Sustainable Quality


Book Description

The book is based on a new quality model and explains why a positive culture is a prerequisite to sustainable quality improvement. Today, the concept of using quality as a competitive advantage has been diminished or even lost completely. It is not that there is a lack of quality improvement models, as there are many available. While each has had success, no one model that taken hold as the model. Why do improvement efforts seem to fizzle out? Why are they not sustainable? Something has been missing from the strategy, planning, and implementation of these quality efforts. That missing ingredient has been culture. This book provides the strategy, tools, and methods needed for sustainable quality. The book is based on a new quality model and explains why a positive culture is a prerequisite to sustainable quality improvement. Excellence is achieved through people, and it is this people-centric approach that should be the basis for success. By building a foundation based on inclusion, positive culture, and strong leadership, great achievements are possible. This inside-out approach creates a strong internal community which can be the catalyst for embracing change and sustainable improvement.




Sustainable Quality Improvements for Isotope Dilution in Molecular Ultratrace Analyses


Book Description

Sustainable Quality Improvements for Isotope Dilution in Molecular Ultratrace Analyses: Fitness for Purpose, Performance-Based Criteria, and Measurement Uncertainty uses a novel Sustainable Quality Improvement (SQI) framework with the aim of helping to re-introduce much needed flexibility and restore accountability and integrity necessary for developing confidence in products obtained with these specialty assays. The book can also be used as a comprehensive reference text for data and information on matrix-specific target analytes detection/quantitation limits, and measurement of uncertainties for planning purposes, congeners profiles, multi-phasic, multi-component and multi-analyte samples processing flow charts, and useful definitions of the underlying technology-relevant terminologies.The SQI framework around which the book is constructed paves the way for the innovative technological solutions described in the book and is powered by three key elements: Fitness for Purpose (Data Quality Objectives), Performance-Based Measurement System (flexibility, latitude), and Measurement Uncertainty (accountability). Together, they facilitate the development and validation of advanced methodologies to resolve many of the contemporary issues associated with continuously evolving and demanding regulatory requirements. A stronger focus on effective performance feedback is demonstrated to help laboratories rethink their own approach to quality improvements. - Aims to bring back a more scientific approach and critical thinking in the use of crucial isotope dilution techniques in analytical labs - Provides an extensive introduction of Sustainable Quality Improvements (SQI) frameworks as a new paradigm to chemical analysis challenges - Pushes the reader to think outside the box by presenting creative and innovative ways to handle QA/QC in a challenging environment where analytical laboratory results have a huge impact on decision-makers




Sustainable Business and Industry


Book Description

This book is an introduction to developing and implementing a successful program in the domain of sustainability and social responsibility. The reader is exposed to financially, environmentally, and socially responsible objectives that are supported by strategies and achieved by clear tactics that have measurable outcomes. The reader is introduced to methods of implementing technologies and practices and will also learn how to measure the consequent social and environmental performance for written reports and persuasive presentations. This book also reveals why we should be sustainable by explaining seemingly complex topics in science in a way that requires very little math or science background. The overview also captures how sustainability and social responsibility can be the source of process and product innovation. This book's approach is practical yet scientific. The nine chapters are dedicated to the practice of environmental and social responsibility in ways that achieve financial stability over the long run. As a result, these chapters help us understand not just why businesses need to be more responsible but how businesses can be more successful over the long run. International standards are given full treatment. ISO 26000 is given detailed attention, slightly more than ISO 9000 or ISO 14000, because it melds guidance on both environmental and social responsibility into one general concept of social responsibility. This book also specifies how to use traditional methods such as Six Sigma, lean, and operations research to improve processes, reduce resource use and waste, and make better social and environmental decisions that are based upon data from key financial, social, and environmental performance indicators. Internal and external data sourcing are given full treatment along with basic statistical data management. A recurring theme throughout the book is the integration of traditional methods of continuous improvemen




Just Sustainabilities


Book Description

Environmental activists and academics alike are realizing that a sustainable society must be a just one. Environmental degradation is almost always linked to questions of human equality and quality of life. Throughout the world, those segments of the population that have the least political power and are the most marginalized are selectively victimized by environmental crises. This book argues that social and environmental justice within and between nations should be an integral part of the policies and agreements that promote sustainable development. The book addresses the links between environmental quality and human equality and between sustainability and environmental justice.




Supply Chain Management for Sustainable Food Networks


Book Description

An interdisciplinary framework for managing sustainable agrifood supply chains Supply Chain Management for Sustainable Food Networks provides an up-to-date and interdisciplinary framework for designing and operating sustainable supply chains for agri-food products. Focus is given to decision-making procedures and methodologies enabling policy-makers, managers and practitioners to design and manage effectively sustainable agrifood supply chain networks. Authored by high profile researchers with global expertise in designing and operating sustainable supply chains in the agri-food industry, this book: Features the entire hierarchical decision-making process for managing sustainable agrifood supply chains. Covers knowledge-based farming, management of agricultural wastes, sustainability, green supply chain network design, safety, security and traceability, IT in agrifood supply chains, carbon footprint management, quality management, risk management and policy- making. Explores green supply chain management, sustainable knowledge-based farming, corporate social responsibility, environmental management and emerging trends in agri-food retail supply chain operations. Examines sustainable practices that are unique for agriculture as well as practices that already have been implemented in other industrial sectors such as green logistics and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Supply Chain Management for Sustainable Food Networks provides a useful resource for researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, regulators and C-level executives that deal with strategic decision-making. Post-graduate students in the field of agriculture sciences, engineering, operations management, logistics and supply chain management will also benefit from this book.




Quality of Life in Cities


Book Description

In the last few decades, urban quality of life has received increasing interest from policy makers who aim to make cities better places to live. In addition to the aim of improving quality of life, sustainable and equitable development is also often included in the policy agendas of decision makers. This book aims to link quality of life to related issues such as sustainability, equity, and subjective well-being. While less than one-third of the world's population lived in cities in 1950, about two thirds of humanity is expected to live in urban areas by 2030. This dramatic increase in the number of people living in urban areas serves as the backdrop for this book’s analysis of cities. This book will be useful to students and researchers in economics, architecture and urban planning, sociology and political sciences, as well as policy makers.




Systems Thinking for Sustainable Schooling


Book Description

This book presents arguments for adopting a Systems way of Thinking about developing schools to become in sync with the times, both locally and globally. Systems Thinking and Quality Management both are natural approaches for educators to adapt schooling to the rapid changes of life today in a global context. The chapters include strong rationales for adopting a more natural way of thinking about schooling, one that prepares students for life as it is now evolving around the world. Stories of success are abundant, which offer evidence of the power of a systems approach to leading school development in the complex context of schooling today. Research studies report up-to-date evidence of the power of Systems Thinking to continuously adapt schooling to changing conditions.




Oxford Professional Practice: Handbook of Quality Improvement in Healthcare


Book Description

The Handbook of Quality Improvement in Healthcare systematically covers the most modern theories and methods of improvement and implementation science in a practical and easy to follow format. It focusses on key challenges in healthcare, such as developing safe person-centred care, ensuring equity of care, meeting the challenge of climate change, and ensuring that care is safe, effective, timely, and delivered efficiently.




Rural Tourism and Sustainable Business


Book Description

This is a structured, edited book of nineteen Chapters which provides, from an inter-disciplinary perspective, latest thinking on, and practical case study exemplification of rural tourism and sustainable business development from Europe, North America, Australasia, the Middle East and Japan.




Total Quality in the Construction Supply Chain


Book Description

Organizations in the construction industry struggle with three key issues: quality management or better meeting customer expectations, supply chain management or more effectively working with suppliers to provide a seamless service to customers, and knowledge management, the challenge of learning between collaborating organisations and between people working on similar projects around the world. Excellence in these key aspects of business is the hallmark of great companies. This book tackles each of these themes, demonstrating their significance as strategic concepts for the construction sector and illustrating how development goals in each of the areas can be met. To be successful Total Quality has to impact on the organisation’s Performance, which should be measured on a “balanced scorecard”, including the results from the customer. This can be achieved through good Planning and improvements in Processes through involvement of the People. These 4Ps combine with the 4Cs – Customer, Culture, Communication and Commitment to provide a model for implementing total quality into construction. The book brings together, within this consistent theoretical framework, international case studies from all areas of the construction industry. These include examples as diverse as quarrying, construction, design, real estate, land development and regulatory agencies, drawn from the UK, USA, Hong Kong, Singapore Australia and Japan. Through these the authors demonstrate how a total quality or business excellence strategy can be applied in all activities in the construction supply chain to achieve world-class performance. Written by two of the world's leading experts, in a logical and very practical style, Total Quality in the Construction Supply Chain offers students and others new to the subject a clearly structured introduction to the concept of quality in the industry, while offering help and guidance to the most experienced professionals. The book should also appeal to people from all areas of the building and construction sector in any country.