October 2002
Volume 9 • Number 4

Contents

Introduction

This issue focuses on quality awards and measurement of quality. It looks at a variety of contexts, from a school district to ceramics manufacturing to the examiners for quality awards.

The first article, by Jacqueline S. Goldberg of North Broward County (Florida) Hospital District and Bryan R. Cole of Texas A&M University, is a case study of their experiences with the Brazosport ISD, a school district in Texas. After the district implemented a quality management approach, student performance increased, leading to the Brazosport ISD winning the Texas Quality Award in 1998 and receiving a Baldrige site visit in 1999. Goldberg and Cole use naturalistic research to conduct an in-depth analysis of the important success factors for the Brazosport ISD. The article is an interesting read that applies in a variety of industrial and educational settings.

Juan Carlos Bou Llusar and Cesar Camison Zornoza, of the Universitat Jaume I in Spain, look at the concept of perceived business quality. Although it is often simpler to focus on easily measured quality attributes, customers take a multidimensional approach to quality, including a number of intangible factors in their quality assessment, as well as measurable factors. This research develops an instrument for measuring subjective quality factors in a reliable and valid manner. They studied employees in the ceramic industry, through focus groups and questionnaires, which were analyzed using structural equations modeling. They found that the responses were divided into three factors of perceived business quality: perceived product quality, perceived service quality, and business orientation toward quality. Their instrument will be useful in providing a well-rounded assessment of quality.

The third article is a study of quality award examiners, by Garry D. Coleman of the University of Tennessee, Eileen M. Van Aken of Virginia Tech, and Jianming Shen of Lennox Industries. Because quality awards are based on the assessment of examiners, it is important to assess the extent to which the examiners make similar judgment of similar situations. They focused on a state quality award, comparing 23 examiners over a two-year period, on their scorebook ratings. Intraclass correlation analysis revealed a significant correlation between examiner scores, indicating agreement between examiners; however, the correlation coefficients were in the low to moderate range. This may indicate the need to increase training provided to quality award examiners, in order to assure that they make consistent judgments.

We close with an article by Chee-Cheng Chen and Ching-Chow Yang, of Chung-Yuan Christian University in Taiwan. They describe the methodology they developed for calculating a supplier performance index, incorporating cost of quality concepts, in addition to pricing and other important factors. They used total involved quality cost (TIQC) analysis as the basis for the cost of quality concepts, in order to help incorporate intangible quality costs. By incorporating cost of quality concepts, they feel their approach will help lower the cost of purchased materials.

Combined, these articles add to the literature on measurement and assessment of quality management concepts. They do so through both in-depth case research in a natural setting to detailed statistical analysis of reliability and validity. I hope you enjoy reading them.

Barbara B. Flynn
Editor

Quality Management Journal

EDITORIAL

EDITOR
Barbara B. Flynn
Wake Forest University

PAST EDITOR
George S. Easton
Emory University

FOUNDING EDITOR
William A. Golomski

BOOK REVIEW EDITOR
James B. Kohnen
St. Mary’s College of California

PUBLISHER
William Tony

MANUSCRIPT COORDINATOR
David Nelsen

COPY EDITORS
Leigh Ann Klaus
Kris McEachern

PRODUCTION
Cathy Schnackenberg

DIGITAL PRODUCTION SPECIALISTS
Jen Czajka
Laura Franceschi

HTML CODING
Laura Franceschi

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

John Anderson
University of Minnesota

Selwyn Becker
University of Chicago

Robert E. Cole
University of California

James W. Dean, Jr.
University of North Carolina

James R. Evans
University of Cincinnati

John P. Evans
University of North Carolina

Frank M. Gryna
University of Tampa

John Hamburg
APEX, Inc.

David Luther
Luther Quality Associates

Ram Narasimhan
Michigan State University

Roger G. Schroeder
University of Minnesota

Kalyan Singhal
University of Baltimore

Michael J. Stahl
University of Tennessee

EDITORIAL REVIEW BOARD

Sanjay Ahire
University of Dayton

Susan D. Amundson
Arizona State University

Kimberly A. Bates*
University of Toronto

Paul M. Bobrowski
Syracuse University

Kenneth Boyer
Michigan State University

Kenneth E. Case
Oklahoma State University

Injazz Chen
Cleveland State University

Barrie Dale*
University of Manchester

Richard Deane
Georgia State University

John Delery
University of Arkansas

Kevin Dooley
Arizona State University

Edward Duplaga
Bowling Green State University

Susan West Engelkemeyer
Babson College

Byron Finch
Miami University

Mark P. Finster
University of Wisconsin

Laura Forker
University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth

Soumen Ghosh
Georgia Institute of Technology

Glenn H. Gilbreath
Virginia Commonwealth University

John M. Groocock*
TRW (Retired)

Robert Handfield
North Carolina State University

Sandra J. Hartman
University of New Orleans

Marilyn Helms
Dalton State College

Mary Collins Holcomb
University of Tennessee

Ann Jordan
University of North Texas

Gary Kern
Indiana University South Bend

Jill Phelps Kern
Digital Semiconductor

David Kerridge*
Aberdeen University

Ray A. Klotz
Qualcomm Inc.

Frank Knight
FISI Madison Financial

Ronald D. Kurtzmann
Diamond Management Systems

Keong Leong
The Ohio State University

A. Magid Mazen
Suffolk University

Satish Mehra
University of Memphis

Kim I. Melton
North Georgia College and State University

Henry R. Neave*
British Deming Association

Yoram Neumann
California State University

William Newman
Miami University

Gary Ragatz
Michigan State University

Gipsie B. Ranney
Belmont University

Richard N. Rosett
Rochester Institute of Technology

Brooke Saladin
Wake Forest University

Helmut Schneider
Louisiana State University

Nirmal Sethia
California State Polytechnic University

John G. Surak
Clemson University

William Tallon
Northern Illinois University

Michael D. Tveite
The Tetrad Group

Peter Ward
The Ohio State University

L. David Weller
University of Georgia

Ted Weston
Colorado State University

*International reviewer

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