Vol-7, Special Issue-Number5-July, 2016, pp1145-1155
http://www.bipublication.com
Case Study
1
The Application of the Extension of Qualitative Performance of Information
Systems in the Technology and Research Unit and in the Office of Science
Production Extension of Universities
Milad Forouzan1, Mohammad Molani Aghdam2*
and Amir HoseinAazadnia2
1
Department of Management,Ayatollah Amoli Branch, Islamic Azad University, Amol, Iran
2Department of Industrial Engineering, Ayatollah Amoli Branch,
Islamic Azad University, Amol, Iran
*Corresponding Author Email: eustmb@gmail.com
ABSTRACT:
Today, designing according to needs and demands of customers is the most important aspect of service design. Therefore, service design needs certain plans and programs according to the needs of customer expectations in a way that the offered service has the desired properties and has equal or less price than the products of rivals. One of the most important needs of customers is their information needs about service or the process of services in the organizations under question which should be identified and fulfilled. One of the tools of designing and development of new products is to extend the qualitative performance. The present study was practical in terms of goal and descriptive type. In this study, interviews were used to collect data. Interviewees were the experts in the research and technology unit and the office of science production extension of Islamic Azad University of Ayatollah Amoli, Iran. Some managers in two other Azad universities were interviewed in order to investigate the rivals in the mentioned area.
Keywords: Extension of qualitative performance, Information systems, Azad University.
INTRODUCTION
The technological and scientific rapid evolutions have affected human life in the twentieth century and organizations are surviving in an environment with constant changes. Every organization is struggling to survive in a way or another. The speed of these changes so much that has caused new needs such as social, economic, cultural life level to emerge. In this regard, customers and clients as the reason of existing organizations to survive are of particular importance and their satisfaction is one of the most important and efficient policies to guarantee the survival of organizations. Today, the organizations can be successful in competitions which surpass their
and management techniques that have provided the possibility of balance between productive, service and marketing and sales sectors is Quality Function deployment (QFD).
Information needs
The definitions of information needs refer to the needs that should be provided from information service or the information resources and materials. It is supposed that using the information means satisfying the information needs because the information needs are in users’ minds and cannot be seen directly and can only be inferred by observing the used information items or answering questions. In investigating the information needs, the researcher tries to identify the needed issues. Wilson, firstly, refers to the concept of information in the research studies of users in order to define the concept of information need: 1) Information as a physical entity or phenomenon 2) Information as a channel of communication through which data is transferred 3) Information as objective data in a document that deserves judgment whether orally and as data with transferred goal or as a belief or recommendation. Lancaster wrote about informational needs: information needs is about the needs for a wide range of users and the creative thought incorporates a wide area of problem solving to individual, sensory and emotional problems. Every problems needs to be solved and the first step is to collect information resources all or part of which is available through library resources and materials.
Quality function deployment (QFD)
As soon as the customers’ needs are identified and specified in the product design process using quality function deployment, actions to consider to their demands. In this process the mental demands of customers are turned into technical and engineering specifications in organizations (Jacobs, 2001). Quality function deployment tries to provide grounds forvalue added of products for customers from the first stages of the formation of the concept of product in the mind of customers with regard to their demands in all stages of
product development. This process involves identifying and specifying the best values for components, different parts, materials and specifications of production processes (Rezaei, 2001). Unique QFD specifications and the advantages of using them at the level of organizations are as follows:
Reducing time of product development process by 30 to 50 percent
Reducingnumber of change in engineering plans by 25 to 50percent
Reducingexpenses of introduction of products to the market
Increasing the satisfaction level of customers by fulfilling the demands and needs
Improving properties of production
Creating an appropriate information bank to create a common language for the future users of organizations
companies to have their abilities and capacities in the production of optimum product weighed against customer needs.
Quality House
Because of the similarities between the shape of the quality house and to a house (the triangular house), Akao called it a quality house (Akao& Mazur, 2003). The main goal of quality house is to translate the customer needs into engineering features and assigning goal quantities to products (Van de Poel, 2007). Clausing defines HOQ as a specified matrix that creates a conceptual plan for product design process (Clausing, 1994). As a result, HOQ is a structure to collect and understand CRs and also prioritizing DRs. Cooperation among marketing, engineering and construction parts leads to the success of new or optimum products and more interest of companies.
The main stages of HOQ can be explained as follows (Griffin and Hauser, 1993):
1)Collecting CRs
2) Specifying the degree of importance of CRs 3) Specifying the degree of importance of competitive products by customers
4) Specifying DRs
5) Specifying communications matrix 6) Specifying correlations matrix
7) Calculating importance/ prioritizing DRs 8) Specifying the quantities engineering goal quantities for DRs
Fiqure 1. Quality House in quality function deployment (Feigenbaum, 1991).
A survey of objective literature of quality function deployment and information needs
If producers and service providers want to improve their competition in the very complex and variable markets, they should have great skills to fulfill the demands of customers. Such skills require that main production abilities be raised from the market (Tan & Shen, 2000).
Quality function deployment as one of the modern quality engineering methods provides the possibility of realization of these demands. This tool was introduced in 1972 and since then, many researchers have put many efforts in the improvement, compounding with other tools and their application in different service and productive organizations. Some of these efforts were explained in the previous section.
The constant growth of companies happens in a time that they focus on the abilities of constant and appropriate construction and production of organizations in product design. Achieving the mentioned goal, heavily depends on decision-makings in the product design (the early life cycle of products).
In fact, choosing the appropriate product design process is always the first step in the success of the organizations. QFD is one of the appropriate methods in the product design process that has great impact on the success of companies in the development and design of products. Moubachir and Bouamipresented a different approach based on morphological analysis and graph theory for the development of a new systematical approach in order to transfer between QFD plans.
Their approach was simulated by Python programming software. Less complexity and easiness of use and presentation were the main advantages of the presented approach (Moubachir&Bouami, 2015).
Cumus designed the structure of a portal using QFD method in an article. QFD is used to evaluate the needs of beneficiaries in systematic design phase. They were after a process of product development process by QFD to make sure of the systematic innovation which re-identifies the beneficiaries and fulfills their needs by design structures after the extraction.The designed portal was implemented in a programming company of innovation management system (Çubukcu&Gümüs, 2015).
Offering online opinions provides useful information about the customer needs for product designers. Nevertheless, the more the opinions increase, the harder it gets to summarize them. It is expected that online opinions be translated for the designers when new products are being set up. Jin et al translated the customer needs by manual online investigation into technical specifications in an exploratory study. Through that study interesting phenomena were specified that incorporated a one-to-one mapping of keywords in the online opinions to DRs that do not always exist. Reading the whole collection of online investigations and specifying DRs is time-consuming and for that reason they offered automatic analysis for the translation of the online opinions of customers to DRs. As well as the analysis of interesting phenomena the language probabilities analysis approach was presented. As a result, integrated impact learning algorithm was formed to facilitate the translation of customer needs (expressed in online opinions) into product design in QFD and specifying effective and efficient DRs.They presented their algorithm by a numerical example to show its application by designers in QFD (Jin et al., 2015).
Way map technology is an approach that is used to develop newfound technologies in order to fulfill the business goals and is one of the most common tools supports the technology innovation process. Jin et al., presented a method to create technology-oriented way maps in order to find new business opportunities. This framework was created in order to identify profitable markets and
promising product concepts based on technology information. They applied two QFD matrixes in order to prepare way map technology to find business opportunities.
The registered invention in the solar lighting devices was considered as a case study to indicate the performance of that approach and the offered method was used in prevent environmental pollution and reduce fuel expenses (Jin et al., 2015). Research and development planning for the newfound technologies that reflect the future needs of customers play basic roles in the national economy. Ju and Sohn offered a hierarchical QFD framework in a study of theirs that is able to codify the priorities of research and development and then, develop the related business models to fulfill the future societal needs. The offered QFD framework consisted of a hierarchical structure with three quality houses based on the invention register and the beliefs of experts and the general public analysis. In their model, futuristic technology was specified according to the results of quality house and convergence of recurrence correlation analysis.
They used the offered framework for robotic technology in Korea and noticed that position sensors are very important after distance sensor and engine thrust sensor for research and development in that area. They also suggested business models for cleaner, entertainer and pet robots using reverse QFD (Ju&Sohn, 2015). Quality house as one of the components of QFD main method is effective in modifying the goals, summarizing the main data, presenting the voice of customers and extracting strategic opportunities. Pelsmaeker et al, offered the equipment and restrictions of the quality house to improve food products based on customer preferences, processing parameters and sensory properties.
fuzzy sets while completing programming matrix to enter the information chain in quality house and to establish good relationship between parts. The appropriate and accurate application of quality house enables companies to produce goods with high customer preferences and high success (Pelsmaeker et al,. 2015).
Strategy is a comprehensive actin plan to specify the main approach of organizations and providers of appropriate methods for the allocation of resources to achieve long-term goals of organizations. Environmental changes, competition and the customer attitudes have convinced the managers to have a strategic program. SOWT analysis is a useful method to analyze strengths and weaknesses inside organizations and opportunities and threats outside of them.
While this method is very practical, there are defects in its use. For example, there are not tools in it to specify the importance of factors they are specified by the preferences of individuals more. Mohamadpur and Alem Tabriz calculated the weight of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in a study using fuzzy QFD and specified the appropriate strategies for organizations using quality house.
Since customer needs are important for strategy programmers the relationship between CRs and the relationships of the roof of the quality house were calculated numerically and they had impact on internal and external factors of organizations. PetrokaranCompany was considered as a case study and the offered approach was implemented for it (Mohammad Pur&Alem Tabriz,2012). Bashiri did a research with the title of investigating the information needs of the faculty members of the agricultural organization of instruction and research in Iran.
The findings of that study indicated that the most important factors and motives were usinginformation and study and research after which came carrying out research projects
updating information. Among all the information that was used, the information of whole texts, article abstracts and statistical information had the most use and in the area of language, English was the most used language. In total, the most important information resources that were used in terms of the form were respectively as follows: professional magazines, internet, books, reports of research plans, dissertations, data bases, documents, catalogues and brochures, invention registration licenses, newspapers and finally audiovisual materials (Bashiri, 2007).
Asadi (2005) did a research with the title of investigating the impact of internet on the behavior of the faculty members of Tehran University, Iran. The results indicated that there was a significant relationship between different departments in terms of abilities in the use of internet. In other words, those faculty members who have more abilities in using internet indicated more tendencies to use it (Asadi, 2005).
METHODOLOGY
The present study was practical in terms of goal and of descriptive type. In this study, interviews were used to collect data. Interviewees were the experts in the research and technology unit and the office of the extension of science production of Islamic Azad University of Ayatollah Amoli, Iran. Some managers in two other Azad universities were interviewed in order to investigate the rivals in the mentioned area.
The proposed approach
Figure 2. Steps of implementing proposed approach
First step: investigating the activities related to research department and extraction of the activities related to M.A. students
In this step the research department was investigated. All the sections under research department whose activities are related to M.A. students were listed. Afterwards, all the sections were approached to interview the managers and to extract the procedure.
Second step: Specifying the information needs of M.A. students related to the activities of research department
After extracting all the activities that were related to M.A. students in the research department, information needs of students (SIRi) were specified in all the processes as i= 1, 2, …, n. For example, in libraries, all the steps for membership should be passed to use the books. Then, the students should have information about the location of the library in the university and how to join it. It can be said that knowing about the library and about the membership requirements are information needs of students in the section of library that are identified in this step.
Third step: specifying the technical specifications related to needs (the method to answer information needs)
In the second step the information needs of students in the research area were specified. In the third step al the technical specifications related to information needs (DIRj) should be specified as j= 1, 2, …, m. This action is done by experts (the managers of different sections). If you consider the example of the library in the second step, the university map (in general or detailed) or the library address in the website of the university can be referred to as the technical specifications related to the need of the location of the library. In fact, the needs can be answered by technical specifications.
In this step the matrix of quality house can be created with regard to the needs and specified technical specifications in the second and third steps. All the information needs in the left lines of the matrix and technical specifications related to information needs in the columns of matrix are placed in tables 1 to 3.
Table 1. Quality house matrix for the information needs of students and related technical specifications
DIRm
… DIR2
DIR1
1m
…
12 11
SIR1
2m
…
22 21
SIR2
… …
… …
…
nm
…
n2 n1
SIRn
Afterwards, the relationship between each need and technical specifications(ij) were specified and the most relationship point was assigned to 9, the average to 5 and the least to 3 and no relationship to zero.
Fifth Step: Grading the technical specifications related to needs
Regarding the relationships between the needs and technical specifications, the final weight of each technical specification is calculated using the formula as follows:
1
1, 2,...,
n ij i
j
m
Sixth step: Investigating the rivals in terms of information needs
In this step some other universities in the area of the fulfillment of information needs of M.A. students in the research and technology department are investigated to inquire what tools or methods other universities use to fulfill the information needs. The used methods in the rival universities are investigated and compared with the university under investigation.
Seventh step: Offering appropriate solutions to solve the information needs of students in research departments
After investigating the methods present in other universities and the university under investigation, in this step, new solutions are offered to fulfill the information needs of students in the area of research and technology.
Implementation of the proposed model
The first and the second step of the proposed model
Regarding the offered steps in the section of research method, the activities related to the research and technology unit and the office of the extension of science production and the activities related to M.A. students should be extracted for the proposed approach in the first step. In the second step, the information needs of M.A. students are listed according to the process of procedures in each section.
Research and technology unit
In each college unit, there is a section called the research and technology unit. This section provides services for the students in the area of graduation (dissertation) and communication with industry. The procedure process in the area of dissertation is as follows:
Taking the course of dissertation
Choosing a supervisor and an advisor professor
Completing the zero form (statement of the problem)
Completing the proposal form
The steps after completing the research and composition of the dissertation
Preparations to defend the dissertation
The defense session and the next steps
In the second step, information needs of M.A. students in according to the process of procedures in the research and technology unit has been listed in table 1.
Table 1. Information needs of M.A. Students in the area of dissertation
Statement of the need
Variable
Information about the time of taking the dissertation course SIR1
Information about the prerequisites of taking the dissertation course SIR2
Information about the professors who can conduct or supervise a dissertation SIR3
Information about the specialty of the professors
SIR4
Information about the number of referees according to the advisors and supervisors
SIR5
Information about the forms related to dissertation and how to access them SIR6
Information about completing the zero form
SIR7
Information about submission of the zero form to the office of research and technology of the university
SIR8
How to know about the result of the investigation of the zero form
SIR9
Information about the required actions about in case of confirmation or rejection of the zero form
SIR10
Information about how to complete the proposal
SIR11
Information about submitting the proposal to the office of research and technology
SIR12
Information about the steps through which the proposals are confirmed
SIR13
How to know about the results of the investigation of the proposal
SIR14
Information about the required actions about in case of confirmation or rejection of the proposal SIR15
Information about the legal time of the defense of the dissertation SIR16
Information about how to renew the dissertation and concerning rules SIR17
Information about how to use laboratories and workshops to be used if needed during the research SIR18
How to obtain introduction letters to approach organizations if needed during the research SIR19
Information about form 16 about the composition method of the dissertation SIR20
Information about form 5 about completing the report of progress
SIR21
Information about the steps after research and composition of the dissertation SIR22
Information about how to complete form 6 (license for holding the defense session)
SIR23
Information about completing form 7 to get the confirmation of the department of education, finance and welfare fund to hold the defense session
SIR24
Information about to obtain the confirmation of laboratories and libraries by form 8 SIR25
Information about specifying the referee
SIR26
Information about the results of the first investigation of the referee or the referees of form 9
SIR27
Information about the accurate time of holding the defense session
SIR28
Information about how to complete form 11 with the title of M.A. dissertation abstracts SIR29
Information about how to inform about the defense session by completing form 12 SIR30
Information about how to relinquish the paper score by completing form 13
SIR31
Information about how to specify the paper score by completing form 13
SIR32
Information about the problems and defects concerning the dissertation in the defense session SIR33
Information about how to obtain license of binding by form 17
SIR34
Information about how to complete form 18 with the title of submission of authenticity of the dissertation SIR35
Information about how to complete form 19 with the title of submission of the versions of the dissertations SIR36
Information about how to complete form 20 to complete personal information and the dissertation SIR37
Information about how to complete form 21 to complete personal information and the dissertation in English SIR38
Information about how to complete form 22 with the title of information of M.A. dissertations and PhD theses bank
The office of the extension of science production
The office of the extension of science production was formed with regard to the necessity of conduct and organization of the output of the researches (including inventions and discoveries, scientific papers, books and scientific magazines) in 2004 and was promoted to a “center” as the “center of extension of science and science survey.” This center has for bureaus for the time being:
Bureau of evaluation and encouragement of scientific papers
Bureau of publishing and library affaires
Bureau of the scientific magazines of the university
Bureau of electronic resources
In the second step, the information needs of students have been listed according to the process of procedures in the office of the extension of science production, as follows:
Table 2. Information needs of M.A. students in the extension of science production sectio
Statement of the need
Variable
Information about the existence of the office of the extension of science production
SIR1
Information about the duties of the office of the extension of science production
SIR2
Students’ information about the acknowledgement of the papers
SIR3
Information about the method of encouragement letter of the scientific papers of Islamic Azad University SIR4
Information about the deadline of submitting the papers and obtaining points after defending the dissertation SIR5
Information about rules and regulations of editing of the papers before sending them to magazines
SIR6
Information about how to complete the form of demanding the encouragement of scientific papers of Islamic Azad University and presenting the needed documents to the university
SIR7
The third step of the proposed model
In this step, the technical specifications related to the specified needs are identified. Regarding the fact that all the specified needs were information needs, thus, the technical specifications should have been items in connection with notification method.
Table 3. Technical specifications related to the information needs of M.A. Students
DIR7
DIR6
DIR5
DIR4
DIR3
DIR2
DIR1
Mobile Applications
Banners and Stands
Justification classes
Responsive unit
Brochures
Magazines
Websites
. The fourth and the fifth step of the proposed model
In this step the formation of quality house was discussed using the information needs and the extracted specifications in the previous steps. The quality house is presented in Table 4.
Table 4. Quality house of the information needs of M.A, students
DIR7
… DIR2
DIR1
SIR1
SIR2
…
SIR91
Regarding the fact that all the technical specifications can be used simultaneously to answer the information needs, it can be said that the importance of each technical specification is equal. But if the university unit wants to make a limited investment in that area, they can be graded in terms of the amount of investment and their impacts.
The Sixth step of the proposed model
information needs. Islamic Azad University of Ayatollah Amoli was in better condition in relation to its two rivals (Islamic Azad University of Noor and Babol), but not every information need was fulfilled.
The seventh step to proposed model
Before offering solutions in this section, a general suggestion was madein line with the research to solve the information needs of the students about the recognition of the university and the services of that unit. This initial recognition can be started at the time of distributing the educational package or notification (including catalogues, CDs, phone numbers, university maps) when the students enroll and be continued and implemented during the academic life of the students as planned to improve or uproot the gaps in the area of information needs. As it was suggested above, the university departments which the students need to approach frequently while studying, firstly need be introduced and then stated comprehensively. One of the ways to answer the needs of these students is to provide a package (as it was suggested above). These needs can also be answered by instructional classes and question and answer sessions with the officials during the academic years. The university can benefit from social networks beside other suggested options. Of course, it should be noted that social networks need to be updated frequently during the academic year and their mere existence does not guarantee responsiveness or effectiveness. Notifying banners and posters can be used all over the universities and also in the buses (it should be noted that choosing the right place for them is of great importance). Another suggestion is to use phone experts in that department, but regarding the probable limitations of human resources, the other options are in better and more effective position in relation to the last one.
CONCLUSION
In this research, the suggestive approaches of the technology and research and the office of the extension of science production were expressed
and then, the information needs of students in them were extracted and the technical specifications were expressed by experts and quality house was drawn. Since all the technical specifications can be used simultaneously to answer the information needs, it can be said that the importance of each technical specification is equal to others. But if the university unit wants to make a limited investment in that area, they can be graded in terms of the amount of investment and their impacts and the information needs can be answered that way.
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