Information derivability analysis for quality assurance information management systems

Presently, international economic competition is increasing at a rapid rate. As a consequence, quality and productivity have become the two most critical issues for manufacturing companies. This paper proposes a specialized type of information system to upgrade quality control management practices and to take advantage of recent advances in manufacturing systems and information systems. It outlines some of the benefits and problems related to the development of a Quality Assurance Information Management System (QAIMS), and offers useful suggestions for the preliminary phases of the analysis and design of such a system. QAIMS is a computerized documentation and decision tool centered on quality-related activities. Equipped with a well designed QAIMS, management can reduce communication gaps and maximize interactions between and within all manufacturing and business entities. The QAIMS would help to incorporate consumer feedback in product design and manufacturing, quality control and maintenance, productivity improvements, and greater efficiencies in production and services. With a well-designed QAIMS, management can also make long-range strategic plans to compete effectively.     

Quality assurance systems information requirements planning

The rapid development of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) is causing significant difficulties for planning the information requirements for the technical managers of quality assurance systems. This paper examines the general model of information requirements planning for quality assurances with emphasis on the problems of structuring and adapting to a CIM environment.     

Intra-supply chain system with multiple sales locations and quality assurance

The emergence of the global economy has transformed the interdepartmental nature of a transnational enterprise into a highly collaborative oriented team. This transformation enables the enterprise to lower its transaction and coordination costs and increase its competitive advantage in the global market. This study investigates such a so-called intra-supply chain system that exists in present-day transnational firms, wherein a single production unit manufactures products to meet the demands of multiple regional sales offices and incorporates quality assurance in its production. The objective of the present study is to determine an optimal production quantity and shipment policy that minimizes the integrated production–inventory–delivery costs for the intra-supply chain system. In this study, considerations related to a product’s quality assurance include inspection for quality, rework of defective items and failure in rework. Delivery of the finished products starts when quality of the entire production lot is assured. Multi-shipment policy is used to synchronously transport finished items to multiple locations for satisfying customer demands in each cycle. Mathematical modeling along with Hessian matrix equations is employed to solve the proposed intra-supply chain system. A numerical example with a discussion and cost-benefit analysis of outsourcing work to an external distributor is presented to demonstrate the practical applicability of the obtained results.     

Assuring software quality assurance

The term quality assurance (or QA) has a variety of interpretations. The most common one is that it ensures that developers, testers, or independent auditors have performed some form of scrutiny on a system to validate that it will work as required. Software quality assurance is similar but applies to the code or noncode artifacts.     

A prolog based expert system for the allocation of quality assurance program resources

The worldwide proliferation of fraudulent materials has brought about the need for a new approach to the control of purchased material quality. Nuclear power, defense, aerospace and many other industries are affected by the supply of poor quality clones that presume to be original replacement parts. Safety considerations abound as these highly defective materials are used in systems that are critical to the preservation of human lives. Commonly utilized quality assurance programs have not effectively stopped the influx of fraudulent materials. These programs fail to concentrate inspection efforts on materials and inspection attributes that would effectively prevent the acceptance of fraudulent materials. herein a solution is presented to this problem in the form of an expert system application. Information commonly available in industry is formulated into a knowledge based system wherein advisories are given to the user regarding key purchased material receipt inspection strategies.     

Evaluating the reliability and impact of a quality assurance system for E-learning courseware

Assuring e-learning quality is of interest worldwide. This paper introduces the methods of e-learning courseware quality assurance (a quality certification system) adopted by the eLQSC (e-Learning Quality Service Centre) in Taiwan. A sequential/explanatory design with a mixed methodology was used to gather research data and conduct data analyses. Sixty-seven e-learning courseware applications were evaluated using the e-Learning Courseware Quality Checklist (eLCQC). Analyses of item difficulty, item discrimination and generalizability indicated that the eLCQC provides high-quality evaluations. After participating in the certification process, the e-learning producers reported having more confidence in enhancing e-learning courseware quality. The certification experience also helped the producers to change their previous design concepts about e-learning courseware and to develop new concepts; further, their increased confidence about courseware design also enhanced their confidence in marketing courseware.     

Information assurance the West Point way

At the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, we approach the topic of protecting and defending information systems as a matter of national security. The time has long passed where we could consider cyberattacks as merely a nuisance; the threat from a cyberattack is very real. Our national information infrastructure is not just essential to the USA economy; it is a life-critical system. Presidential Decision Directive 63 (which called for a national effort to assure vulnerable and interconnected infrastructure security, such as telecommunications, finance, energy, transportation, and essential government services) officially recognizes this, and numerous reports have validated it. As military academy educators, our duty is to provide an education that empowers our graduates with the skills needed to protect the many critical information systems that the military uses.     

Software quality assurance in practice

This paper presents the key findings of a survey of a representative sample of the Australian software industry as to the actual use and application of quality assurance techniques in the development of software. The survey aims to confirm previous survey findings through a management questionnaire and to investigate the software development practices at the screen face through a developer questionnaire. The separate responses are analysed to rate the extent to which quality management practices have penetrated the information systems department. The project commenced in July 1994 and the results of this initial survey support the hypothesis that software quality assurance programmes have not yet penetrated to the systems developers at lower levels of organizations.     

Developer-focused assurance requirements [Evaluation Assurance Level and Common Criteria for IT system evaluation]

In 1999, the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission jointly published the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security revaluation to provide IT security evaluation guidelines that extend to an international community. The assurance requirements, including prepackaged sets of Evaluation Assurance Levels (EALs) in the Common Criteria (CC), represent the paradigm that assurance equals evaluation, and more evaluation leads to more assurance. This paradigm is at odds with the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) marketplace, neither reflecting how confidence is typically achieved nor providing a cost-effective means for supplying grounds for confidence in the security capabilities of the information technology being evaluated.     

Information assurance technology forecast 2005

This paper gives insights into how the threat's evolving nature, the current information technology environment, and various market forces are combining to yield new security challenges and likely new technology paths for the future.     

Healthcare data warehousing and quality assurance

Healthcare data warehousing presents unique challenges. The industry is rife with often incompatible medical standards and coding schemes that require careful translation. Healthcare data comes from many sources and is delivered in many forms, including published books, individual spreadsheets, and several tape or data formats. Results derived from a healthcare data warehouse must be delivered in accessible form to diverse stakeholders, including healthcare regulators, physicians, hospital administrators, consumers, community activists, and members of the popular press. The industry's widely decentralized and largely autonomous data collection efforts make data quality a significant challenge. Finally, the sensitivity of healthcare data makes privacy and security issues paramount. Healthcare data warehousing will make rigorous, quantitative information available to healthcare decision makers. The authors describe a fully functional healthcare data warehouse used to produce several reports for communities throughout Florida. Building on this work, they're actively pursuing a research agenda to enhance technical data warehousing capabilities while investigating innovative community and clinical healthcare applications     

Integrative quality assurance of micro-parts using Microfeatures

The article introduces the Microfeature Catalogue as an information database that is structured by Microfeatures and can be used for preventive and non-preventive quality assurance. The Microfeature conception is adapted and evaluated in the specific fabrication environment of micro mechanical components. The production of micro parts demands a further development of the new fabrication technologies on the one hand and an appropriate development of the concomitant processes such as the quality assurance process on the other hand. A coherent information cycle between design, fabrication and quality assurance is put into practice.     

Efficiency of CAMEtools in software quality assurance

Our paper describes the requirements and possibilities of integration of metrics tools in the field of software quality assurance. Tools for the support of the measurement process are herein classified as Computer Assisted Software Measurement and Evaulation Tools (CAMETools). Software measurement regarded as a special type of metrics application provides a great amount of basic information for the evaluation of the software development process or the software product itself. Our paper examines the effectiveness and destination of software measurement in tool-based software development and is based on an analysis of more than 20 CAME tools in the Software Measurement Laboratory at the University of Magdeburg. CAMEtools are useable for the process, product, and resources evaluation in all phases of the software life cycle (including the problem definition) for different development paradigms. The efficiency of CAME tools is described on the basis of a general measurement framework. This framework includes all steps in the software measurement and evaulation process: metrics definition, selection of the evaluation criteria, tool-based modelling and measurement, value presentation and statistical analysis. The framework includes the main aspects of the process evaluation techniques (Capability Maturity Model, ISO 9000-3 etc.) and product evaluation (ISO 9126, etc.). It is not a disjointed set of aspects: our measurement framework represents an incremental technique for the application of quantification of quality aspects in a required quality assurance     

A slippery genetic algorithm-based process mining system for achieving better quality assurance in the garment industry

Due to the error-prone nature of garment manufacturing operations, it is challenging to guarantee the quality of garments. Previous research has been done to apply fuzzy association rule mining to determine process settings for improving the garment quality. The relationship between process parameters and the finished quality is represented in terms of rules. This paper enhances the application by encoding the rules into variable-length chromosomes for optimization with the use of a novel genetic algorithm (GA), namely the slippery genetic algorithm (sGA). Inspired by the biological slippage phenomenon in DNA replication, sGA allows changes to the chromosome lengths by insertion and deletion. During rule optimization, different parameters can be inserted to or removed from a rule, increasing the diversity of the solutions. In this paper, a slippery genetic algorithm-based process mining system (sGAPMS) is developed to optimize fuzzy rules with the aim of facilitating a comprehensive quality assurance scheme in the garment industry. The significance of this paper includes the development of a novel variable-length GA mechanism and the hybridization of fuzzy association rule mining and variable-length GAs. Though the capability of conventional GA in rule optimization has been proven, the diversity in the population is inherently limited by the fixed chromosome length. Motivated by this phenomenon, the sGA suggested in this paper allows various parameters to be considered in a rule, improving the diversity of the solutions. A case study is conducted in a garment manufacturing company to evaluate the sGAPMS. The results illustrate that better quality assurance can be achieved after rule optimization.     

Formal engineering methods for software quality assurance

Conventional software engineering on the basis of informal or semi-formal methods is facing tremendous challenges in ensuring software quality.Formal methods have attempted to address these challenges by introducing mathematical notation and calculus to support formal specification,refinement,and verification in software development.