i Stockholm och Nyköping Strand Utbildningscentrum tilldelas Kvalitetsutmärkelsen Bättre Skola 2018
