A QUALITY MANAGEMENT TRAINING SYSTEM ON ISO
STANDARDS FOR ENHANCING COMPETITIVENESS OF SMES
Nunzio Casalino, Alessandro D’Atri
CeRSI - Centro di Ricerca sui Sistemi Informativi - LUISS “Guido Carli” University
Via O. Tommasini 1, Rome 00162, Italy
Ludmil Manev
ECQ - European Center for Quality Ltd.
135, Tzarigradsko Shousse Blvd., Office Express Building, fl.4, Sofia 1784, Bulgaria
Keywords: Quality management and training, e-learning, change management, ISO standards, quality process, SMEs
development, knowledge management.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to introduce and discuss the benefits of on-line training, in quality control and
quality management, as a support for professionals and managers of SMEs (Small and Medium
Enterprises), to contribute to the improvement of the activities and of business performance objectives of
their organizations. This kind of training includes topics on: managing quality, quality process, auditing,
total quality, ISO standards, mistake proofing, and more. The paper describes the expected benefits
according with the preliminary results of an European project aiming to create and validate an on-line
system in the field of quality management and to provide an effective training on quality in the SMEs. The
international standards that are covered by the project are: ISO 9001 (quality management system), ISO
14001 (environment management system) and HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Control of the Critical
Points). Others users could be also students, disadvantaged people and all people who show interest in the
quality management systems.
1 INTRODUCTION
Some authors consider as a first example of quality
control the one carried on, about 3000 B.C, during
the construction of the Tower of Babel, when this
activity was described as one of the responsibilities
of the craftsman, i.e. of the person who actually
created the product. On the other side, more
recently, from the beginning of the industrial
revolution, the quality control was moved as a
responsibility of a specific person, the one who
controls the working process, i.e. the process leader.
Thus the relation between producer and surveyor, as
well as the one between clients and suppliers, is not
changed and this separation of responsibility still
exists. The first informal methods for quality control
have been developed during the industrialization
period, but their relevance strongly increased during
the First World War, needing a new approach for
improving in a short time the quantity and quality of
war products. After, in the period between the two
World Wars, several quality sampling approaches
were developed, as well as the introduction of
statistical analysis in quality control and monitoring.
In the period after the Second World War the
industrial manufacturing costs strongly increased
and lead to reduced profits. Quality was moved to
the prevention of defects, before or during the
production process, being more effective in the
expenditure and leading to considerable savings.
Thus the idea for quality assurance appeared. The
keyword is now “prevention” instead of “finding”
defects. Various recent studies have shown that
when an organization starts a quality assurance
process, this process does not imply only procedural
issues, but there are also two key underlying features
to generate valuable results: the way in which
quality principles are adopted and the journey to run
the certifying process. Others studies in the
literature, as the ones analyzing the experiences of
the introduction of ISO standards in SMEs, discuss
the need of having a training process for workers.
229
Casalino N., D’Atri A. and Manev L. (2007).
A QUALITY MANAGEMENT TRAINING SYSTEM ON ISO STANDARDS FOR ENHANCING COMPETITIVENESS OF SMES.
In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - HCI, pages 229-235
DOI: 10.5220/0002412502290235
Copyright
c
SciTePress
This learning need is related to the aims of the
organizational structure rearrangement, and to the
improvement and documentation of the business
processes. People involved in these processes should
investigate, explicit the new working procedures and
the documents, apply them. During this procedure,
several overlapping and voids are frequently found
in different activities and the search for their
solutions results in a discovery of new knowledge
and in taking into account previous experiences. The
analysis of these processes introduces new ways of
learning (Mertens and Leonard, 1996). Training
companies and institutions can, therefore, take
advantage of the generated knowledge and reapply it
in order to promote learning. Learning approaches
such as “learned lessons” or “best practices” shape
what is known as “knowledge generated in the
working processes”
(Peluffo et el., 2002). The
analysis and continuous improvement of these
processes offer an extraordinary opportunity to learn
and to make explicit the knowledge that is usually
applied. The above approach could be exemplified
in the activities composing the processes of
enrolment, registration, evaluation, didactic and
material development. The analysis and
improvement of these processes allow the
development of new capacities as the ones that today
are used in the design of training workshops,
training and evaluation contents, etc. In terms of
knowledge management, documentation activity is a
process of knowledge codification and in this
activity “the abuse of codification can reduce the
learning spaces and produce in the long term
stagnation in the evolution of the organization”
(Villavicencio, 2002). The documentation of such
processes that support the accumulation and
generation of knowledge has a strong relation with
the codification done during the quality certification
processes. The relevant knowledge is collected and
written in quality manuals according with
established procedures. In particular a quality policy
is necessary to provide a clear strategy for the
vocational training process, to be used by the
persons in charge of quality management and also to
distribute the responsibilities of each process.
Recently, quality management has been accepted, by
many national and international organizations, as a
main approach for providing accurate and reliable
description and implementation of clients’
requirements in all aspects. All published standards
describe the list of activities the organizations should
do in order to achieve their specific objectives. The
set of standards ISO 9000 are international standards
concerning quality management systems. An
increasing number of clients recently require goods
or services suppliers’ to accept exactly defined
quality approaches as mandatory in order to
demonstrate their possibilities.
2 QUALITY MANAGEMENT
AND NEED OF QUALITY
MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
The international standard ISO 9000:2000 defines
quality as: “The possibility of combination of
inherent characteristic of product, system or process
to meet the requirements of customers and other
interested parties. The product becomes a result
from a system of actions, which use resources for
transforming of input elements into output ones”.
The term “quality” could be combined with
adjectives such as bad, good or excellent. Quality
could be defined as:
conformity with client’s requirements - the
characteristics of products (or services) need to
be the closest is possible with the declared or
suggested clients’ requirements;
conformity with client’s specifications - the
production process is organized, operated and
controlled in such a way that obtained products
and/or services correspond to the specifications;
availability - the product or service is available
only if the conditions for its conformity with
requirements and specifications are satisfied.
ISO 9000:2000 defines the term quality management
as: “Coordinated actions for management and
control of an organization concerning quality”.
Management and control concerning quality
includes the definition of a quality policy and of
quality objectives, the planning, the quality control,
the quality assurance, and the quality improvements.
In other words an organization should have a
working system providing: effective operations
control and eliminating the nonconformities of all
stages of economic activity. The major approach to
quality assurance is to create awareness for
prevention of potential problems in a way that these
problems are predicted and eliminated before they
evolve. This is a totally different and more complex
approach in comparison with the traditional quality
control, where the service is accepted as satisfactory
when the final product do not have defects. The
main requirements for quality assurance are:
management devoted to the idea of quality; defined
quality objectives; documented quality management
system; effective surveys of the quality management
ICEIS 2007 - International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems
230
system; developing of a company culture and of an
appropriate staff training; economy of resources and
time; reduced quantities of nonconforming products.
The problems, connected to quality, are the
impossibility to meet the expectations/requirements
and the impossibility to execute the delivery terms in
time. Incapable management and the deliverers do
not fulfill their obligations because what should have
been done was not explained to the person in charge
of the action. The executor was familiar with the
necessary actions to be taken, but has not performed
them in the appropriate way. In order to solve their
problems connected to quality, SMEs should realize
and implement a quality management system, which
assures that the activity has been performed in the
proper way (ISO 9000 - Fundamentals and
Vocabulary). The QMS is useful to control all the
activities executed and the quality achievement. It
should include: clear goals; an effective organization
structure; specified responsibilities; defined
procedures and processes, included the requirements
for staff training; specified criteria and standards.
The effectiveness of quality management depends
on the system and the procedures as well as the
culture of each employee (Tuttle, 1993). It is
absolutely necessary that all employees realize the
importance of achieving the required quality and
quality achievement should not sustain the tendency
to the reduction of production costs. Because of the
limited effectiveness of other methods, organizations
more and more often are applying principles of
quality assurance when solving different problems
concerning quality. Customers want to be sure that
quality could be achieved, will be achieved and had
been achieved in the past. More and more of them
appreciate if they have good QMS and if they give
them the possibility to evaluate it by an independent
organization.
3 QUALITY ASSURANCE AND
MANAGEMENT STYLE FOR
SMALL ORGANIZATIONS
The goals of quality assurance standards are to
formulate such the implementation of a management
system will constantly assure the quality required.
By deciding to implement a quality system in
conformity with the series ISO 9000 standards, the
managers should to adopt a formalized management
style. The ISO 9000 standards are formulated to be
applied in all spheres of production and services, and
in any situation. Standards are not medical
prescription which should be performed literally, but
they rather define what should be done by the
management. In the realization of a QMS, every
organization should understand its main
requirements and principles in conformity with ISO
9000. The result of what has been done is reflected
on the quality manual of the organization. Quality
represents a strategic philosophy of enterprise
management in the actual globalization, based on the
overall commitment of management and employees,
towards customer satisfaction and a continuous
improvement of products, services and management
(Hand and Plowman, 1992). The series of ISO 9000
standards on QMS can effectively facilitate them in
achieving that objective. The customers demand
products with characteristics, which satisfy the needs
and expectations. A QMS allows to analyze
customers’ requirements, define the processes,
which contribute to the production of a good, to be
acceptable for the customer, and keep the processes
in control. A QMS gives to the organization and its
customers the awareness that it is in condition to
offer products, which meet the requirements. The
quality policy and the objectives should be
determined in order to give terms of reference for
the organization management (Oakland, 1992). Both
of them determine the hypothetical results and help
the organization to implement the resources for the
achievement of these results. The quality policy
gives the framework for the establishment and
review of the quality objectives. The quality
objectives must be consistent with the quality policy
and the engagement to continual improvement and
their accomplishment must be measurable. The
quality objectives achievement could have a positive
effect on the product quality, on the operative
effectiveness and the financial results and thus, on
the satisfaction and trust of the parties interested. An
atmosphere in which people are motivated and QMS
functions effectively could be created through the
management. The quality management principles
should be taught to: establish quality policy and
objectives of the organization; assure that the
appropriate processes have been implemented to
meet the customers’ requirements and to achieve the
quality objectives; assure that the effective QMS has
been implemented; compare better the results
achieved and the quality objectives. The methods of
the QMS are based on the main business
organization principles and approaches. They allow
to identify strong and weak points of the
organization; consist of requirements for evaluation
and continual improvement.
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4 TRAINING ON QUALITY
ASPECTS AND ITS BENEFITS
With tight budgets and the international
competitiveness increasing, SMEs are looking for
additional ways to create and sustain organizational
knowledge. The continuous training, related to the
aspects of quality management, it is fundamental
because this field is subject to several shifts and
implementations related to procedural aspects and
legislative changes. Such situation mostly interests
the SMEs, in how much very often managed by
people with a reduced knowledge in this field.
Absurdly, such subjects don’t perceive the added
value that a good QMS can introduce to their
activities. In fact they often consider it, as expensive
rules that stiffen their organizations. In this field it is
important, therefore, not only an initial training, to
awaken employees to adopt methodologies for the
achievement of quality, but it is necessary to make
available instruments to make possible a process of
continuous training for an effective management of
the competences. This implicates that won’t be more
necessary, above all for the SMEs, to periodically
remain without collaborators or workers, because
busy for the training activity and often in
geographically far-away places. At the same time,
simply using own personal computer, employees
will be facilitated, and perhaps induced to learn and
know the main quality principles. Thanks to these
technologies, it is possible to acquire knowledge in
small doses (divided in more parts linked among
them, usable in few minutes). This activity don’t
reduce productivity of the workers because they stay
on the place of job. With the rapid increase in
corporate of high-speed Internet connections and a
younger workforce that has grown up using
computers, e-learning has become a very cost
effective and efficient training method. This
modality allows people to explore interactive
simulations and test various scenarios on the screen,
making the training much more realistic and
understandable than typical classroom training.
These repeatable simulations provide also privacy
for the learner, so that a person can feel free to
repeat sections and to try different simulations. E-
learning has become a very effective training
method that can reduce costs and improve the
effectiveness of training courses. It is not a panacea,
and it will never replace traditional training methods
in all situations, but it is another way to produce
sustained learning, and most organizations should
have it included in their training activities. Many
benefits can be identified for the business:
significant reduction of costs associated with
teacher fees and materials;
reduction of learning time and amount of time
in which employees are away from their jobs;
short videos or exercises allow to verify if a
learner has reached the objectives of a lesson;
a user’s progress can be monitored by a
supervisor.
And others for the learner:
advanced learners can skip the known contents;
beginners may determine their progress,
eliminating frustration;
lessons build upon one another and may be
taken in any order;
anytime-anywhere learning can greatly increase
knowledge retention;
learners can view or print a single page with
quick start job aids that give step-by-step
procedures or graphic workflow charts
illustrating tasks to be performed.
It can be very expensive for companies to bring their
subject matter experts into the classroom, especially
when it requires multiple training sessions and an
high frequency training schedule. In fact, when the
courses are properly chosen, there is a good
possibility that they will offer a considerable cost-
savings over traditional learning methods and
produce equal or greater learning results. One very
large IT company has saved some $200 million per
year on the cost of training its employees worldwide
by switching to web-based education for the most
widely needed and time-critical courses. Another
large firm saved close to $80 million by providing
the majority of their new hire training into neatly
packaged and highly interactive on-line courses.
These large savings are produced by greatly
reducing travel costs, less time off from work for the
new employees, better deployment of time for the
subject matter experts and these savings were
achieved without the loss of any effectiveness in the
training, as the training scores were as high, if not
higher, in over 90% of the workers (Omnex, 2006).
5 VIRTUOSE: A QUALITY
MANAGEMENT TRAINING
SYSTEM
The project “Virtual Online system for Education on
quality” under “Leonardo da Vinci” program (Pilot
Project BG/04/B/F/PP-166024), is addressed
towards Vocational and Educational Training in the
field of quality management systems (QMS).
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“Leonardo da Vinci” is a program which aims at
implementing the policy of European Union in the
field of professional training, using the trans-
national collaboration and experience for improving
the quality, encouraging the innovations and
disseminating good professional practices and
systems in Europe. The aim of the project is to
create a web-based system and an off-line version of
it (on DVD-Rom) in the field of QMS development
and implementation, to provide effective training on
quality and to facilitate the training of the SMEs
workers. The actual international standards included
in the project are: ISO 9001:2000 (quality
management system), ISO 14001 (environment
management system) and HACCP (Hazard Analysis
and Control of the Critical Points). The project is
coordinated by the Bulgarian ECQ (European Center
for Quality) in collaboration with others main
institutions of European Union as: “TÜV - Hellenic
Certification Register” - Greece; “Bulgarian
Industrial Association” - Bulgaria; “Institute for
Postgraduate Studies” at University of National and
World Economy - Bulgaria; “Center of Research on
Information systems” of the LUISS University -
Italy. The system is available in four languages -
English, Italian, Greece and Bulgarian. The direct
beneficiaries of the project are professionals,
decision-makers and managers of SMEs of the
partner countries, but it is also possible that students,
disadvantaged people and all people who show
interest in the quality management systems may find
it useful. The project includes the development of a
software product which will provide an efficient
QMS training system and will meet the needs of
SMEs for professional education of their staff. The
training covers the following international standards:
ISO 9001:2000, ISO 14001:1996 and HACCP. In
addition to traditional text contents for self-
education and self-evaluation, the project gives the
support of a “virtual teacher” to present the whole
contents to the trainees. The purpose of creating
such a “virtual teacher” is to combine distance and
traditional training and thus to be useful for different
kinds of users. This defines the system as an
innovative form of vocational and educational
training. The on-line method of VIRTUOSE system
eliminates the conventional approaches with real
attendance and gives equal rights and opportunities
to both men and women, without discrimination by
race or social status. The development of such
flexible training system is an innovative learning
methodology, which is suitable for both business-
oriented people and people with limited time for
increasing their competence in this specific field.
6 FEATURES AND
ADVANTAGES
The system provides some functionalities for the
web-based administration of courses and learners.
All important features can be accessed with a
standard web-browser. The platform accepts every
learning material created with standard authoring
software or in textual version. An advantage is that
the system virtually supports any kind of course
material that can be run on a web-server. It provides
a specific flexibility, essential in today’s training
activities. Actually the homepage gives the
possibility to gain access to the three standards: ISO
9001:2000, ISO 14001 and HACCP.
Figure 1: The VIRTUOSE homepage.
There is, besides, a section with the description of
the platform and the contacts of the partners of the
project. VIRTUOSE offers an innovative approach
to the training activities. A virtual teacher reads the
contents, thus distance training is combined with the
traditional courses made locally (blended learning).
Figure 2: A virtual teacher takes a lecture on ISO 9001
standard.
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In the section ISO 9001, there is a textual part, with
the optional possibility of an audio version. The
system includes a QMS training and self-evaluation
modules for ten selected industrial sectors:
chemical and pharmaceutics industry;
machine engineering;
oil and mining;
agriculture;
food processing;
wood processing and furniture;
textile;
tourism;
IT and electronics;
construction and building.
It is possible to view or download: a training
manual, a quality manual, various quality models
and forms with instructions and suggestions.
Besides, at the end of every section, there is an
evaluation area with multi-choice test and
assessment forms.
Figure 3: An evaluation test.
This on-line training system on quality control and
quality management can help professionals and
managers of SMEs to contribute to the improvement
of the activities and to the business performance
objectives of their organizations. This kind of
training includes topics on: managing quality,
auditing, total quality, ISO standards, quality
process, mistake proofing, and more. The platform
can be divided into four distinct modules:
the personal information of learners;
an easy-to-use administration section for the
tutor or the teacher;
a download page for course contents and the
off-line navigation;
an additional module to access to periodic
release of new contents.
Data are encrypted (SSL encryption) and it is
possible to check the points that employees received
during their individual evaluation test. Each course
includes several components which can be showed
or downloaded separately. Course components are
audio-lectures, scripts in Html and Pdf format files,
assignments and their solutions, exercises with
multimedia elements, etc. The learners can select the
components they wish to obtain from the list and
download them. The system decompresses the
incoming components and stores them on the local
hard disk. Furthermore, there is a table of contents
that can be used to navigate through the different
courses. The platform offers extremely flexible
teaching schedule appropriate for busy people with
limited time for training. During the realization of
the assigned activities, several workshops took place
in the project partner countries: Bulgaria, Greece
and Italy. The purpose of the workshops was to
introduce the requirements and the benefits for the
beneficiaries. The participants in the workshops
received detailed information about the
implementation of the standards mentioned, the
advantages from implementing ISO, the issues and
problems concerning the implementation of
HACCP. The participants had also the opportunity
to ask questions to consultants and professionals on
quality, concerning the implementation of a
standardization process.
7 CONCLUSIONS
Studies on the process of information technology
acquisition (Davis et al, 1994) clearly show that
these systems go through several evolutionary
stages. During this development the priority in order
to succeed doesn’t seem to be tied only to the
acquisition process, but mainly to the paths of
learning and organizational change. Experience
suggests that these paths should be designed and
carefully managed in order to allow the acquisition
and effective use of ICT applications by the users
and the whole enterprise. The scheme followed in
the courses proposed by the system, for the
implementation of an effective QMS, consists of the
following basic steps:
a quick introduction to ISO 9000 standards;
a general review of the components of the ISO
9000 standards;
a model for the realization and implementation
of an effective quality assurance system;
the realization of a proper organization structure
and the responsibilities allocation.
The traditional methodology for the training, in fact,
results incomplete to furnish a suitable medium in
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the professional training field, because of dynamic
and continuous changes in the ICT sector and the
increasing demand of knowledge more and more in
the quality field (Casalino, D’Atri et al., 2005).
VIRTUOSE can contribute to the success of the
SMEs. The strategy is based on the creation of a
system for the training that meets the distance
learning with the traditional benefits; therefore the
two different methodologies are integrated. In fact,
on one side the distance statement is a comfortable
method for the training of a vast entourage of people
within the QMS but, on the other hand a lot of
people doesn’t believe in the effectiveness of such
method of statement because of the lack of a teacher
that mostly involves the trainees. To get round such
problem, VIRTUOSE assures a “virtual teacher” that
speaks slowly, with a clear voice and a perfect
intonation. Therefore VIRTUOSE proposes an
innovative approach for the training with the virtual
teacher that holds the lessons, so that the distance
training is combined with a similar direct contact.
VIRTUOSE also offers auto-evaluation forms
through which the learners can verify the acquired
knowledge level. Such forms at the end of every
subject, allow the worker to immediately verify the
acquired knowledge through the portal or by tutor e-
mail. He will personally contact the single
employees to assist them during the training period.
The current research project, that we are completing,
includes the analysis of some indicators and specific
key aspects that regard the current situation and
implementation of quality management culture in
the European SMEs. These are:
what is the current situation of quality aspects
dissemination through on-line courses?
what kind of technical training and assistance
are they giving?
how are the standards models of quality such as
ISO or EFQM (European Foundation for
Quality Management) used and applied?
what role can have national agencies or
institutions, as the universities, on the diffusion
of quality culture or the implementation of
quality models for SMEs through both
traditional and web-based learning?
how organizational and cultural specificities
affect quality implementation?
The importance of quality management is increasing
for the reason that lack of quality control and
assurance systems, lack of accreditation and
certification procedures, poor conformity marks, are
still extremely diffused. Such impediments are
considered as major potential and unnecessary
technical barriers to trade, especially concerning
international competitiveness and globalization. It is
important to underline that European SMEs have to
meet the challenges of globalization and the new
knowledge-driven economy.
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