Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the Gironacel ® project. The aim of this tool is to make it easier for companies to implement ISO 9001:2000 standard in a very practical and non‐interruptive way. Design/methodology/approach – By means of creating a fictitious virtual...

Purpose – The topic is restricted to the components of total quality management (TQM), in which a set of values, tools and techniques unites the descriptions of TQM. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the impact on an additional core value of the components of TQM, namely the...

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to contribute to the solution, and understanding, of the current lack of activity concerning the development of practices, such as engineering methods, for the creation of attractive quality. The current situation is clearly problematic given the important...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the field of risk management in relation to the connection to quality management. It poses and attempts to answer three questions. What can quality teach risk management? What can risk management teach quality? What must both risk and quality...

Purpose – Companies are emphasizing modular designs and manufacturing approaches, but to stay competitive and retain market share they must continue to offer products and services of the highest quality. Therefore, since modularity is increasingly popular and product quality is always...

Purpose – Public sector organisations have been relatively late in adopting ISO 9000 quality management standards in comparison with those from the private sector. While the standards have the potential to provide many benefits, they could also reinforce certain detrimental orthodoxies. How...

Purpose – As one of the major goals in modern industry, quality assurance concerns the whole life cycle of both product and process covering all quality‐based functions. It is also clear that, in order to design and manufacture the right products for customers, there is a strong need for an...

Purpose – During the last decades, different quality management concepts, including total quality management (TQM), six sigma and lean, have been applied by many different organisations. Although much important work has been documented regarding TQM, six sigma and lean, a number of questions...

Purpose – The full meaning of quality and quality management concepts can be only understood within the framework of systems thinking. The need for a new paradigm, based on systems theory, is even more evident when the attempt is made to extend quality management concepts from the material...