Quality 4.0: leveraging Industry 4.0 technologies to improve quality management practices – a systematic review

PurposeQuality 4.0 is an emerging research topic concerned with rethinking how quality management needs to be adopted in the digital era. The purpose of this research is to conduct a systematic review on the state of the research in the field of Industry 4.0 impact on improving quality management aspects and how technology can be leveraged to enhance its practices.Design/methodology/approachA systematic review of the literature published in the last 5 years is conducted. 52 papers were selected, mapped based on the technology they focused on and categorized based on the addressed quality aspects.FindingsThe review revealed various areas where quality management can benefit from Industry 4.0 technologies, identified several research gaps and suggested new directions for future research. Firstly, the literature provided some insights about industry 4.0 potential contributions but lacks further detail on the exact applications and solutions through use cases and case studies. Secondly, there has been a focus on the potential benefits provided for quality control while there is a clear scarcity in terms of the other quality management tools and methodologies. Thirdly, there is a lack of studies on economic analysis or detailed impacts on quality costs that justifies the substantial investments needed. Finally, there is a need for including more studies about the mapping and integration of ISO 9001 requirements and Industry 4.0 features.Originality/valueThis is the first attempt to conduct a comprehensive review on the ways industry 4.0 technologies can be leveraged for the field of quality management. Based on this review, several directions for further research in this area are identified.

ANALYSIS AND TRENDS OF THE CHANGES IN THE GRAPHIC INTERPRETATION OF THE QUALITY COSTS MODELS

This paper presents four approaches to the graphic interpretation of the quality costs structure definition models: classical, modern, modified, and visionary approach. These give rise to theoretical graphic quality costs models and illustrate the relationship between the quality costs categories, as well as the relationship between the quality costs categories and the total quality costs and the quality level. The paper comparatively analyzes the underlying assumptions, existing knowledge, and principles characteristic of each approach. This contributes to the shaping of the quality costs categories curves and the overall quality cost curve in the theoretical models. The conducted analysis in the paper will enable forecasting the trend of development of theoretical graphic models and identification of potential stakeholders that contribute to changes in the structure and the behavior of the quality costs categories, and thus the behavior of the overall quality costs.

The specificity of the functioning of the quality cost account within the quality management system of an enterprise

Along with the development of quality systems, there was a need to analyze the expenditure incurred to obtain the appropriate quality of products or services and the impact of the actions taken on the results achieved by an entity. Quality costs are an important tool for improving the quality of offered products and efficiency of management, provided that the enterprise maintains a quality cost calculation. It is a system for capturing and analyzing all costs related to quality and taking actions aimed at increasing quality while minimizing production costs. The purpose of quality cost account is not only to identify areas in need of improvement, but most of all to provide information enabling the assessment of the effectiveness of the QMS implemented in the enterprise. The article indicates the essence of quality cost account. It also presents a method of implementing quality cost account in an enterprise which can be the basis for the development of a procedure within the scope of the quality management system. The presented methodology of quality cost account comprehensively indicates the scope of its conduct, responsibility for the activities carried out within it, the method of recording quality costs in the enterprise and indicators the analysis of which allows for an objective assessment of the effectiveness of the implemented quality management system.

Cost of quality model in the practice of apple juice processing business unit in Batu City: a comparison

The paper compares the cost of quality models in a different business unit of selected apple juice producers. Data and information were carried out through observation and interviews with key informants and related parties. Further data were analysed using the Activity Based Costing (ABC) approach to get a quality cost model for each business unit. The primary cost analysis shows a similar proportionality between the cost of prevention, appraisal, and cost of failure among three business units. Results illustrated that the higher the production capacity, the higher quality costs that occur or are budgeted for. From the calculation of quality costs, it is known that most of the quality costs come from appraisal costs. The cased business units indicated the high appraisal cost, which does have an impact on the low number of defective or failed products.

Analysis of the Sustainable Value Chain and its Role in Reducing Quality Costs

Contemporary developments in various sciences and the impact of technological changes require an integrated vision of the activities and work of the organization in Iraq in light of the high costs of products and their low quality compared to imported products of high quality and low cost, and the need to use modern cost techniques based on a clear and specific philosophy that contributes to increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of management In the business environment and how it can contribute to reducing product costs and being environmentally friendly at the same time, it is no secret that the main goal of most organizations is to maximize profitability and reduce costs to the minimum, but this matter is not achieved automatically, but rather requires a study of all the activities of the organization for several years, horizontal and vertical comparisons, and the adoption of all advanced and modern methods and methods that will achieve this. Accordingly, this research came to shed light on the use of one of the modern techniques in the field of cost management, which is represented by the sustainable value chain and its theoretical dimensions, which is based on the study of total costs and thus the division of those costs on the main and subsidiary activities of the organization and accordingly, the research has been divided into sections according to the possibility of covering the dimensions The theory of the sustainable value chain and its role in excluding activities that do not add value to the product and shows the importance of the study of the role of sustainable value chain technology that took into account the environmental aspects. It also contributes to making products that harm the environment environmentally friendly and contributes to reducing costs at the same time. Therefore, the research aims to demonstrate the knowledge bases of sustainable value chain technology and demonstrate how the cost of the product can be reduced and environmenta

The influence of the quality criteria on the quality cost of suppliers in SMEs

PurposeAfter quality costing, most companies do not know how to invest in supplier quality improvement. This study aims to develop a comprehensive model for the effect of supplier quality criteria on supplier quality costs.Design/methodology/approachThe independent variable of supplier quality criteria and the dependent variable of supplier quality costs have been identified based on a literature review. Then a model has been developed for the effect of the variables. A questionnaire has been designed and distributed to 158 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Jey Industrial Town located in the Isfahan Province. Structural equation modeling and partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) have been used for data analysis.FindingsSupplier quality criteria influenced supplier quality costs (with a value of 0.711). The results also implied that organizational quality had the highest impact. The appraisal costs and the internal failure costs of purchasing received most of the influence. Also, process quality and consequential costs of failure purchasing had the lowest influencing and influenced values.Practical implicationsThe findings of this research encourage the managers of SMEs to evaluate and rank the most appropriate quality criteria related to quality costs for selecting a supplier as one of the most fundamental decisions in supply chain management.Social implicationsAppropriate selection of quality criteria influencing quality costs results in reduced quality cost. Quality cost reduction also results in decreased products' fixed prices. Ultimately, the company will have more competitive pricing, and consumers will benefit from such a significant advantage.Originality/valueStudying the influence of supplier quality criteria on supplier quality costs is relatively new in the manufacturing industry. The comprehensiveness of the investigated variables is also another advantage of the proposed model.

Comprehensive Risk Management in Passive Buildings Projects

Nowadays, we can observe a growing interest in passive buildings due to global climate change, environmental concerns, and growing energy costs. However, developing a passive building is associated with meeting many Passive House requirements, which results in their increased complexity as well as many challenges and risks which could threaten the successful completion of the project. Risk management is a key tool enabling meeting today’s challenging passive house project’s demands connected with quality, costs, deadlines, and legal issues. In this paper, a new model of risk management dedicated for passive buildings based is proposed, in which a novel Fuzzy Fault Tree integrated with risk response matrix was developed. We proposed 171 risk remediation strategies for all 16 recognized risks in passive buildings projects. We show how to apply the proposed model in practice on one passive building example. Thanks to applying the proposed risk management model an effective reduction of the risks of the basic event is enabled, leading to a significant reduction of the top event risk. The proposed model is useful for architects, installation designers, contractors, and owners who are willing to develop attainable and successful passive buildings projects that benefit all stakeholders.

Rapidex: A Novel Tool to Estimate Origin–Destination Trips Using Pervasive Traffic Data

A traffic assignment model is a critical tool for developing future transport systems, road policies, and evaluating future network upgrades. However, the development of the network and demand data is often highly intensive, which limits the number of cases where some form of the models are available on a global basis. These problems include licensing restrictions, bureaucracy, privacy, data availability, data quality, costs, transparency, and transferability. This paper introduces Rapidex, a novel origin–destination (OD) demand estimation and visualisation tool. Firstly, Rapidex enables the user to download and visualise road networks for any city using a capacity-based modification of OpenStreetMap. Secondly, the tool creates traffic analysis zones and centroids, as per the user-specified inputs. Next, it enables the fetching of travel time data from pervasive traffic data providers, such as TomTom and Google. With Rapidex, we tailor the genetic-algorithm (GA)-based metaheuristic approach to derive the OD demand pattern. The tool produces critical outputs such as link volumes, link travel times, OD travel times, average trip length and duration, and congestion level, which can also be used for validation. Finally, Rapidex enables the user to perform scenario evaluation, where changes to the network and/or demand data can be made and the subsequent impacts on performance metrics can be identified. In this article, we demonstrate the applicability of Rapidex on the network of Sydney, which has 15,646 directional links, 8708 nodes, and 178 zones. Further, the model was validated using the Household Travel Survey data of Sydney using the aggregated metrics and a novel project selection method. We observed that 88% of the time, the “estimated” and “observed” OD matrices identified the same project (i.e., the rapid process estimated the more intensive traditional approach in 88% of cases). This tool would help practitioners in rapid decision making for strategic long-term planning. Further, the tool would provide an opportunity for developing countries to better manage traffic congestion, as cities in these countries are prone to severe congestion and rapid urbanisation while often lacking the traditional models entirely.

THE INTERDISCIPLINARITY OF EFFICIENT MEDICAL EQUIPMENT ACQUISITION PROCESS

In the context of increasing healthcare demand, as a result of an aging population, and current budgetary constraints, as a result of reduced public resources, the decision to invest in efficient medical equipment is a challenge for most health facilities, constantly concerned with promoting innovative and sustainable solutions, as well as results-based ones, in order to increase the value of health technologies and the overall benefits of patients. In order to achieve the balance between safety, quality, costs and benefits and the realization of the best value of medical equipment, the decision-making process requires a multilateral evaluation of financial, clinical and social impact instruments, represented by relevant profitability, life cycle costs, results delivered and overall productivity. In the case of procurement of medical equipment, the lowest price of an economic offer is not an award criterion that strictly reflects the value or efficiency of the technology and departmental procurement structures must include in the evaluation strategies and complementary factors to the process, to add value to the medical organization.