• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.843-862
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• 2018

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop quality innovation techniques specialized for the small and medium-sized businesses. which account for the majority of Korean companies, were having a hard time utilizing the widely recognized quality innovation techniques due to resource constraints. Methods: First, we do review the existing Single PPM and 6 Sigma. And investigate the utilization of these methods including Toyota Production System. Second, we devised a four-step problem-solving methodology based on recent trends in quality innovation such as Simple, Speedy, and Smart. Third, we do survey on frequently used tools for quality innovation. Many opinion leaders including quality consultants and professors answered and gave us valuable comments about our selected quality tools. Finally, we do specify and map tools to each step of PASS. Results: In 2017, 167 companies participated in the quality innovation support business for small businesses according to the Korea Chamber of Commerce & Industry. We conducted performance checks on 167 companies that had completed the "PASS" projects. For the purpose of evaluating improvement performance, the survey was carried out using a structured questionnaire during the field visit of these companies mentioned above. For the reference, 165 out of 167 companies (98.8 % response rate) responded to the questionnaire and conducted performance analysis based on it. According to the survey, 97.6 percent of the respondents were very satisfied with their overall satisfaction with the quality innovation support projects for small and medium sized enterprises in 2017. Also, 93.3 % of the respondents were satisfied with the results of level of the target achievement. As a result, 160 companies (97.0 % of the participating companies) hope to partic ipate in the quality improvement project using "PASS" once again. Conclusion: In this paper, we introduce the new quality innovation methodology, which is named as 'PASS', It could support the long-range business plan of the small and medium-sized businesses to achieve total customer satisfaction resulting in increased market share and improved profit margin. The most small companies can use this "PASS" technique more easily, quickly and most efficiently than their existing known quality innovation techniques such as Six Sigma and Single PPM, etc.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.647-664
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• 2022

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to derive major policies that domestic small and medium-sized manufacturing companies should consider to maximize productivity and quality improvement by utilizing manufacturing data and AI, and to find priorities and implications. Methods: In this study, domestic and international issues and literature review by country were conducted to derive major considerations such as manufacturing AI technology, manufacturing AI talent, manufacturing AI data and manufacturing AI ecosystem. Additionally, the questionnaire survey targeting 46 experts of manufacturing data and AI industry were conducted. Finally, the major considerations and detailed factors importance were derived by applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Results: As a result of the study, it was found that 'manufacturing AI technology', 'manufacturing AI talent', 'manufacturing AI data', and 'manufacturing AI ecosystem' exist as key considerations for domestic manufacturing AI. After empirical analysis, the importance of the four key considerations was found to be 'manufacturing AI ecosystem (0.272)', 'manufacturing AI data (0.265)', 'manufacturing AI technology (0.233)', and 'manufacturing AI talent (0.230)'. The importance of the derived four viewpoints is maintained at a similar level. In addition, looking at the detailed variables with the highest importance for each of the four perspectives, 'Best Practice', 'manufacturing data quality management regime, 'manufacturing data collection infrastructure', and 'manufacturing AI manpower level of solution providers' were found. Conclusion: For the sustainable growth of the domestic manufacturing AI ecosystem, it should be possible to develop and promote manufacturing AI policies in a balanced way by considering all four derived viewpoints. This paper is expected to be used as an effective guideline when developing policies for upgrading manufacturing through domestic manufacturing data and AI in the future.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.287-304
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• 2022

Purpose: The size of the salad consumption market has expanded since Covid-19, and continuous growth is predicted. Therefore, by extracting influential core purchasers in the salad consumption market and analyzing their purchasing behaviors and consumer types, this study intended to provide basic data for establishing a marketing strategy. Methods: The analysis data is the purchasing data of 576 people who have purchased salads between 2016 and 2020 (panel data of the Rural Development Administration), and in the social network analysis, the centrality structure was analyzed. Results: First, in the results of analyzing the causes of the rapid increase in salad consumption in 2020, it was found that the increase in consumption of new purchasers (n=102) had little effect. The existing consumer type (n = 474), which has been the majority of the salad consumption market so far, were consumers with stable income. However, the results of study indicated that the type of consumers has expanded since low-income class as well as high-income class increased consumption of purchasing salad. Second, in the results of analyzing the types of key purchasers with great influence in the salad consumption market, there was a difference from the results of frequency analysis in age, number of family members, existence/absence of children, and income decile. This suggests that there should be a difference between the type of customers according to the apparent quantitative figure and the actual influential purchasers. Third, in the results of analyzing the salad purchasing behaviors of core purchasers, the purchasing site for existing purchasers was large-scale marts and for new purchasers it was corporate-type supermarkets. Purchases were concentrated on Saturdays for both existing and new purchasers. As for the purchased products, existing purchasers had a high preference for products made of chicken, and new purchasers had a high preference for vegetable/fruit salad. In particular, in the results of purchased products by age group, in the case of 50s and 60s, it was an interesting result that there was a difference between the products purchased by the existing and new purchasers even though they were the same age. Conclusion: When establishing a marketing strategy in the salad consumption market, it is necessary to pay attention to the purchasing behavior of key buyers.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.169-181
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• 2022

Purpose: This paper addresses a case study of developing a flame retardant wood-plastic composites (WPC) by adding tannic acid to the existing synthetic wood. The optimal mixing ratios of six components are explored to minimize the burning time using two mixture designs. Methods: In the preliminary experiment, six components are considered to find important components and their ranges. Seven D-optimal mixture design points are generated. Two points are removed for the balance of plastic components to be maintained, and the remaining five points are augmented with two basic compositions. Four components are selected to be considered in the main experiment. In the main experiment, pellets are extruded at the eight mixture design points. In-house testing of burning time is executed three times. Specimens made of pellets from two promising flame retardant compositions are sent to the accredited laboratories and tested. Results: The test results are as follows: 1) The best composition (Wood flour, Tannic acid, PE, Lubricant) = (25, 41, 10, 2) (wt%) shows the burning time of 1 second, which is 9-fold improvement compared to the the burning time of 9 seconds from the existing composition (58, 0, 10, 2) (wt%). 2) The second best composition (41, 25, 10, 2) (wt%) results in the burning time of 2 seconds. This composition is inferior to the best composition in terms of the flame retardancy, but more economical since it needs less tannic acid which is 100-fold expensive than the wood flour. Conclusion: Flame retardant compositions are found by adding tannic acid to the existing WPC employing optimal mixture designs. This case study will be helpful to practitioners who try to develop new products with additional physical properties with as small number of experimental trials as possible. Future research direction includes exploring conditions which satisfy both performance level and cost limitation simultaneously.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.531-550
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• 2023

Purpose: The unique nature of life-and-death healthcare services sets them apart from other service industries. While many studies exist on the relationship between healthcare services and customer satisfaction, most of them focus on mildly ill patients, ignoring the differences between critically ill and non-seriously ill patients. This study discusses the actual quality of healthcare services for patients who are facing life-threatening illnesses and are on life support, as well as their right to protection and dignity. Methods: The survey conducted to 149 patients with the four major illnesses: cancer, heart disease, brain disease and rare and incurable disease, those who have experiences with senior general hospitals. Results: The basic statistics of this study are adequate to represent the four major critical illnesses, and the reliability and validity of this study's hypotheses, which were measured by multiple items, were analyzed, and the internal consistency was judged to be high. In addition, it was found that the convergent validity was good and the discriminant validity was also secured. When examining the goodness of fit of the hypotheses, the SRMR, which is the standardized root mean square of residuals that measures the difference between the covariance matrix of the data variables and the theoretical covariance matrix structure of the model, met the optimal criteria. Conclusion: The academic implications of this study are differentiated from other studies by moving away from evaluating the quality of healthcare services for mildly ill patients and focusing on the rights and dignity of patients with life-threatening illnesses in four senior general hospitals. In terms of academic implications, this study enriches the depth of related studies by demonstrating the right to protection and dignity as a factor of patient-centeredness based on physical environment quality, interaction quality, and outcome quality, which are presented as sub-factors of healthcare quality. We found that the three quality factors classified by Brady and Cronin (2001) are optimized for healthcare quality assessment and management, and that the results of patients' interaction quality assessment can be used to provide a comprehensive quality rating for hospitals. Health and human rights are inextricably linked, so assessing the degree to which rights and dignity are protected can be a superior and more comprehensive measurement tool than traditional health level measures for healthcare organizations. Practical implications: Improving the quality of the physical environment and the quality of outcomes is an important challenge for hospital managers who attract patients with life and death conditions, but given the scale and economics of time, money, and human inputs, improving the quality of interactions and defining them as performance indicators in hospital quality management is an efficient way to create maximum value in the short term.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.575-591
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• 2024

Purpose: Storage furniture in a laboratory where chemical experiments are conducted should satisfy both the chemical reactivity and stability required in the experimental environment, commonality with general households, and economic feasibility for the mass production system. Therefore, the development of storage furniture used in the laboratory should be done quickly through a process verified by utilizing various ideas and using a method suitable for the special environment called the laboratory. This study deals with the process of developing materials for inner drawers of laboratory furniture that meet these requirements. Methods: TRIZ methodology and ARIZ-85C process were applied to satisfy the requirements arising from the product development process, ARIZ process was applied step by step to resolve the contradictions that occurred during the development process, and 40 invention principles and ideal solutions (Ideal Final Results: IFR) were derived through clear analysis of the problem to select materials suitable for the special environment of the laboratory. Results: This study focused on the selection of materials that meet the durability and chemical stability required in the special environment of laboratory furniture. Through this, various solutions were sought with the aim of reducing cost and increasing productivity, and the process of maximizing useful functions and minimizing irrational parts in use was focused on TRIZ's contradiction resolution method. As a result, we found a way to improve the performance and efficiency of laboratory furniture through the selection of optimized furniture materials and problem solving methods. Conclusion: In this study, a methodology for the development of efficient and safe laboratory furniture materials was found and verified. In the use of furniture products in a laboratory, corrosion or damage caused by chemical generators may occur, making it difficult to use as a product. As a result, a method to reduce cost and increase productivity while maintaining the durability and chemical stability of laboratory furniture was found, and by finding a solution to the two relationships between chemical safety and production efficiency in the process of selecting materials for optimized furniture materials, and applying the ARIZ development process, the effectiveness of the product development process in a special environment could be verified.