Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the quality initiatives implemented in UK manufacturing small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and to perform a comparative analysis of quality management practices within Six Sigma firms against the non‐Six Sigma manufacturing SMEs....

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework for conducting a benchmarking visit/expedition. Design/methodology/approach – Recent articles on the models of benchmarking are reviewed and used to construct a seven‐step benchmarking visit/expedition framework that...

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate how computer simulation methods can be used to help management make quality‐related decisions on costs and expenditure that reduce failures and eliminate wastage and activities which do not add value to the business....

Purpose – Recently, the operations management academic literature has seen articles focusing on the transfer of “lean” thinking or kaizen concept from the private to the public sector. In Spain, during the last 15 years, some local councils have also followed similar improvement...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of Deming's ideas on the twenty‐first century. Design/methodology/approach – A ProQuest search of articles is done mentioning “Deming” and “quality” or “legacy” in the title published between 1994 (Deming died in...

Purpose – The speed of new product development (NPD) has been a key factor in a firm's degree of competitiveness. The tools and philosophy of quality management have been widely used to improve and control product quality. However, there is a lack of literature on the relationship between...

Purpose – A number of studies and writings have presented ideas about new working practices that might be embraced in the twenty‐first century. Moreover, that, employers would seek to gain their commitment by adopting the high working practices of high performance working (HPW) for...

Purpose – Total quality management (TQM) is a modern management philosophy and a journey, not a destination. TQM is a systematic management approach to meet the competitive and technological challenges which has been accepted by both service and manufacturing organizations globally. It defines...

Purpose – The methods of quality management, business process management and knowledge management have until now been exploited by science and the industry separately. An integration of these disciplines could unlock the potential of a solid structure to measure and gradually improve knowledge...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to look at the role of the student experience questionnaire in collecting students' perceptions of their experiences in studying at an offshore campus of an Australian University, compared with the experiences of the University's students in Australia. In...