1,721,115 research outputs found
A proposed audit pattern for the shop-floor processes in TQM, Lean Six Sigma and ISO 9001 environments
No full textThe main objective of this paper is to investigate how a group of 23 companies, which are committed to process improvement by means of Total Quality Management (TQM) Lean Production, Six Sigma and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001, have developed an audit pattern for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of shop-floor processes. This research has been conducted by the means of semi-structured interviews with 23 worldwide manufacturing companies that have their headquarters or their overseas headquarters in Europe.
Interesting findings show a precise audit pattern based on elements coded with seven categories. This pattern is used by the 23 companies for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their processes. The seven categories describe the processes that should be audited and key elements related to Lean and Six Sigma systems. Furthermore, the categories are related to auditors’ skills, management of check-lists and scheduling, internal communication and reporting to management. This pattern is also compared with the more formal audit pattern used for evaluating compliance with the ISO 9001 standard. The found pattern is particularly suitable for production consultants and managers who want to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of processes as well as audit managers who want to lead audit for assessing TQM, Lean Production and Six Sigma implementation. In this way this research proposes an original and novel way for improving business performances through shop-floor audits related to TQM, Lean Production and Six Sigma implementation
Lean production, job satisfaction and motivation in the Italian manufacturing industry
No full textObjectives. This paper wants mainly to enlarge the debate about management systems for the production efficiency and their impact on job satisfaction and staff’s motivation. The ample literature concerning these systems proposes initiatives linked to the Japanese lean and total quality management (TQM) as new systems for improving work organisation and job design. However, changes introduced by these management systems are sometimes not that positive and a number of criticisms have been put forward and discussed by scholars.
Methodology. The research has been carried out by means of some interviews within fifteen case studies. The interviewees were workers directly involved in new initiatives for improving efficiency and productivity and workers less involved but in any case who have to become accustomed to the new tasks and rules. The interview is based on a semi-structured questionnaire. In particular the questionnaire contains opened questions related to overall satisfaction, motivation, relationships with other workers and managers, as well as workplace organisation.
Findings. Interesting results show how it is not taken for granted that new management systems increases job satisfaction. Some aspects have been criticised from the interviewed workers, while features concerning workplace organisation have been appreciated.
Research limits. This qualitative inquiry has been carried out in Italy using only fifteen case studies.
Practical implications. Nowadays lean, and TQM represents the most implemented management systems in manufacturing industries. Therefore, the findings can be helpful for practitioners who are trying to implement successfully these systems.
Originality of the study. The paper investigates different characteristics of job satisfaction and motivation in environments where management systems for improving efficiency and productivity are applied
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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