If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.Improving the quality of an organization's products and services is fundamental to business success. The once-held view that product or service specification is static and readily achievable is gone. Managers in world-class companies realize that customer wants and desires are changing, that customers' expectations must be clearly understood, and that their firm must conform to customer wishes. This customer focus requires continual quality improvement, creating a dynamic business situation.If customers are demanding improved quality, then what quality improvement approach leads to the best organization performance? What managerial actions encourage the highest quality and financial performance? Further, is the quality improvement approach that works best in one nation or region the best in other parts of the world? This study is directed to these Each of these principles is implemented through a set of practices, which are simply activities such as collecting customer information or analyzing processes. The practices are, in turn, supported by a wide array of techniques (i.e. specific step-by-step methods intended to make the practice effective) (p. 394).

Purpose -The purpose of this article is to develop and empirically test an extension to the three-column format SERVQUAL instrument to evaluate passenger rail service quality. Design/methodology/approach -This article combines the literatures of service quality and rail transport quality to develop the conceptual framework. Three new transport dimensions (comfort, connection, and convenience) are added to the original five SERVQUAL dimensions (assurance, empathy, reliability, responsiveness, and tangibles). The instrument was tested on a passenger line in Wellington, New Zealand. Valid responses to 340 questionnaires were statistically analyzed. Findings -High Cronbach alpha values supported the reliability of the instrument. Content and construct validity are demonstrated also. Regression analysis identified assurance, responsiveness and empathy as the quality factors that had significant effects on overall service quality. In addition, customers indicated that reliability and convenience were also very important factors. Service quality "zones of tolerance" were identified for each dimension and attribute. Research limitations/implications -There are not many published studies to confirm or compare the results of the three-column SERVQUAL instrument, either in the general service literature or in the rail passenger literature. Although the five original SERVQUAL dimensions have been tested quite extensively, the three new rail transport dimensions require further development and testing, particularly since the sample was drawn from a single passenger line in New Zealand. More development and empirical testing are required to refine this measure. Practical implications -Based on the eight dimensions, the practical use of the "zones of tolerance" for identifying areas of quality shortfall and managing quality are illustrated in this paper. Originality/value -This paper provides one of the few empirical applications of the three-column SERVQUAL instrument and extends it to make it more suitable for evaluating rail passenger service quality.

No abstract

For many years culture has been claimed as an important component of organizational success in general and TQM and quality improvement in particular. This study examined management culture and quality performance in a sample of New Zealand manufacturing organizations. The culture was measured using the Organizational Culture Inventory, and quality performance was measured using questions from Leading the Way: A Study of Best Manufacturing Practices in Australia and New Zealand. Different management cultures were found to have correlations with quality indicators such as: warranty claims, percent defectives, ratio of quality inspectors to direct production workers, and delivery in full on time. No significant correlations were found between the organizational cultures and cost of quality, or with supplier quality. We suggest that through understanding these relationships between culture and quality, managers may be able to develop more effective and competitive organizations.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how quality award‐winning organisations have used lean Six Sigma to assist their efforts to improve their business excellence scores.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a case study approach and uses data collected by interviews and at public workshops. In addition, publicly available materials such as award applications were also examined. Two organisations were studied, one in New Zealand and one in the USA.FindingsThe results show that lean Six Sigma can contribute strongly to each category of the business criteria for performance excellence. There was no evidence of compatibility problems between the lean and Six Sigma components.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper is based on two case studies of award‐winning companies that had adopted lean Six Sigma after a long journey using a wide range of improvement approaches. More work is needed to examine the use of lean Six Sigma in the early stages of the business excellence journey.Practical implicationsSome literature on lean Six Sigma suggests that the tools associated with each component are used in a sequential fashion or dominant/subordinate roles. This research showed that the choice of lean Six Sigma tools by project teams was decided more by the complexity of the project rather than following some particular sequence.Originality/valueBusiness excellence awards are common in many parts of the world. Organisations are continually seeking ways to improve their performance and to advance up the scoring scale. This paper shows how two award‐winning companies have harnessed lean Six Sigma to improve their operations and improve their scores.

This paper considers the links between quality management systems and environmental management systems. In particular, how firms use their experience with the former to develop the latter. Case studies of seven plastic manufacturers in New Zealand found a high degree of applicability of TQM experiences. Areas most likely to be transferred were people practices, involvement of customers and suppliers, adopting a preventative approach or culture, and strict waste management control. At the current stage of development of environmental management systems in New Zealand, there is still much action just to ensure regulatory compliance. The paper also reviews briefly some of the environmental drivers impacting on operations management and the parallels between the development of quality management and environmental management systems.

Over the last few years, several international studies have independently shown a significant correlation between the number and intensity of manufacturing practices in use and the performance of a firm. The conclusion is an unsettling:``the more the better.'' This paper uses the Global Manufacturing Research Group's (GMRG) second round database to deepen our understanding of this relationship. The shape of a scatterplot of practices versus performance resembles the shape of an American or rugby football and is often called the``performance football''. The performance football seems to be a general phenomenon so, as practices are added, a firm should garner earlier performance improvements if it followed the upper edge of the performance envelope. This is consistent with the``sandcone'' model or sequential capability building model that suggests that a firm should first invest in quality practices and then add others over this base. We first demonstrate the relationship between practices and performance holds for the GMRG data and then we make detailed comparisons of the firms along the upper and lower edges of the football. The comparisons provide some evidence that there is a sandcone effect.

This study examined how the operations in six New Zealand manufacturers responded to the turbulence in their business environment brought on by the success of their products. It was carried out in response to various calls in the business and operations strategies literature for more studies on how companies create configurations of capabilities that lead to competitive advantage, how these literature can be better integrated, and on internal fit within manufacturing. Case research and historiographic methods were used to record the competitive evolution of these firms. The study used semi‐structured interviews with Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and operations managers, analysis of company and public records and a manufacturing practices survey instrument. We suggest that when small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) are faced with sudden and dramatic success from an innovation, they need to focus the company’s energy and resources on that product and its niche. Then, in terms of manufacturing strategy, the key attribute to develop is an operation that can produce short runs at little or no cost penalty, achieve requisite product variety, provide short manufacturing throughput times, and operate at high levels of quality and delivery dependability. We find that an approach that develops manufacturing capabilities that are related to market requirements is preferred to panacea‐based approaches. Also, we see no common pattern in manufacturing capability development.