Title: A quality assessment tool for improvement planning

Authors: Sam Woolford

Addresses: Department of Mathematical Sciences, Bentley University, 175 Forest St., Waltham, MA 02452, USA

Abstract: The identification and prioritisation of improvement opportunities can be a challenge for many organisations due to a variety of resource limitations. This can result in improvement efforts that do not have a clearly defined linkage to the return that they will generate or to the achievement of key organisation strategies intended to maintain or advance the organisation|s competitive position. The current research proposes the development of a decision support tool, based on the analytic hierarchy process and a self-assessment tool for evaluating current performance, which can effectively and efficiently identify and prioritise improvement opportunities for annual improvement planning. The decision support tool can be easily automated to facilitate implementation.

Keywords: analytical hierarchy process; AHP; improvement planning; quality assessment; decision support; productivity improvement; self-assessment; performance evaluation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2009.025189

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2009 Vol.4 No.5/6, pp.644 - 657

Published online: 16 May 2009 *

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