Abstract It is evident that the long-term survival and growth of global food industry depend on the availability and efficient use of raw materials, energy and water and other facilities under the concept of sustainable practice, i.e. in environment, society and economics. Quality and safety managements are essential to ensure that the industry can continue to support the communities in which it operates. Awarding a number of certifications to show the high standing of international quality and hygiene characteristics are currently necessary, e.g. ISO 9001: 2000, GMP/GHP, HACCP, ISO 22000, BRC and etc. To minimize the cost and maximize the efficiency, the Innovative Integration Management System (IIMS) has been implemented effectively under the frameworks of sustainability in a numbers of national and international food production companies in Thailand during the past years. This will allow the organization to integrate all common processes such as management review, document control, record control, training, monitoring & measuring, data analysing, internal audits, and corrective and preventive actions whereas the critical or specific processes required by each standard are still retained harmoniously with the others.

Abstract Most of the Fortune 500 companies address Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on their websites. However, CSR remains a fluffy concept difficult to implement in organization. The European Business Excellence Model has since the introduction in 1992 served as a powerful tool for integrating quality in organizations. CSR was first introduced in the model in 2002. From 2004 the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) has been eager to promote the model as an effective tool for implementing CSR.. The article discusses the potentials of the model for this end and illustrates how a 2006 European Award winning company has used the model to integrate CSR. The company adapted the Business Excellence model to improve performance, stimulate innovation and consensus.

Abstract It has been well-recognised that Japanese construction firms are good in safety, hygiene, quality, productivity and image. Over the last century, the Japanese have formalised the technique and name it as '5S' Practice. Through his research in Japan in 1988, the author has re-define the name as '5-S' and developed the world's first 5-S Audit Checklist. Since 1993, he used an innovative 5-S Checklist developed at SIRIM for training and consultancy in no less than 20 countries with over 100,000 persons from around 8,000 organisations world-wide. The objective of this paper is to explain the intricacy of the 5-S so that it can be understood easily and adopted readily by those who may find the tool useful. Some experience will also be shared in this article. It is hoped that this article can arouse the interest of the construction industry in Malaysia to take up this important and effective tool for quality improvement.

Abstract The transformation into a full fledge innovative firm requires the firms to embrace, the concept of learning organisation. Transformation should be based on the premise that the foundation of good innovation is good knowledge. Furthermore, it is widely accepted that knowledge is a key component of the concept of learning organisation. Knowledge transfer which central to the innovation chain should be based on good knowledge which has been by appropriate method for measurement of knowledge. It is shown in this paper that assessment of knowledge should result in a better management of innovation. The paper proposes that good innovation strategies are always based on good knowledge and that in order to differentiate between which knowledge is good and which is useful or applicable for innovation, then knowledge must be first evaluated or assessed using an appropriate assessment method. The paper also shows that a method for assessing the attributes of knowledge should encompass nine important characteristics of knowledge.

Abstract 5-S is the first step towards TQM. Over the last century, the Japanese have formalised the technique and named it as 5-S Practice. Since 1993, Sam Ho has improved and defined its terms in English/Chinese and developed the world's first 5-S Audit Checklist. In the article, an emergency department of a Hong Kong hospital was examined against 5-S 50-point Checklist for the improvement of their quality assurance systems towards its accreditation process with Australian standards. The findings evidently reveal that the impact of 5-S on hospital quality assurance in the unit are positive. Riding on the above scenario, the research aim is to identify whether the 5-S practice is a suitable and effective tool for healthcare quality assurance in an emergency setting which is led towards its accreditation process set by other mechanisms.

Abstract Quality is the language which helping product enters the world market. TQM, instead of traditional management, has been growing into the management mode of modern company. In last 10 years, TQM has made great progress in the whole world, but it did not get significant achievements in China. Although the exports from China always keep the image of “cheap and good” in international market, the qualified ratio of products calculated in domestic market is only around 75% and inferior and fake products are often exposed. Therefore, China needs to learn from the TQM experience and practice of advanced countries both in micro and macro field. The process from traditional management to TQM is based on not only corporate technology system, but also on social and institutional system. Our conclusion from China's case is that the international competitive advantage of individual company came from excellent product quality, the excellent product quality is based on excellent TQM practice, and the excellent TQM practice rooted in whole country's macro institutional system. Now, China is still in the stage of transforming public-owned-dominated planning system to individual-owned-dominated market-oriented system. There are many political and economic and social institutions and their policy, regulation, even ideology need to be innovated. Only by doing this, China's companies could follow the foreign partner's step, set up their long-term strategy and share profit with their employees and implement TQM completely to improve their international competitiveness.

Abstract Knowledge management has became vital in organizations in today's business environment as the implementation of knowledge management tends to provide benefits such as an enhanced way to organize existing corporate knowledge; making individuals more effective at sharing explicit knowledge; and providing new ways to expose tacit knowledge, and in turn this will lead to competitive advantage. It has been argued that the role of quality professional can contribute greatly to knowledge management to include raising strategic awareness, improving the knowledge management process, cost minimization through the usage of one model to blend knowledge management and quality verification and leading the way, and in turn achieving organizational competitiveness. Due to the contribution of quality professional to the enhancement of the knowledge management process, it is suggested that a quality management system that supports all the quality management dimensions and knowledge creation processes will be more effective than one that does not. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to establish a knowledge management system where quality professional will be a key player in capturing the knowledge needed for the needs of small and medium sized organizations in Saudi Arabia.

Abstract The next big challenge in a global marketplace is to engage the very large segment of world population which survives on less income than the defined poverty level by any measurements that may be applied. This segment in the past has been the focus of aid and charities and been at the receiving end of poverty alleviation programs created by a variety of international donor agencies, with very limited success. It is time now to take a different approach. A radical re-thinking of the problem now has resulted in a novel approach: that of engaging them as customers like any other. The underlying assumption is that folks in this segment still spend billions of dollars in the aggregate and are now able to critically examine offerings and choose to go after quality and value just like any other segment. The opportunity to tap into this huge market lies in innovative entrepreneurial efforts that make goods and services available to this segment without compromising on performance and quality. This paper explores the nature of innovation that is likely to result in entrepreneurial success in what is called the Base (Bottom) of the Pyramid marketplace.

Abstract Business Process Management (BPM) has been increasingly focused as an holistic approach to manage organizations for better organizational effectiveness. BPM involves the use of innovative performance measurement systems to follow up, coordinate, control and improve processes and overall business efficacy and efficiency. In this paper we propose a global holistic perspective of integrated information, combining the view of all stakeholders and both qualitative and quantitative information, as a basic prerequisite for quality of information for better decision making. The paper includes findings from an empirical case study of measuring Parkinson's Disease Neurosurgery process, including stakeholder's view with an integrative perspective.

Abstract This paper presented a study on proposing a method for motivation with the use of QFD. It was reported by three students who majored in MOT at Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Yamagata University in 2009. QFD has been widely used in manufacture and service industries for making improvement with the existing products and programs. However, in this study, QFD was not used in the sense of “activation” to improve motivation. Rather, it took the viewpoint of “what is required by customers”, the central theme QFD, to approach the problem. With reference to the process of knowledge conversion suggested by the SECI Model, the study operated with the basic principles and steps of QFD. In the paper, the major steps of QFD leading to setting quality planning were outlined and the implication of the study was discussed.