This paper analyzes interactions between two parties (management and employees) with regards to the question of how to successfully manage and implement a QMS. Data were obtained from a research study using a survey among employees of a Slovenian information and communication technology company over a two-year period. We found that communication between employees and management has significant importance on employee satisfaction. Therefore, communication is the essential element of successful and continuous improvement of the quality management system, in which management must be the first to show the awareness of the real purpose of the QMS, and must attract their employees’ attention as well as acknowledge their expectations. The paper also introduces a third party role (a quality representative) who must carefully choose his actions and must, above all else, be aware of the importance of open communication channels among the first two parties. Nevertheless, informally his role is far greater and consists once again of the crucial element of successfully and continuously improving of the QMS: communication.
COBISS.SI-ID: 6979603
The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical study, which examines the relationship between continuous improvement (CI) and maintenance performance. By examining CI in relation to maintenance performance, this study seeks to increase the understanding of quality management practices in the field of maintenance. The findings suggest that CI significantly and positively relates to maintenance performance. In addition, findings advocate the importance of incorporation of quality management practices into maintenance processes.
COBISS.SI-ID: 7001363
This chapter presents a real case study of inventory control optimization in the automobile parts manufacturing firm that is facing a challenging task of predicting the demand in a stochastic environment. Such an environment impacts the delivery process, where lead times show some degree of discrepancy. The inventory control simulation model, which was built according to the System Dynamics methodology, is presented. Several inventory control algorithms were tested on real data. The inventory control model, which is combined with the inventory control algorithms and fuzzy strategy assessor, is a part of a proposed decision support system to help order managers to solve the problem of when to place an order and how many items to order.
COBISS.SI-ID: 7089683
‘Social media’, ‘Web 2.0’, ‘collaborative learning’ and user co-creation are just some of the terms that describe changes in the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in business, private life and society. The changing face of ICT has finally brought about the fulfilment of the term ‘Information Society’ and made an important impact on many fields of research, including collaborative learning. The effective use of ICT in support of group collaboration has been researched and discussed. The effectiveness was attributed to systematically organized and facilitated processes. Nevertheless, the results are not always better when group support systems (GSS) are used in comparison to face-to-face work. In contrast to the well-organized GSS-supported learning process, the social media environment is non-structured, rule-free and even chaotic. In this paper, we research the possibilities of eliciting group knowledge in the group-learning process in a social media environment. A total of 24 students assigned into three groups participated in the three-week long study. Their task was to solve a given research topic by solely using an unfamiliar social media environment and to present their findings after three weeks. Students were observed in their natural learning environment (school, home, the Flowr virtual environment), and their attitudes on collaborative work using social media tools were measured with a questionnaire at the end of the study. The results suggest that non-structured social media environment stimulates self-management of the group. Some insights into trust, motivation and conflicts in the collaborative problem solving are discussed.
COBISS.SI-ID: 7020563
Purpose of the study is to compare two different approaches to the collaborative problem solving one in a highly controlled laboratory experiment: Optimisation of business politics using business simulator at different experimental condition which reflect different feedback information structure and one in a collaborative environment of the social media, characterised by non-structured, rule-free and even chaotic feedback information. Comparative analyses of participant’s opinion who participate in experiments have been considered in order to find common characteristics relevant for group/collaborative problem solving. Based on these findings a general explanatory causal loop model of collaborative learning during problem solving was built.
COBISS.SI-ID: 7069715