World Quality Day 2020

The World Quality Day (WQD) 2020 is celebrated annually on the second Thursday in November. It intends to celebrate quality worldwide, share quality achievements and to raise awareness of quality around the world as quality is a contribute for the improvement of performance every day of the year. 

To celebrate the WQD 2020, the coordinator of the Research Group on Quality and Organizational Excellence (RG-QOE), Paulo Sampaio, leaves a message: “More than ever Quality is important to the world”.

André M. Carvalho @ ASQ Quality 4.0 Summit

André M. Carvalho, Post-doc at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and Research Affiliate of the Research Group on Quality and Organizational Excellence (RG-QOE), delivered a presentation entitled “Culture and Change: Setting the Foundations for Quality 4.0” at the ASQ Quality 4.0 Virtual Summit that took place as a virtual event last September 28-30.

RG-QOE organized the 4th International Conference on Quality Engineering and Managament

The 4th International Conference on Quality Engineering and Management – ICQEM took place last September 21-22 in a format fully online due to worldwide situation caused by the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic. 

Paulo Sampaio, Coordinator of the Research Group on Quality and Organizational Excellence (RG-QOE), is the Conference Chair of this biannual event that intends to “present and discuss the progresses in the Quality Management, Quality Engineering and Organizational Excellence fields, providing a unique opportunity to share the latest insights of academic and industrial research and applications on Quality and Organizational Excellence.” 

The conference program was composed by keynote speakers presentations and several technical parallel sessions including different topics distributed by the two days of the event, such as six sigma, quality tools, quality management, operational and organizational excellence, quality and industry 4.0, or sustainability. 

The first day keynote speakers included António Cunha (Digital transformation for intelligent quality assurance), Maxim Protasov (What is the Russian National Quality System all about?) and Christianna Hayes (Achieving Personal Goals Through Quality). 

The second day keynote speakers included Jorge J. Román (Intellectual Property Crime and Business Excellence Framework. Dubai Police case study) and Benito Flores (Quality 4.0: More than Technology). 

Some members of RG-QOE also presented their work on September 22: 

- André M. Carvalho presented the “Technology and Quality Management: a review of concepts and opportunities in the Digital Transformation” (authors: André Carvalho, Paulo Sampaio, Eric Rebentisch and Josef Oehmen); 

- Cátia Pinto presented the “Innovation, Technology and Quality” (authors: Cátia Pinto and Paulo Sampaio); 

- Cátia Pinto presented the “The Relationship between Quality Management and Innovation” (authors: Cátia Pinto and Fernando Romero). 

Two conference awards were deliverd in the categories of best paper and best student paper: 

- Best paper was awarded to “Applying Lean Six Sigma Methodologies for Quality Improvement in a Powder Coatings Industry” by Fátima Carneiro, Diana Valdoleiros, Henriqueta Nóvoa and Mariana Rodrigues; 

- Best student paper was awarded to “Quality Management in Higher Education. Using SERVPERF to assess services quality” by “Ricardo Rodrigues, Maria João Rosa, Patrícia Moura Sá, and Gonçalo Santinha”. 

This event was a great opportunity of learning, knowledge sharing, and important contributions to this field of knowledge. 

What a success!

Cátia Pinto @ First ASQ EMEA Students Café

Cátia Pinto, PhD student and member of the Research Group on Quality and Organizational Excellence (RG-QOE), delivered a presentation entitled “The relationship between Quality Management and Innovation” at the American Society for Quality (ASQ) Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region Student’s Café that took place virtually last September 12. 

This event was mainly directed to students in order to provide them an opportunity to share with the community the work students are doing in the EMEA region.

Paulo Sampaio @ APQ and ASQ webinars

Paulo Sampaio, Coordinator of the Research Group on Quality and Organizational Excellence, delivered a webinar entitled “O líder da Qualidade 4.0” at the Associação Portuguesa para a Qualidade, last July 14. 

The webinar was focused on the presentation of the Profile of the Quality Professional of the 21st Century and on the Future of Quality. 

Later, on August 01, Paulo Sampaio delivered the webinar entitled “The Profile of the Quality Leader of the 21st Century” at the American Society for Quality Europe, Middle-East and Africa Region. 

The webinar was focused on the skills dimensions of the Quality 4.0 Professional.

Paula Silva Sá got her PhD

Paula Silva Sá, PhD student at the Research Group on Quality and Organizational Excellence, got her PhD with a thesis entitled “A Gestão da Qualidade no Ensino Superior em Portugal” on last July, 10.

Congrats Paula!

(From left to right: Madalena Araújo (Examination Board Chair); Paulo Sampaio (Supervisor); Paula Silva Sá; Ricardo Machado (Internal Examiner); Photo kindly provided by University of Minho School of Engineering)

QOE paper published @ TQM&BE

The paper “Towards a new model for SME self-assessment: a Brazilian empirical study” has been published in the Total Quality Management & Business Excellence.

This paper is co-authored by Paulo Sampaio, member of the Research Group on Quality and Organizational Excellence.

The full reference of the paper is:

Marcio Cardoso Machado , Eduardo Fernando Mendes , Renato Telles & Paulo Sampaio (2020) Towards a new model for SME self-assessment: a Brazilian empirical study, Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 31:9-10, 1041-1059, DOI: 10.1080/14783363.2018.1460195