Utilization of Quality Tools: does sector and size matter?

This research focuses on the influence of company sector and size on the level of utilization of Basic and Advanced Quality Tools. The paper starts with a literature review and then presents the methodology used for the survey. Based on the responses from 202 managers of Portuguese ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management System certified organizations, statistical tests were performed. Results show, with 95% confidence level, that industry and services have a similar proportion of use of Basic and Advanced Quality Tools. Concerning size, bigger companies show a higher trend to use Advanced Quality Tools than smaller ones. For Basic Quality Tools, there was no statistical significant difference at a 95% confidence level for different company sizes. The three basic Quality tools with higher utilization were Check sheets, Flow charts and Histograms (for Services) or Control Charts/ (for Industry), however 22% of the surveyed organizations reported not using Basic Quality Tools, which highlights a major improvement opportunity for these companies. Additional studies addressing motivations, benefits and barriers for Quality Tools application should be undertaken for further validation and understanding of these results.

Proposta de abordagem para gestão de ocorrências em Serviços de Sangue

RESUMO: A gestão de ocorrências, sendo um requisito, quer legal, ao nível da regulação, quer normativo, tal como surge na ISO 9001, é um componente crítico para garantir a melhoria contínua um Serviço de Sangue, dado ter como objetivo a satisfação contínua dos requisitos dos dadores e recetores. A gestão eficaz, mas com eficiência, depende, também da eficácia da abordagem para gestão de ocorrência, nomeadamente, através da geração de correções, ações corretivas e ações preventiva eficazes. Esta dissertação discute a relevância, propondo um modelo de abordagem de gestão da qualidade conforme com os requisitos da lei fundamental da regulação de Serviços de Sangue, DL 267/2007, e com a norma global para sistemas de gestão da qualidade, ISO 9001. Esta abordagem usada descreve as várias etapas para a gestão eficaz de ocorrências, desde o seu relato, à sua classificação, tratamento com medição e análise risco associado e verificação da eficácia das ações tomadas. A eficácia do modelo teórico proposto foi verificado através da sua passagem para algoritmo informático num software comercial. Foi evidenciado neste software o cumprimento dos requisitos da abordagem teórica, pelo que a aplicação informática está conforme com os requisitos estabelecidos num procedimento documentado. Foi evidenciado, também, a rastreabilidade dos dados ao longo e toda a metodologia. A utilização de uma ferramenta informática também acrescentou valor ao modelo teórico, dado o acesso a toda a informação ser mais célere e de fácil acesso, quando comparado com o uso em suporte de papel.---------ABSTRACT: The issues management is a law requirement intended for regulation of “Blood Banks” and a quality management global requirement from ISO 9001. It is a critical activity, intended to to ensure continuous improvement on “Blood Bank”. Its goal is the continuous satisfaction of blood donors and transfusion recipients. Effective management and efficiency also depend on the effectiveness of the management of occurrence approach, namely in successful corrections, corrective actions and preventive actions. This paper discusses the relevance and it proposes a model approach to quality management according to the requirements of the fundamental law of regulation of “Blood Bank”, DL 267/2007, and according to the global standard for quality management systems, ISO 9001. This approach describes the various steps for effective management of incidents, such as his account, its classification, measurement and treatment using risk analysis and verification of the effectiveness of actions taken. The efficiency of the proposed theoretical model was verified through its transition to a computer algorithm trading software. It was demonstrated in this software that the requirements of the theoretical approach has been fulfilled by the computer application, which complies with the requirements established in a documented procedure. It was also evident that traceability of data across the methodology. The use of a software tool also added value to the theoretical model due to the access to all information to be faster and more easily accessible, when compared to paper.

A practice-based culminating experience: Writing a HRSA grant application with Texas Organ Sharing Alliance for public education efforts to increase solid organ donation

In November 2010, nearly 110,000 people in the United States were waiting for organs for transplantation. Despite the fact that the organ donor registration rate has doubled in the last year, Texas has the lowest registration rate in the nation. Due to the need for improved registration rates in Texas, this practice-based culminating experience was to write an application for federal funding for the central Texas organ procurement organization, Texas Organ Sharing Alliance. The culminating experience has two levels of significance for public health – (1) to engage in an activity to promote organ donation registration, and (2) to provide professional experience in grant writing. ^ The process began with a literature review. The review was to identify successful intervention activities in motivating organ donation registration that could be used in intervention design for the grant application. Conclusions derived from the literature review included (1) the need to specifically encourage family discussions, (2) religious and community leaders can be leveraged to facilitate organ donation conversations in families, (3) communication content must be culturally sensitive and (4) ethnic disparities in transplantation must be acknowledged and discussed.^ Post the literature review; the experience followed a five step process of developing the grant application. The steps included securing permission to proceed, assembling a project team, creation of a project plan and timeline, writing each element of the grant application including the design of proposed intervention activities, and completion of the federal grant application. ^ After the grant application was written, an evaluation of the grant writing process was conducted. Opportunities for improvement were identified. The first opportunity was the need for better timeline management to allow for review of the application by an independent party, iterative development of the budget proposal, and development of collaborative partnerships. Another improvement opportunity was the management of conflict regarding the design of the intervention that stemmed from marketing versus evidence-based approaches. The most important improvement opportunity was the need to develop a more exhaustive evaluation plan.^ Eight supplementary files are attached to appendices: Feasibility Discussion in Appendix 1, Grant Guidance and Workshop Notes in Appendix 2, Presentation to Texas Organ Sharing Alliance in Appendix 3, Team Recruitment Presentation in Appendix 5, Grant Project Narrative in Appendix 7, Federal Application Form in Appendix 8, and Budget Workbook with Budget Narrative in Appendix 9.^

Wood residue : productivity improvement report : challenge, opportunity, risk, value.

Cover title.

Future contributions of crop modelling - from heuristics and supporting decision making to understanding genetic regulation and aiding crop improvement

Crop modelling has evolved over the last 30 or so years in concert with advances in crop physiology, crop ecology and computing technology. Having reached a respectable degree of acceptance, it is appropriate to review briefly the course of developments in crop modelling and to project what might be major contributions of crop modelling in the future. Two major opportunities are envisioned for increased modelling activity in the future. One opportunity is in a continuing central, heuristic role to support scientific investigation, to facilitate decision making by crop managers, and to aid in education. Heuristic activities will also extend to the broader system-level issues of environmental and ecological aspects of crop production. The second opportunity is projected as a prime contributor in understanding and advancing the genetic regulation of plant performance and plant improvement. Physiological dissection and modelling of traits provides an avenue by which crop modelling could contribute to enhancing integration of molecular genetic technologies in crop improvement. Crown Copyright (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Mota-Engil divestment opportunity report

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Finance from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Continuous improvement logidtics project: A study on the increase of the finished goods warehouse of Unilever at Sta. Iria

This project is called Improvement Logistics Project and aims to study an opportunity of expansion of the output in 80% of the Unilever warehouse at Sta. Iria via an increase in exportations for the next two years. This has been done using the Distibuidora Luís Simões tariff rates as basis of comparison for the as-is and to-be situations. For this matter, an allocation of all the costs of the warehouse is prepared and described with the goal of comparing the differences with and without expansion. The results show that a better outcome is achieved with the investment, but the warehouse is yet to prove its efficiency against the distribution company.

Rain and the democratic window of opportunity

According to the economic approach to politicaltransitions, transitory negative economic shocks can open a windowof opportunity for democratic improvement. Testing the theoryrequires a source of transitory shocks to the aggregate economy. Weuse rainfall shocks in Sub-Saharan African countries and find thatnegative rainfall shocks are followed by significant improvement indemocratic institutions. Instrumental variables estimates indicate thatfollowing a transitory negative income shock of 1 percent,democracy scores improve by 0.9 percentage points and theprobability of a democratic transition increases by 1.3 percentagepoints.

The Buffalo Genome and the Application of Genomics in Animal Management and Improvement

The publication of the human genome sequence in 2001 was a major step forward in knowledge necessary to understand the variations between individuals. For farmed species, genomic sequence information will facilitate the selection of animals optimised to live, and be productive, in particular environments. The availability of cattle genome sequence has allowed the breeding industry to take the first steps towards predicting phenotypes from genotypes by estimating a genomic breeding value (gEBV) for bulls using genome-wide DNA markers. The sequencing of the buffalo genome and creation of a panel of DNA markers has created the opportunity to apply molecular selection approaches for this species.The genomes of several buffalo of different breeds were sequenced and aligned with the bovine genome, which facilitated the identification of millions of sequence variants in the buffalo genomes. Based on frequencies of variants within and among buffalo breeds, and their distribution across the genome compared with the bovine genome, 90,000 putative single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) were selected to create an Axiom (R) Buffalo Genotyping Array 90K. This SNP Chip was tested in buffalo populations from Italy and Brazil and found to have at least 75% high quality and polymorphic markers in these populations. The 90K SNP chip was then used to investigate the structure of buffalo populations, and to localise the variations having a major effect on milk production.

Tissue fusion, a new opportunity for sutureless bypass surgery

Microsurgical suturing is the standard for cerebral bypass surgery, a technique where temporary occlusion is usually necessary. Non-occlusive techniques such as excimer laser-assisted non-occlusive anastomosis (ELANA) have certainly widened the spectrum of treatment of complex cerebrovascular situations, such as giant cerebral aneurysms, that were otherwise non-treatable. Nevertheless, the reduction of surgical risks while widening the spectrum of indications, such as a prophylactic cerebral bypass, is still a main aim, that we would like to pursue with our sutureless tissue fusion research. The primary concern in sutureless tissue fusion- and especially in tissue fusion of cerebral vessels- is the lack of reproducibility, often caused by variations in the thermal damage of the vessel. This has prevented this novel fusion technique from being applicable in daily surgical use. In this overview, we present three ways to further improve the laser tissue soldering technique.In the first section entitled "Laser Tissue Soldering Using a Biodegradable Polymer," a porous polymer scaffold doped with albumin (BSA) and indocyanine green (ICG) is presented, leading to strong and reproducible tensile strengths in tissue soldering. Histologies and future developments are discussed.In the section "Numerical Simulation for Improvement of Laser Tissue Soldering," a powerful theoretical simulation model is used to calculate temperature distribution during soldering. The goal of this research is to have a tool in hand that allows us to determine laser irradiation parameters that guarantee strong vessel fusion without thermally damaging the inner structures such as the intima and endothelium.In a third section, "Nanoparticles in Laser Tissue Soldering," we demonstrate that nanoparticles can be used to produce a stable and well-defined spatial absorption profile in the scaffold, which is an important step towards increasing the reproducibility. The risks of implanting nanoparticles into a biodegradable scaffold are discussed.Step by step, these developments in sutureless tissue fusion have improved the tensile strength and the reproducibility, and are constantly evolving towards a clinically applicable anastomosis technique.

Euro 2012 – Ukraine’s wasted opportunity? OSW Commentary 80, 2012-06.08

Ukraine saw hosting the European Football Championship as an important project in terms of image-building and modernisation from the very beginning. The country’s government assumed, during the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych alike, that Euro 2012 would provide a major impulse for economic development and show that the young Ukrainian state was capable of successfully preparing one of the most important sport tournaments in the world. Although UEFA’s decision raised eyebrows both in the West and in Ukraine, after initial delays the work gained momentum and, shortly before the championship, Ukraine’s progress could be evaluated as being satisfactory at the least. As part of the preparations, four stadiums were built or modernised, four airports in the host cities were developed and 1,600 km of roads were repaired or built from the ground up. The investments have doubtlessly contributed to an improvement of the infrastructure in Ukraine, but it would be rather inaccurate to say that Euro 2012 has brought about a real modernisation of the country. The funds allocated for the preparations were relatively modest, and part of them was spent in a non-transparent way, which gives rise to suspicions of corruption. The chance to improve Ukraine’s perception in the West has been to a great extent lost due to the trial of the former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, who was sentenced to seven years in prison in October 2011. Over the past few weeks, Euro 2012 as a sports event has been overshadowed by discussions among Western politicians and in the Western media about rising authoritarian tendencies in Ukraine. In turn, football is currently treated as a minor issue in Ukraine’s internal politics. The government has so far not used Euro 2012 to improve its popularity although hosting it is supported by a clear majority of the Ukrainian public. It is still an open question as to whether the Ukrainian government will try to capitalise politically on this sports event; this is especially significant as parliamentary elections are approaching.

Integrating skills profiling and purchasing portfolio management:an opportunity for building purchasing capability

Kralijc’s (1983) purchasing portfolio approach holds that different types of purchases need different sourcing strategies, underpinned by distinct sets of resources and practices. The approach is widely deployed in business and extensively researched, and yet little research has been conducted on how knowledge and skills vary across a portfolio of purchases. This study extends the body of knowledge on purchasing portfolio management, and its application in the strategic development of purchasing in an organization, and on human resource management in the purchasing function. A novel approach to profiling purchasing skills is proposed, which is well suited to dynamic environments which require flexibility. In a survey, experienced purchasing personnel described a specific purchase and profiled the skills required for effective performance in purchasing that item. Purchases were categorized according to their importance to the organization (internally-oriented evaluation of cost and production factors) and to the supply market (externally-oriented evaluation of commercial risk and uncertainty). Through cluster analysis three key types of purchase situations were identified. The skills required for effective purchasing vary significantly across the three clusters (for 22 skills, p<0.01). Prior research shows that global organizations use the purchasing portfolio approach to develop sourcing strategies, but also aggregate analyses to inform the design of purchasing arrangements (local vs global) and to develop their improvement plans. Such organizations would also benefit from profiling skills by purchase type. We demonstrate how the survey can be adapted to provide a management tool for global firms seeking to improve procurement capability, flexibility and performance.

Student Expositions as an Opportunity to Feel Proud: One Antidote to Expectations of Failure in Zone Schools

Expositions of student work at the end of the extended school year are one of many reform efforts in a specially formed School Improvement Zone in Miami Dade schools. This descriptive analysis offers examples of successful attempts to engender pride even in the face of formidable social and cultural obstacles.

Up-regulation Of Dnam-1 And Nkp30, Associated With Improvement Of Nk Cells Activation After Long-term Culture Of Mononuclear Cells From Patients With Ovarian Neoplasia.

This study aimed at evaluating the functional activation and activating receptors expression on resting, short- and long-term NK and NK-like T cells from blood of ovarian neoplasia patients. Blood from patients with adnexal benign alterations (n = 10) and ovarian cancer (grade I-IV n = 14) were collected after signed consent. Effector cells activation was evaluated by the expression of the CD107a molecule. Short-term culture was conducted overnight with IL-2 and long-term culture for 21 days, by a method designed to expand CD56(+) lymphocytes. Short-term culture significantly increased NK cells activation compared to resting NK cells (p<0.05), however, the long-term procedure supported an even higher increase (p<0.001). Resting NK-like T cells showed poor activation, which was not altered by the culture procedures. The long-term culture effectively increased the expression of the activating receptors on NK and NK-like T cells, either by increasing the number of cells expressing a given receptor and/or by up-regulating their expression intensity. As a conclusion, the long-term culture system employed, resulted in a high number of functional NK cells. The culture system was particularly efficient on the up-regulation of NKp30 and DNAM-1 receptors on NK cells.