Quality Cost Information Research Articles

Group Warranty Contracts to Coordinate Assembly Supply Chains With Nontestable Components

We consider a supply chain where multiple suppliers and a manufacturer contribute to the assembly of a product (through providing components or labor). The product fails if any of its components (or elements of work) fails, but finding the faulty component can be prohibitively difficult. We study group warranty contracts for the manufacturer to induce suppliers to improve their quality levels. When information is symmetric and the manufacturer can contract on his own quality level, we show that a group warranty contract can achieve the first-best outcome. When the manufacturer’s quality level is not contractible, we show that the manufacturer and all the suppliers under-invest in qualities. We then extend our model to the asymmetric information case where suppliers have private quality cost information. Further, we consider whether the manufacturer benefits from sourcing multiple components from a single supplier, that is, supply consolidation. We find that supply consolidation benefits the manufacturer when his quality level is not contractible, but hurts him in the presence of asymmetric quality cost information of the suppliers.

Analysis of Risk Management in Construction Projects Using SPSS method

Risk management is about projects Risk analysis, identification like seeing and responding Defined as a formal process. It is negative events Reduce probability and impact While positive events Opportunities and impact includes increasing, among others to meet project objectives. Construction Risk Management is Occurs in construction projects To reduce the impact of risks Evaluate procedures is the process of implementation. This risk the management process is risk management Complete to build project Involves planning, which is planning Managers identify risks, Allows monitoring and mitigation. Project like project manager Management Software Risk Management Makes the process much easier. Full Risk with the feature Gantt chart Develop a management plan, then real-time dashboards and manage your projects with reports Monitor. Try it for free today of the construction planning process Construction risk management in early stages The project was created. What is this project Risks can occur and take them Describes the risk response to judgment? And to take ownership of the problem Someone on the team to resolve it This includes recruiting. Construction Risk Management and Fire Prevention Plan There are many benefits to creating, including: Increased safety and workers well being of improved company Reputation. with workplace accidents Avoid associated costs. Construction projects are a building or to build a structure It is an organized effort. Civil Engineering and Architecture In the fields, construction Projects are an infrastructure or Integrates the building firmly involves the process. Evaluation parameters: Political instability risk, Economic risk,Social risk, Work quality risk, Time and cost risk, Technological risk, Documents and information risk, Stakeholder’s risk.

Privacy-Preserving User Recruitment Protocol for Mobile Crowdsensing

Mobile crowdsensing is a new paradigm in which a requester can recruit a group of mobile users via a platform and coordinate them to perform some sensing tasks by using their smartphones. In mobile crowdsensing, each user might perform multiple tasks with different sensing qualities. Meanwhile, the users participating in the crowdsensing will ask for sufficient rewards to compensate for their expenditures. Hence, an important problem is how to recruit the users with minimum cost while achieving a satisfactory sensing quality for each task. Furthermore, in order to ease users’ worries about privacy disclosures, the user recruitment process needs to protect each user’s sensing quality and recruitment cost information from being revealed to other users or to the platform. In this paper, we propose two secure user recruitment problems for the cases where the recruitment costs of users are homogeneous and heterogeneous. After proving the NP-hardness of the problems, we design two secure user recruitment protocols by using secret sharing scheme. Both of the proposed protocols adopt greedy strategies, which can recruit nearly optimal users while ensuring that the total sensing quality of each task is no less than a given threshold. The difference lies in that the two greedy strategies are based on two unique utility functions. We analyze the approximation ratios of the two protocols and prove the security under the semi-honest model. Finally, we demonstrate the significant performance of the proposed protocols through extensive simulations and executions on real smartphones.

Effects of the use of quality cost information on quality-related learning

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects on quality-related learning resulting from the use of the quality cost information (QCI). Specifically, this paper analyzes to what extent the diagnostic and interactive uses of QCI contribute to improve quality-related learning.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed model was tested using a structural equation modeling procedure with AMOS and the data were collected through a questionnaire survey conducted on a sample of Portuguese certified companies.FindingsThe results shed light on expected relationships since the interactive style of use of QCI, unlike the diagnostic style of use, has a positive effect on quality-related learning. However, the diagnostic use of QCI was found to be a predecessor of the interactive use of QCI, in line with previous studies. Finally, diagnostic use of QCI exerts an indirect positive impact on quality-related learning through the interactive use of QCI.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper contributes to the body of research on the use of interactive and diagnostic systems, providing evidence that a balance between those systems improves quality-related learning.Practical implicationsThe results show that the use of QCI to promote participation, dialogue and involvement of all participants (according to an interactive style of use), and not just to control the accomplishment of predetermined objectives (according to a diagnostic style of use), is a necessary condition for quality-related learning.Originality/valueDespite the wide-ranging literature focused on the identification, measurement and reporting of QCI, less attention has been paid to how this information is used in the management process. The way in which the use of QCI can contribute to the improvement in quality-related learning is also an unexplored topic in the literature.

Positive implications of market valuation under asymmetric quality information

We investigate a buyer’s contract design problem in which the buyer’s supplier has private quality cost information and is concerned with market valuation. We characterise the parameters of the contract menu (including quantity, quality level and transfer payment) and determine the market price. Our results show that the supplier’s market value concern (MVC) has positive implications and mitigates the distortion of quality level. Although both the buyer and the entire chain system benefit from this MVC, it may give advantage or disadvantage to the supplier of the low-cost type, depending on this supplier’s efficiency and the extent of the MVC. Numerical study reveals that the buyer is insensitive to the pricing decision, which suggests that contracts subject to the optimal market price without MVC serve as a good heuristic.

Quality risk in outsourcing: Noncontractible product quality and private quality cost information

AbstractThis article addresses the concept of quality risk in outsourcing. Recent trends in outsourcing extend a contract manufacturer's (CM's) responsibility to several functional areas, such as research and development and design in addition to manufacturing. This trend enables an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to focus on sales and pricing of its product. However, increasing CM responsibilities also suggest that the OEM's product quality is mainly determined by its CM. We identify two factors that cause quality risk in this outsourcing relationship. First, the CM and the OEM may not be able to contract on quality; second, the OEM may not know the cost of quality to the CM. We characterize the effects of these two quality risk factors on the firms' profits and on the resulting product quality. We determine how the OEM's pricing strategy affects quality risk. We show, for example, that the effect of noncontractible quality is higher than the effect of private quality cost information when the OEM sets the sales price after observing the product's quality. We also show that committing to a sales price mitigates the adverse effect of quality risk. To obtain these results, we develop and analyze a three‐stage decision model. This model is also used to understand the impact of recent information technologies on profits and product quality. For example, we provide a decision tree that an OEM can use in deciding whether to invest in an enterprise‐wide quality management system that enables accounting of quality‐related activities across the supply chain. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 2009

How and Why Firms Use Quality Cost Information Differently?

How and Why Firms Use Quality Cost Information Differently?

A project management quality cost information system for the construction industry

A prototype Project Management Quality Cost System (PROMQACS) was developed to determine quality costs in construction projects. The structure and information requirements that are needed to provide a classification system of quality costs were identified and discussed. The developed system was tested and implemented in two case study construction projects to determine the information and management issues needed to develop PROMQACS into a software program. In addition, the system was used to determine the cost and causes of rework that occurred in the projects. It is suggested that project participants can use the information in PROMQACS to identify shortcomings in their project-related activities and therefore take the appropriate action to improve their management practices in future projects. The benefits and limitations of PROMQACS are identified.

Using fuzzy approaches to evaluate quality improvement alternative based on quality costs

Quality cost is usually considered as a means to measure the quality level in a quality system. Since the interrelationship among quality cost components is complex, a general quantitative model for describing their relationship is not easy to construct for improving the quality. In the assessments of quality cost, some hidden quality costs, such as the goodwill loss due to lost customers’ reliability, are often neglected in the existing analysis methods. This may lead to reaching a sub‐optimal decision. In addition, the assessments of quantitative quality cost items are usually approximated, and therefore are imprecise in nature. Based on these considerations, we propose fuzzy approaches to evaluate quality improvement alternatives because of its fuzzy nature. An evidence fusion technique, namely Choquet fuzzy integral, is employed to aggregate the quality cost information. A composite index is determined to find the best quality improvement alternative. Finally, a numerical example is used to demonstrate the applicability of the approach.

Capturing the Cost of Quality Failures in Civil Engineering

A description of failure events during construction illustrates the urgent need to emphasize the management of quality in civil engineering projects. During the construction of a civil engineering project, cost control techniques are used to monitor cost trends and to detect cost deviations in order to control project cost. However, this technique does not reveal the cause of any failure. The nature and collection of failure costs have been part of quality costing. Hypothetical illustrations show how failure costs can be extracted during construction using a matrix. Quality cost information can be used to supplement cost control techniques for cost control purposes and in identifying weaknesses within a system.

The quality-related decision making process

The work described in this paper is part of a research study into the various ways in which United Kingdom manufacturing companies manage their product quality and, in particular, how quality-related decisions are made. This paper presents the results of in-depth investigations of six companies, with particular emphasis on formulation of quality policy, organisation for quality assurance, implementation of the quality policy, feedback from the marketplace, and the use of quality cost information. The investigation has highlighted the area of quality-related decision making and examples are examined to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses in the cases studied. Reference is made to the importance of a written quality policy statement, and the procedures for identifying various individual's involvement and responsibilities in such decisions is pointed out.