Purpose – Quality function deployment (QFD) is a methodology to translate the “voice of the customer” into engineering/technical specifications (HOWs) to be followed in designing of products or services. For the method to be effective, QFD practitioners need to be able to accurately...

Purpose – Quality function deployment (QFD) is a planning methodology to improve products, services and their associated processes by ensuring that the voice of the customer has been effectively deployed through specified and prioritised technical attributes (TAs). The purpose of this paper is...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a literature review demonstrating that quality and its management are increasingly definable as a balancing act between value, risk and cost throughout the value stream, from product/service design to production and delivery, and purchaser...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the international use of business excellence (BE) models and the practices used by BE framework (BEF) custodians to encourage use. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review, three surveys, a series of focus groups and key informant...

In 1979, the UK set the standard on which the universally recognised ISO 9000 series was based. Part of the rationale for the creation of a generic quality assurance standard was that it would supplant the need for independent customer inspections, avoid duplications of audits, and coordinate...

Repair and maintenance play a key role in housing management and tenant satisfaction. In the UK, local authority housing departments have traditionally had these services carried out in‐house by local authority building services departments. For more than a decade, such departments have been...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically assess the validity of Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence (CPE) for New Zealand organisations and to identify methodological gaps. Design/methodology/approach – By means of data collected from a sample of 91 New Zealand...

Statistical process control (SPC) is a common feature of quality control in most high volume manufacturing processes. In the food industry, while there is no explicit compulsion for organisations to make use of SPC techniques, their usage can accrue the same benefits as in other industry...