Process re‐engineering, a recently popularised phenomenon, has been advocated as a change management strategy that can be used to refocus organisational tasks into processes so that dramatic performance improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance such as cost, quality...

Total quality management (TQM) is an approach to change that can respond to the needs of the organisation and customers and has become the raison d’être of any organisation wishing to be competitive in an era of globalization. Since the introduction of a quality approach into manufacturing it...

Purpose – Research suggests that personal motivation is a critical internal driving force that, if harnessed, can significantly improve an operator's productivity rate when working mobile plant and machinery. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of personal motivation upon...

As construction is a project‐orientated industry, it is suggested in this paper that traditional business process re‐engineering (BPR) will only improve intra‐organisational business processes, not the inter‐organisational normally used to procure construction facilities because of the...

Presents findings from a study that investigated the propagation of quality management practices among Indian manufacturing companies over a period of 16 years from 1980 to 1996. Reports the findings of a mail questionnaire survey conducted on 500 selected companies from 14 manufacturing...

Results of an international investigation concerning the selection of materials handling methods for high rise in‐situ concrete buildings by contractors’ planning engineers in France, Germany and the UK are presented. Findings indicate that materials handling methods differ in each...

Previous surveys on quality management have shown that increasingly firms in Australia are adopting and implementing quality control tools and a total quality management philosophy. This paper attempts to determine the effectiveness of quality initiatives that have been implemented and...

Australian construction organisations have generally refrained from implementing quality management principles. As a result, little is known about the costs of poor quality and the impact it has on an organisation’s performance and competitiveness. With respect to rework, it is suggested that...

Purpose – To present the application of a business model for holistic uncertainty management for twenty‐first century manufacturing enterprises. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire survey is carried out to UK manufacturing enterprises to collect relevant data, and analysis of...