An application of enterprise systems in quality management of products

A New Model Supporting Stability Quality of Materials and Industrial Products

Stabilizing the quality of industrial product materials remains a challenge. This applies mainly to new or significantly modified materials. It also refers to special processes. The tests of product quality can stabilize the quality of industrial product materials. The popular method for this is using the non-destructive testing (NDT). The NDT identifies incompatibility but does not determine the cause of its occurrence. Hence, it was necessary to support the process of identifying causes of incompatibilities in products. The purpose of the article was to develop a model based on a new approach to determine the ranking of actions that are possible as part of the process of stabilizing the quality of industrial products. The model was developed to improve quality through sequential and systematic methods of identification (and reduce) and incompatibility. The quality management techniques and decision method were applied and combined in this model, i.e., SMART(-ER) the method, method of selecting a team of experts, brainstorming (BM), Ishikawa diagram with the 5M rule, Likert scale validation technique, arithmetic average, and Grey Relational Analysis (GRA). The test of this model was carried out to find cracks in the outer hull of 418 alloy four-point bearing (CPW-S 5616), which was identified by NDT (magnetic-powder method). As a result, a ranking of activities was obtained to stabilize the quality of the product and the main cause of incompatibility was indicated, i.e., the cause which can influence to the most degree influence on occurrence the incompatibility. The originality of the proposed model is an application in the right order of specially selected and combined qualitative methods and supporting decision methods. The finding of causes of incompatibility of products is the basis of product improvement in the area of stabilizing the quality of materials, mainly by the occurrence of special processes. The universality of the model refers to the possibility of its application for any material, processes of its formation, and processes of products, and any incompatibilities where the model can be integrated with quality control.

Transmission of information about consumer product quality and safety: a social media perspective

Purpose

This study aims to the information about consumer product quality and safety that can easily attract public attention and become the focus of public opinion. In recent years, the fast-growing social media have become an import platform for firms for releasing product quality and safety information and for firms and governments to hear public opinion.

Design/methodology/approach

To explore how information about consumer product quality and safety gets disseminated and a public opinion is formed in social media, this paper proposes two information transmission models, one with government intervention and the other without government intervention, based on the theory of complex network. A simulation case study in MATLAB is conducted to verify the proposed models.

Findings

Information transmission models were constructed, one without government intervention and one with government intervention. The influence of information transmission with government intervention was analyzed. MATLAB was used to simulate the Barabasi and Albert (BA)-based model to consider event information level, government information level and possible panic population proportion. The government intervention effect was evaluated.

Originality/value

Based on a complex network, the derived transmission rule can provide decision-making support for monitoring and managing Web information of consumer product quality and safety.