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Sustainability in Quality and Process Management

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2022) | Viewed by 11282

Special Issue Editors

Chair of Quality Science, Institute for Machine Tools and Factory Management, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Transport Systems, TU Berlin, Pascalstraße 8-9, 10587 Berlin, Germany
Interests: quality management; process management
Chair of Quality Science, Institute for Machine Tools and Factory Management, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Transport Systems, TU Berlin, Pascalstraße 8-9, 10587 Berlin, Germany
Interests: quality assessment in collaborative product development; maturity models; tacit knowledge engineering in quality management

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The quality of products and services has become a strategic competitive factor. In view of the increasing complexity of product development and manufacturing and distribution processes, effective quality and process management is essential to ensure and continuously improve quality. Moreover, achieving these goals sustainably is a global challenge in today’s value chains.

In this context, not only production but also the areas of product creation with development, production planning, procurement, maintenance, and sales, as well as customer service, must be included in the considerations. This holistic and comprehensive quality approach includes not only businesses but also the integration of customers, suppliers, as well as society as a whole.

The goal is sustainable, excellent quality (Quality Excellence) that creates added value regarding economic, ecologic, and social aspects. Quality Excellence is achieved by systematically analyzing, evaluating, and ensuring the effectiveness and sustainability of processes, methods, and systems. This significantly improves the actual and perceived quality of products and processes as well as their impact on society and environment.

In the future, the evaluation and assurance of qualities relevant to and perceived by the customer will be at the forefront of the development of new methods, technologies, and products. Sources of deficiencies must be identified, evaluated, and eliminated at an early stage. To this end, methods and techniques must be developed that can be used simply and purposefully in the individual process stages. On the one hand, challenges to quality science require new solution approaches in data analysis, problem-solving techniques, and quality practices. On the other hand, these solution approaches must also be adapted to complex, increasingly globally distributed value creation processes.

This Special Issue seeks to explore the opportunity, development, and application of new technologies to promote responsible consumption, environmental preservation, and corporate social responsibility. As firms respond to growing market demand for sustainable products with high quality and increased pressure to have a positive reputation for environmental performance and social responsibility, there are significant opportunities for innovation.

Specific areas of focus may include (but are not limited to):

  • Methods and processes to achieve social, economic, and/or ecologic quality;
  • New methods and technologies for resource-effective manufacturing processes;
  • Methods for assessing the maturity of processes and products regarding quality and/or sustainability;
  • Product and process innovation in development and production of sustainable products;
  • Reliability engineering to enhance sustainability of products;
  • Human factors and qualification of employees;
  • Organizational transformation;
  • Open development and collaboration for efficient resource allocation.

Prof. Dr. Roland Jochem
Guest Editors
Mr. Marcel Randermann
Assistant Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • quality management
  • process management
  • sustainability
  • innovative manufacturing processes
  • product and service design
  • quality assessment
  • reliability engineering
  • human factors

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 1238 KiB  
Article
Development of Optimized Maintenance Program for a Steam Boiler System Using Reliability-Centered Maintenance Approach
by Suyog S. Patil, Anand K. Bewoor, Ravinder Kumar, Mohammad Hossein Ahmadi, Mohsen Sharifpur and Seepana PraveenKumar
Sustainability 2022, 14(16), 10073; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su141610073 - 15 Aug 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3364
Abstract
Reliability centered maintenance (RCM) is a new strategic framework for evaluating system maintenance requirements in its operating conditions. Some industries employ predictive maintenance strategies in addition to preventive maintenance (PM) strategies, which increase production costs. As the breakdown maintenance (BDM) technique is used, [...] Read more.
Reliability centered maintenance (RCM) is a new strategic framework for evaluating system maintenance requirements in its operating conditions. Some industries employ predictive maintenance strategies in addition to preventive maintenance (PM) strategies, which increase production costs. As the breakdown maintenance (BDM) technique is used, the maintenance cost increases. The RCM approach is a mixture of these maintenance strategies that can be used to optimize the maintenance costs and to ensure the availability of the system. The RCM method was applied to the steam boiler system used in the textile industries for the research work reported in this paper. The RCM methodology stated in the literature cannot be implemented, as it is in Indian textile industries due to the lack of knowledge of RCM principles, a labor-oriented nature, the use of partially computerized information systems, an inadequate maintenance database, and information about maintenance costs and production loss. To resolve these issues, a modified RCM approach involving a large number of experts is developed. To apply this RCM methodology, critical components are identified through reliability and failure mode effect and criticality analysis (FMECA). Finally, scheduled maintenance strategies and their intervals are recommended to ensure that the system continues to operate properly. According to this study, implementing the RCM technique effectively will increase boiler system reliability and availability by 28.15 percent and 0.16 percent, respectively. Additionally, up to 20.32 percent of the maintenance cost can be saved annually by applying these scheduled maintenance programs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability in Quality and Process Management)
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25 pages, 4529 KiB  
Article
The Development of the New Process of Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) and Its Application
by Ching-Chow Yang, Yung-Tsan Jou, Ming-Chang Lin, Riana Magdalena Silitonga and Ronald Sukwadi
Sustainability 2022, 14(15), 9294; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14159294 - 29 Jul 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3634
Abstract
The Six Sigma program has been widely adopted by industries worldwide since the late-1990s due to GE’s successful implementation, though Motorola initiated it in 1987. Several quality experts, such as Juran and Feigenbaum and several researchers, have concluded that the poor quality in [...] Read more.
The Six Sigma program has been widely adopted by industries worldwide since the late-1990s due to GE’s successful implementation, though Motorola initiated it in 1987. Several quality experts, such as Juran and Feigenbaum and several researchers, have concluded that the poor quality in product design will cause vast and chronic costs, which the Six Sigma improvement may not eliminate. The focus of new product development is needed to transfer the quality improvement from the later phases of the Design Life Cycle to the early grades. It is necessary to adopt the “Design for Six Sigma” (DFSS) methodology to achieve the best performance in the early stages and focus on ‘prevention’ instead of ‘problem-solving. In this research, we develop a new DFSS process, including Define, Identify, Measure, Design, Optimize, and Verify (DIMDOV), based on the in-depth study of DFSS and the author’s rich consultant experience. The new DFSS process can be confirmed to be a robust methodology, used to assure the design quality of the product design and manufacturing process design by the application results. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability in Quality and Process Management)
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13 pages, 4848 KiB  
Article
Minimum Velocity of Impingement Fluidization for Parachute-Shaped Vegetables
by Dariusz Góral, Tomasz Guz and Urszula Pankiewicz
Sustainability 2022, 14(7), 4257; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14074257 - 03 Apr 2022
Viewed by 1459
Abstract
Accurate calculation of the minimum fluidization velocity makes it possible to reduce raw material losses due to the use of excessively high or excessively low air velocities. This is particularly true for impingement fluidization, which is little studied, especially when treating parachute-shaped raw [...] Read more.
Accurate calculation of the minimum fluidization velocity makes it possible to reduce raw material losses due to the use of excessively high or excessively low air velocities. This is particularly true for impingement fluidization, which is little studied, especially when treating parachute-shaped raw material. This paper focused on determining the drag coefficient for cauliflower florets, mushrooms, and broccoli. Analysis of the critical particle lift velocity showed that the lowest value of the drag coefficient was found for mushrooms (0.9). The parachute-shaped vegetables analyzed had a large scatter of drag coefficient values associated with their specific shape (standard deviation: mushrooms 0.10 broccoli 0.14, and for cauliflower 0.15). The measured mean values of the minimum fluidization velocity of the tested vegetables in the impingement fluidization method ranged from 6.9 m∙s−1 to 10.97 m∙s−1. Application of the procedure recommended by Shilton and Narajan for calculating the minimum fluidization velocity on the basis of the shape coefficient ε resulted in large discrepancies between the calculated and experimental values (from 2.4 m∙s−1 to 3.8 m∙s−1). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability in Quality and Process Management)
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19 pages, 991 KiB  
Article
Modeling the Sustainable Integration of Quality and Energy Management in Power Plants
by Noor Shakir Mahmood, Ahmed Ali Ajmi, Shamsul Bin Sarip, Hazilah Mad Kaidi, Khairur Rijal Jamaludin and Hayati Habibah Abdul Talib
Sustainability 2022, 14(4), 2460; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14042460 - 21 Feb 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2084
Abstract
(1) Background: this paper aimed at modeling the sustainable integration of quality and energy management system (IQEM) via identifying critical success factors (CSFs) and analyzing the effect on energy management; (2) Methods: The research adopted theoretical and practical methods, through carefully examining the [...] Read more.
(1) Background: this paper aimed at modeling the sustainable integration of quality and energy management system (IQEM) via identifying critical success factors (CSFs) and analyzing the effect on energy management; (2) Methods: The research adopted theoretical and practical methods, through carefully examining the literature to extract the research gap and CSFs that establish a sustainable model for the integration of quality and energy management, while the practical method was energy experts’ arbitration and to develop a sustainable model in power plants. The study used SmartPLS and SPSS software for analysis purposes, collected data using a 5-point Likert scale and employed a cross-sectional approach survey questionnaire; (3) Results: The research succeeded in identifying the most important CSFs necessary for the sustainable integration of (IQEM). This investigation discovered that the identified CSFs are significantly related to the electricity sector’s energy management integration success (EMIS). The study’s results showed that the identified IQEM’s CSFs, such as EP with p-values (0.000), SQI (0.000), EMT (0.019), A (0.003), SP (0.010), are significantly associated with EMIS and improve quality and energy management; (4) Conclusions: This study succeeded in modeling a framework that ensures integrated and sustainable success between energy management and quality in developing countries power plants. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability in Quality and Process Management)
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