In 1997, after some years of negative trends in financial as well as other performance indicators, Post Denmark experienced a management crisis. After serious considerations, top management decided to try changing the negative trend by using the principles, practices and techniques of Total Quality Management (TQM), which was re-named to TIQ (Total Involvement in Quality). The name TIQ signalled that everybody's participation was expected and required. In addition, this route to understand and improve quality was complemented with a self-assessment process - that was initiated in 1997 and is still going on in Post Denmark. The purpose of this chapter is to show how organizations can use a quantitative self-assessment process to understand and improve quality. This is achieved through an in-depth case study in Post Denmark. In addition, Post Denmark conducted a benchmarking study in two European post offices. Altogether about 2000 questionnaires have been completed by managers and employees and thereafter used in the improvement process. The chapter provides guidance for how self-assessment with the EFQM-model can be used to identify improvement areas, to benchmark performance with competitors and to track improvements over time

Although there is a substantial body of research on quality, disagreement remains as to the effect of reliability, or things gone wrong, as opposed to customization, or things gone right, on customer satisfaction with goods and services. Service quality researchers argue that reliability is relatively more important for services due to the nature of service production compared to goods production. In contrast, customer satisfaction researchers argue that a service firm's ability to customize their service to individuals makes customization relatively more important for services than for goods. The goal of this paper is to provide insight into this debate through an analysis of firms and industries measured in the American Customer Satisfaction Index database. Our results provide broad-based support for the argument that reliability is relatively more important as the service component of an offering increases, while customization is relatively more important for manufactured goods. Implications for quality practice are discussed

Many organizations use quality management to improve firm performance, but the results do not always come quickly. Research in the manufacturing sector has found that different organizational characteristics, such as firm size and the degree of capital intensity, influence the perceived benefits of quality management. We use data from 281 firms that work with quality management to investigate the role of quality practices in service organizations. The results of our investigations support that the relationship between quality practices and business performance is dependent on firm size. In addition we provide insight into how the business results are influenced by individual quality practices such as employee management, process orientation, and customer orientation, depending on firm size

During the past 20 years, there has been steady growth not only in the service sector but also in the service content of most products. Traditional manufacturing companies have become more dependent on the services they provide and this part of their business is often very important for their business result. A large proportion of the activities in these traditional manufacturing companies consists of activities related to services. This will place new demands on how these organizations work with quality management and on how they manage their product development process. With an increased attention to services, the ability to incorporate new knowledge regarding the service part of products in product development will become all the more important.



The overall purpose of this thesis is to contribute empirical evidence and knowledge in quality management. During the course of the research process, both survey and case study research have been conducted. Two of the surveys are cross-sectional investigations of quality practices in Swedish organizations. The third study using survey data is an investigation of the relationship between quality and customer satisfaction. The three case studies have been conducted in order to better understand how Swedish organizations work to improve their product development process.



A contribution of this research is the framework for linking quality practices to performance. Such a framework makes it possible to identify how product and service companies are both similar and different with respect to the effects of quality practices on customer satisfaction and business results. The results of the empirical investigation show that quality management processes work differently depending on the product versus service nature of a company and the associated production processes.



In addition, a quality perspective on continuous improvement in product development is presented. The investigation of improvement programs and quality principles shows that there are distinct differences between the three case companies. Different quality principles are promoted and the meaning of the quality principles is different. The research strengthens the claim that organizations introducing improvement programs without considering the related quality principles cannot expect the same results as organizations where improvement programs and principles work in harmony.