Excellence profiles in Spanish firms with quality management systems

Abstract

This paper seeks to answer two important questions that firms consider when designing, implementing and improving a quality management system (QMS): (1) what are the critical or key factors in implementing, developing and improving a QMS; and (2) what results can we expect from these factors? This article's primary new contribution to these questions is to propose the construction of an indicator that we call the reformed excellence predictor (REP). This indicator is obtained by taking as reference a sample of over 100 Spanish firms with experience in processes of implementation, development and improvement of quality. Once we have constructed the indicator, using multivariate statistical and graphic techniques, we analyse the implementation profiles and the results of the firms that have achieved the highest levels of excellence for the indicator designed.

Keywords:

• quality management systems (QMS)
• performance
• business excellence index
• process approach
• QMS key factors
• QMS results