Purpose: Quality management systems (QMSs) are well established in multinationals and small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs). For establishing and improving these systems, a variety of guidelines have been established. Furthermore, there are software tools allowing a self-assessment of the current...

Purpose The importance of international markets has increased in the past years and will further increase in the future. This offers potential for being competitive, but especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is going along with a variety of risks, e.g. the competition in the...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is the further development of an Excel-based integrated management system for the tool and cutlery industry regarding sustainability. The tool’s actual status allows integrating and implementing requirements considering work safety, environmental and...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to apply Kano's method in practice in the cutlery industry and test its suitability to the cutlery industry. Furthermore, a Kano‐based process for weighting customer requirements is presented. Design/methodology/approach – By using the example of the...