Product Life

Since the industrial revolution started new products have been appearing at an ever increasing pace. The complexity of the products has increased significantly to meet the ever increasing needs and expectations of consumers. Products degrade with age and/or usage and fail when they are unable to carry out their normal functions. Reliability theory deals with various issues such as the understanding of the degradation mechanism, the design of reliable products and the operation of unreliable products.

Consumers need assurance that the product will perform satisfactorily over the useful life of the product. In addition, the legislations are getting more stringent to protect consumer interests. Manufacturer have responded to these challenges by offering warranties and extended warranties. A warranty is a legal contract which requires the manufacturer to either rectify or compensate for all failures occurring within the warranty period. There are many different aspects to warranty and these have been studied by researchers from many different disciplines.

Offering a warranty results in additional costs (referred to as warranty servicing costs or simply warranty costs) to the manufacturer as all failures under warranty need to be either rectified or compensated by the manufacturer. The warranty costs depend on the reliability performance of the product. This in turn depends on several factors some under the control of the manufacturer (such as the decisions made during the design and development of the product) and others under the control of the consumer (such as the usage intensity, operating environment and maintenance). The warranty servicing costs vary from 2-10% of the sale price depending on the product and the manufacturer. As a result, warranty and product reliability are very important in the context of new product development.

Both warranty and reliability have received a lot of attention over the last fifty years. This paper gives a brief overview of both reliability and warranty and discusses some new issues and the challenges for future research. The outline of the paper is as follows. Section Product Reliability: An Overview deals with an overview of product reliability and Section Warranty: An Overview with warranty. In each section we highlight the important issues and give a historical perspective. Section New Issues and Challenges: Topics for Future Research deals with some issues and challenges as part of future research into reliability and warranty. We conclude with some comments in Conclusions Section.

PRODUCT RELIABILITY: AN OVERVIEW
Reliability of a product conveys the concept of dependability, successful operation or performance and the absence of failures. It is an external property of great interest to both manufacturer and consumer. Unreliability (or lack of reliability) conveys the opposite.

A more technical definition is the following:
The reliability of a product (system) is the probability that the product (system) will perform its intended function for a specified time period when operating under normal (or stated) environmental conditions. (BLISCHKE; MURTHY, 2000)


The reliability of a product gets determined by the decisions made during the pre-production stages (Front-end, Design, Development) and the production stage of the product life cycle. Murthy et al. (2007a - c) deal with reliability decision making during the Front-end (or Feasibility) and the Design and Development stages of new product development.
Reliability: different notions


The design reliability depends on reliability specification at the component level. The reliability of the produced item can differ from the design reliability due to assembly errors and component non-conformance. The reliability of produced items is the "inherent" reliability of the product. The product needs to be transported to the market, and often stored for some time, before it is sold. The reliability at sale for a unit depends on the mechanical load (resulting from vibrations during transport), the impact load (resulting from mishandling), the duration of storage and the storage environment (such as temperature, humidity etc). As a result, the reliability at sale can differ from the inherent reliability. Once an item is sold, it can be either stored for an additional time (if the unit is used as a spare) or put into operation immediately.

The reliability performance of a unit in field depends on the length and environment of storage and on several other operational factors such as the usage intensity (which determines the load - electrical, mechanical, thermal, chemical - on the unit), usage mode (whether used continuously or intermittently) and operating environment (such as temperature, humidity, vibration, pollution etc) and in some instance on the human operator.

The reliability performance in operation is often referred to as "field reliability". Figure 1 (from MURTHY et al., 2007d) shows how these different reliability notions are sequentially linked and the factors that affect them.



Reliability theory
Reliability theory deals with the interdisciplinary use of probability, statistics and stochastic modelling, combined with engineering insights into the design and the scientific understanding of the failure mechanisms, to study the various aspects of reliability. As such, it encompasses the following topics1.

Reliability modelling: Reliability modelling deals with model building to obtain solutions to problems in predicting, estimating and optimising the survival or performance of an unreliable system, the impact of the unreliability, and actions to mitigate this impact.


Reliability analysis: Reliability analysis can be divided into two broad categories: (i) Qualitative and (ii) Quantitative. The former is intended to verify the various failure modes and causes that contribute to the unreliability of a product or system. The latter uses real failure data in conjunction with suitable mathematical models to produce quantitative estimates of product or system reliability.


Reliability engineering: Reliability engineering deals with the design and construction of systems and products, taking into account the unreliability of its parts and components. It also includes testing and programs to improve reliability. Good engineering results in a more reliable end product.


Reliability science: Reliability science is concerned with the properties of materials and the causes for deterioration leading to part and component failures. It also deals with the effect of manufacturing processes (e.g. casting, annealing) on the reliability of the part or component produced.


Reliability management: Reliability management deals with the various management issues in the context of managing the design, manufacture and/or operation of reliable products and systems. Here the emphasis is on the business viewpoint, as unreliability has consequences in cost, time wasted, and, in certain cases, the welfare of an individual or even the security of a nation.


Historical perspective
Prior to World War II, the notion of reliability was largely intuitive, subjective and qualitative. The use of actuarial methods (involving statistical techniques) to estimate survivorship of railroad equipment began in the early part of the twentieth century (NELSON, 1982, p. 2). In the late 1930's, extreme value theory was used to model fatigue life of materials and was the forerunner to later probabilistic developments.


A more quantitative (or mathematical) and formal approach to reliability grew out of the demands of modern technology and particularly out of the experiences in the second world war with complex military systems (BARLOW; PROSCHAN, 1965, p.1). Since the appearance of this classic book, the theory of reliability has grown at a very rapid rate, as can be seen by the large number of books2 and jounals3 that have appeared on the subject.


Barlow (1984) deals with a historical perspective of mathematical reliability theory up to that time. Similar perspectives on reliability engineering in electronic equipment can be found in Coppola (1984); on space reliability technology in Cohen (1984); on nuclear power system reliability in Fussel (1984) and on software reliability in Shooman (1984).

WARRANTY: AN OVERVIEW
A warranty is a manufacturer's assurance to a buyer that a product or service is or shall be as represented. It may be considered to be a contractual agreement between buyer and manufacturer (or seller) which is entered into upon sale of the product or service. A warranty may be implicit or it may be explicitly stated.
Warranty classification
There are many different types warranty policies and a classification of these can be found in Blischke and Murthy (1994 and 1996). They can be divided into different categories as indicated below.
Involving reliability improvement or not
Single item or group of items (cumulative warranty)
One-dimensional (limit on age) or two-dimensional (limits on age and usage)
Renewing or non-renewing
Base or extended
Base warranties
Base warranty is integral to the sale and is factored into the sale price. Most standard products are sold with one of the following two warranty policies.
1-D Free Replacement Warranty (FRW) policy
The manufacturer agrees to repair or provide replacements for failed items free of charge up to a time W (the warranty period) from the time of the initial purchase. The warranty expires at time W after purchase.
1-D Pro-Rata Rebate Warranty (PRW) policy
The manufacturer agrees to refund a fraction of the purchase price should the item fail before time W (the warranty period) from the time of the initial purchase. The buyer is not constrained to buy a replacement item. The refund depends on the age of the item at failure (X) and it can be either linear or a non-linear function of (W - X), the remaining time in the warranty period and the sale price.
2-D Free Replacement Warranty (FRW) policy
The manufacturer agrees to repair or provide a replacement for failed items free of charge up to a time W or up to a usage U, whichever occurs first, from the time of the initial purchase. W is called the warranty period and U the usage limit. The warranty region is a rectangle in a 2-dimensional plane with age along one axis and usage along the other axis.
Cumulative warranties
Cumulative warranties are for items are sold as a single lot of n items and the warranty refers to the lot as a whole. The policies are conceptually straightforward extensions of the non-renewing free replacement and pro-rata warranties discussed previously. Let Xi denote the service life of item i, i = 1, 2, ... and Sn Xi.
Cumulative FRW policy (GUIN, 1984)
A lot of n items is warranted for a total (aggregate) period of nW. The n items in the lot are used one at a time. If Sn < href="http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-65132007000300003&lng=enptpt&nrm=iso#fig02">Figure 2 is simplified characterisation for determining the warranty cost per unit. Blischke and Murthy (1994) discuss the expected warranty costs for a wide variety of warranty policies.



The warranty cost as a fraction of the sale price can vary from 1 - 10% depending on the product and the manufacturer. The total warranty costs for General Motors and Ford were over 4 billion dollars each for 2006. Through proper servicing logistics, these costs can be reduced. Murthy et al (2004) deals with warranty logistics. One particular issue is the choice between repair versus replace for a failed item under warranty. Murthy and Jack (2007a) deal with this topic.
Extended warranties are similar to outsourcing of maintenance and this topic is examined in Murthy and Jack (2007b).
Issues in warranty
Because of the diversity of purpose and application, product warranty has received the attention of researchers from many diverse disciplines4. As a result, warranty issues have been considered from the following different perspectives
Historical: origin and use of the notion
Legal: court action, dispute resolution, product liability
Legislative: Magnusson-Moss Act; Federal Trade Commission, Warranty requirements in government acquisition (particularly military) and TREAD Act in the USA and the latest EU legislation
Economic: market equilibrium, social welfare
Behavioral: buyer reaction, influence on purchase decision, perceived role of warranty, claims behavior
Consumerist: product information, consumer protection
Engineering: design, manufacturing, quality control, testing
Statistics: data acquisition and analysis, data-based reliability analysis
Operations Research: cost modeling, optimization
Accounting: tracking of costs, time of accrual
Marketing: assessment of consumer attitudes, assessment of the marketplace, use of warranty as a marketing tool, warranty and sales
Management: integration of many of the previous items, determination of warranty policy, warranty servicing decisions
Societal: public policy issues
As a consequence, the literature on warranty is very large. Blischke and Murthy (1996) deal with these issues in detail. Administration of warranties in the context of government acquisition is discussed in Brenan (1994) and Murthy and Blischke (2005) deal with warranty management in the context of new product development.
Historical perspective
The origin of the word warranty is interesting. In a study of the origin and history of the concept, Loomba (1996) states:
"The words warranty and guarantee, known to linguists as "doublets," are derived from same original source but traveling to today's English language by different routes. The origins of the word warranty can be traced back to the Old North French word warant and warantie, to the Old High German word werento meaning "protector". During the Middle Ages, the original expressions used included hoc ex condicione, warrantizavit, promisit, and sub tali plevina."
The earliest record of warranty can be found in the Babylonian and Assyrian tablets of the twenty-first century B.C. Since then it has evolved over time and in many different societies. Some of the key milestones in this evolution were:
i. Roman laws of the fifth century B.C.,
ii. Bavarian laws at the start of the Christian era,
iii. Jewish commercial laws of the second century A.D.,
iv. Hindu religious laws of the fifth century,
v. Islamic laws of the eighth century,
vi. Egyptian formularies of a slightly later period,
vii. Scattered Russian codes of the early tenth century, and
viii. The customs of the church rule of medieval times and customs of the English borough.
The start of the Industrial Revolution in the sixteenth century brought a major change to manufacturing. Components were produced by different businesses and often no single entity was responsible for the product as a whole. Until the first half of the nineteenth century, caveat emptor was the rule and sellers rarely offered any sort of formal warranty on their goods. In the late nineteenth century, warranties were treated as standardized contracts with extremely limited scope5.
During the twentieth century, consumer movements have had an impact on warranty. There have been three consumer movements and these are discussed in Blischke and Murthy (1996). The third consumer movement began after the end of World War II and gained momentum in the 1960s. Because of growing concerns for buyers' protection, the notion of express warranty was augmented by another concept, "implied warranty," which basically states that a product must be capable of performing its intended function when used properly and under normal operating conditions. By 1952, every state in the United States except Louisiana adopted what is termed the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). Several forms of legislation have been enacted during the past few decades to regulate warranties on various products, the most notable such legislation being the Magnuson-Moss Warranty-Federal Trade Commission Improvement Act of 1975 and the TREAD Act of 19996.

NEW ISSUES AND CHALLENGES: TOPICS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
A framework to study warranty and reliability is given in Figure 3 (from MURTHY; BLISCHKE, 2005). Some of the new issues are the following:



Outsourcing of design: Here the some component designs are outsourced. If items are not designed properly, it can result in high warranty claims and significantly impact the bottom line of the manufacturer.
Outsourcing of component manufacture: The warranty costs to the manufacturer of the product can increase significantly if the fraction on nonconforming components is high. There is a trend towards the manufacturer passing on these costs to the component suppliers.
Warranty servicing: Here the warranty servicing is carried out by an independent agent under a contract. Poor servicing affects customer satisfaction and in turn, the reputation of the product and the manufacturer. Also, there are potential problems of over-servicing, fraudulent claims etc.
Flexible (base and extended) warranties: This is to meet the varying usage and risk profiles of consumers.
We now briefly discuss some potential topics for future research.
Warranty servicing and game theory
Murthy and Ashgharizadeh (1999) deal with maintenance outsourcing as a Stackelberg game formulation. Here the service agent (providing the maintenance) is the leader and the owner of the product (and customer for the maintenance service) is the follower. The service agent provides a set of service options Ai(qi), 1 < href="http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-65132007000300003&lng=enptpt&nrm=iso#fig04" name="fig04">


As mentioned earlier, extended warranties are closely related to maintenance out-souring. The study of warranty servicing from a game theoretic viewpoint is an interesting topic for future research.
Warranty management and agency theory
The framework in Figure 3 indicates three cases involving two parties - manufacturer and an external party. These are: (i) External design houses, (ii) external component suppliers and, (iii) independent warranty service agents. The manufacturer delegates tasks to an external party and the goals (or objectives) of the two are different.
Agency theory deals with the relationship that exists between two parties (a principal and an agent) where the principal delegates work to the agent who performs that work and a contract defines the relationship. Agency theory is concerned with resolving two problems that can occur in agency relationships.
The first problem arises when the two parties have conflicting goals and it is difficult or expensive for the principal to verify the actual actions of the agent and whether the agent has behaved properly or not. The second problem involves the risk sharing that takes place when the principal and agent have different attitudes to risk (due to various uncertainties).
According to Eisenhardt (1989), the focus of the Agency theory is on determining the optimal contract, behaviour versus outcome, between the principal and the agent. Agency theory has also been applied in many different disciplines. For an overview, see Acekere (1993). The different issues involved are indicated in Figure 5 and discussed briefly.



Moral hazard: Moral hazard refers to lack of effort (or shirking) on the part of the agent. The agent does not put in the agreed-upon effort because the objectives of the two parties are different and the principal cannot assess the level of effort that the agent has actually used.
Adverse selection: Adverse selection refers to any misrepresentation of ability by the agent and the principal is unable to completely verify this before deciding to hire the agent.
Information: To counteract adverse selection, the principal can invest in getting information about the agent's ability. One way of getting the desired information is by contacting people for whom the agent has provided service in the past.
Monitoring: The principal can counteract the moral hazard problem by monitoring the actions of the agent. Monitoring provides information about the agent's actual actions.
Information asymmetry: There are several uncertainties that affect the overall outcome of the relationship. The two parties, in general, will have different information to make an assessment of these uncertainties and will also differ in terms of other information.
Risk: This results from the different uncertainties that affect the outcome of the relationship. The risk attitude of the two parties, in general, will differ for a variety of reasons. A problem arises when this disagreement is over the allocation of risk between the two parties.
Costs: There are various kinds of costs for both parties. Some of these depend on the outcome (which is influenced by uncertainties) but also in acquiring information, monitoring and the administration of the contract. The heart of the principal-agent theory is the trade-off between (i) the cost of monitoring the actions of the agent and (ii) the cost of measuring the outcomes of the relationship and the transferring of risk to the agent.
Contract: The design of the contract that takes into account the issues discussed above is the challenge that lies at the heart of the principal-agent relationship.
The literature on Agency theory is vast. Bulk of them deal with study of various issues using static models. The study of out-sourcing of (i) design, component manufacturing and (iii) warranty servicing using Agency theory require dynamic model formulations. In addition, RIW will be important in the context of design outsourcing and cumulative warranties in the context of component outsourcing. There is lot of scope for new research in this area.
Flexible warranties
One can define several different notions of flexibility in warranties. A key issue with each notion is the pricing of the warranty. These needs to take into account the response function of consumers. A simple model for flexible warranty is proposed in Jack and Murthy (1977) and there is scope for lot more new research.
Reliability modelling and warranty cost analysis
As discussed in Section Product Reability: an overview, there are several different notions of reliability - design reliability, inherent reliability and field reliability. One needs to build models that link inherent reliability to design reliability and the affecting factors and similarly for the link between field reliability and inherent reliability. Murthy and Jiang (2007) deals with one such model formulation involving Weibull distributions.
The warranty cost analysis based on field reliability then allows one to assess the impact of these affecting factors on the warranty costs and optimal cost effective strategies to reduce this impact.
Analysis of warranty data
Warranty data (for products sold with either one- or two-dimensional warranties) provide useful information to estimate field, inherent and design reliabilities. The literature deals mainly with field reliability estimation under different scenarios (see, KARIM; SUZUKI, 2005). The extension of these to estimate inherent and design reliabilities is a potential topic for new research.


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Life expectancy of some products

the stages of a products life

The Five Stages of a Product’s Life: Saving You Money on Replacing Expensive Household Items
Author: Nick

The end is near for my five-year-old laptop computer. I built this thing myself from parts just before my last semester of college. I’ve replaced just about every part since then at least once except for the casing and screen. Unfortunately I’ve just about reached the end of the line for what upgrades and repairs can do to keep it going. The keyboard is missing several key caps (I pulled off one of the “Ctrl” keys and put it where the “E” was), the power supply jack is wiggly, the memory capacity has been maxed out at 2GB, and the hard-to-reach internal Wi-Fi died long ago. Still, the laptop is capable of performing as well as a laptop you’d pay $800 for today, but it’s only a matter of time until a major component fails or more of the casing starts to fall apart and I’ll replace it altogether. My laptop is at Stage 3: Wait and See.

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Life cycle analysis and assessment
The concept of conducting a detailed examination of the life cycle of a product or a process is a relatively recent one which emerged in response to increased environmental awareness on the part of the general public, industry and governments.
The immediate precursors of life cycle analysis and assessment (LCAs) were the global modelling studies and energy audits of the late 1960s and early 1970s. These attempted to assess the resource cost and environmental implications of different patterns of human behaviour.
LCAs were an obvious extension, and became vital to support the development of eco-labelling schemes which are operating or planned in a number of countries around the world. In order for eco-labels to be granted to chosen products, the awarding authority needs to be able to evaluate the manufacturing processes involved, the energy consumption in manufacture and use, and the amount and type of waste generated.
To accurately assess the burdens placed on the environment by the manufacture of an item, the following of a procedure or the use of a certain process, two main stages are involved. The first stage is the collection of data, and the second is the interpretation of that data.
A number of different terms have been coined to describe the processes. One of the first terms used was Life Cycle Analysis, but more recently two terms have come to largely replace that one: Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). These better reflect the different stages of the process. Other terms such as Cradle to Grave Analysis, Eco-balancing, and Material Flow Analysis are also used.
Whichever name is used to describe it, LCA is a potentially powerful tool which can assist regulators to formulate environmental legislation, help manufacturers analyse their processes and improve their products, and perhaps enable consumers to make more informed choices. Like most tools, it must be correctly used, however. A tendency for LCAs to be used to 'prove' the superiority of one product over another has brought the concept into disrepute in some areas.
What is a Life Cycle Analysis?
Taking as an example the case of a manufactured product, an LCA involves making detailed measurements during the manufacture of the product, from the mining of the raw materials used in its production and distribution, through to its use, possible re-use or recycling, and its eventual disposal.
LCAs enable a manufacturer to quantify how much energy and raw materials are used, and how much solid, liquid and gaseous waste is generated, at each stage of the product's life.
Such a study would normally ignore second generation impacts, such as the energy required to fire the bricks used to build the kilns used to manufacture the raw material.
However, deciding which is the 'cradle' and which the 'grave' for such studies has been one of the points of contention in the relatively new science of LCAs, and in order for LCAs to have value there must be standardisation of methodologies, and consensus as to where to set the limits. Much of the focus worldwide to date has been on agreeing the methods and boundaries to be used when making such analyses, and it seems that agreement may have now been reached.
While carrying out an LCA is a lengthy and very detailed exercise, the data collection stage is - in theory at least - relatively uncomplicated, provided the boundary of the study has been clearly defined, the methodology is rigorously applied, and reliable, high-quality data is available. Those of course are fairly large provisos.
Interpretation
While such a record is helpful and informative, on its own it is not sufficient. Having first compiled the detailed inventory, the next stage should be to evaluate the findings.
This second stage - life cycle assessment - is more difficult, since it requires interpretation of the data, and value judgements to be made.
A Life Cycle Inventory will reveal - for example - how many kilos of pulp, how much electricity, and how many gallons of water, are involved in producing a quantity of paper. Only by then assessing those statistics can a conclusion be reached about the product's environmental impact overall. This includes the necessity to make judgements based on the assembled figures, in order to assess the likely significance of the various impacts.
Problems
It is here that many of the problems begin. Decisions, without scientific basis, such as whether three tonnes of emitted sulphur is more or less harmful than the emission of just a few pounds of a more toxic pollutant, are necessarily subjective.
How can one compare heavy energy demand with heavy water use: which imposes greater environmental burden?
How should the use of non-renewable mineral resources like oil or gas (the ingredients of plastics) be compared with the production of softwoods for paper?
How should the combined impacts of the landfilling of wastes (air and groundwater pollution, transport impacts etc) be compared with those produced by the burning of wastes for energy production (predominantly emissions to air)?
Some studies attempt to aggregate the various impacts into clearly defined categories, for example, the possible impact on the ozone layer, or the contribution to acid rain.
Others go still further and try to add the aggregated figures to arrive at a single 'score' for the product or process being evaluated. It is doubtful whether such simplification will be of general benefit.
Reliable methods for aggregating figures generated by LCA, and using them to compare the life cycle impacts of different products, do not yet exist. However, a great deal of work is currently being conducted on this aspect of LCAs to arrive at a standardised method of interpreting the collected data.
Contradictions
Many LCAs have reached different and sometimes contradictory conclusions about similar products.
Comparisons are rarely easy because of the different assumptions that are used, for example in the case of food packaging, about the size and form of container, the production and distribution system used, and the forms and type of energy assumed.
To compare two items which are identically sized, identically distributed, and recycled at the same rate is relatively simple, but even that requires assumptions to be made. For example, whether deliveries were made in a 9-tonne truck, or a larger one, whether it used diesel or petrol, and ran on congested city centre roads where fuel efficiencies are lower, or on country roads or motorways where fuel efficiencies might be better.
Comparisons of products which are dissimilar in most respects can only be made by making even more judgements and assumptions.
Preserving the confidentiality of commercially-sensitive raw data without reducing the credibility of LCAs is also a major problem. Another is the understandable reluctance of companies to publish information which may indicate that their own product is somehow inferior to that of a competitor. It is not surprising that many of the studies which are published, and not simply used internally, endorse the views of their sponsors.
Recycling
Recycling introduces a further real difficulty into the calculations. In the case of materials like steel and aluminium which can technically be recycled an indefinite number of times (with some melt losses), there is no longer a 'grave'. And in the case of pa-per, which can theoretically be reprocessed four or five times before fibres are too short to have viable strength, should calculations assume that it will be recycled four times, or not? What return rates, for example, should be assumed for factory-refillable containers?
For both refillable containers and materials sent for recycling, the transport distance in each specific case is a major influence in the environmental impacts associated with the process.
An LCA which concludes that recycling of low-value renewable materials in one city is environmentally preferable may not hold good for a different, more remote city where reprocessing facilities incur large transport impacts.
LCA in waste management
LCA has begun to be used to evaluate a city or region's future waste management options. The LCA, or environmental assessment, covers the environmental and resource impacts of alternative disposal processes, as well as those other processes which are affected by disposal strategies such as different types of collection schemes for recyclables, changed transport patterns and so on.
The complexity of the task, and the number of assumptions which must be made, is shown by the simplified diagram (above) showing some of the different routes which waste might take, and some of the environmental impacts incurred along the way. Those shown are far from exhaustive.
Why perform LCAs?
LCAs might be conducted by an industry sector to enable it to identify areas where improvements can be made, in environmental terms. Alternatively the LCA may be inten-ded to provide environmental data for the public or for government. In recent years, a number of major companies have cited LCAs in their marketing and advertising, to support claims that their products are 'environmentally friendly' or even 'environmentally superior' to those of their rivals. Many of these claims have been successfully challenged by environmental groups.
All products have some impact on the environment. Since some products use more resources, cause more pollution or generate more waste than others, the aim is to identify those which are most harmful.
Even for those products whose environmental burdens are relatively low, the LCA should help to identify those stages in production processes and in use which cause or have the potential to cause pollution, and those which have a heavy material or energy demand.
Breaking down the manufacturing process into such fine detail can also be an aid to identifying the use of scarce resources, showing where a more sustainable product could be substituted.
Inconclusive
In most situations it is impossible to prove conclusively using LCAs that any one product or any one process is better in general terms than any other, since many parameters cannot be simplified to the degree necessary to reach such a conclusion.
It seems likely that, in the case of manufactured goods, the most important time for LCA information to be taken into consideration is at the design stage of new products. Where LCA is used to evaluate procedures rather than products, the information can help ensure appropriate choices are made.
Tool
Life Cycle Analysis must be used cautiously, and in the interpretation of the inventory, care must be taken with subjective judgements.
When first conceived, it was predicted that LCA would enable definitive judgements to be made. That misplaced belief has now been discredited. In combination with the trend towards more open disclosure of environmental information by companies, and the desire by consumers to be guided towards the least harmful purchases, the LCA is a vital tool.
SourceWorld Resource Foundation

Return to the LCA for Cities pageContact: Hari Srinivas - hsrinivas@gdrc.org

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FREE download

HACCP 9000 and HACCP
ISO 9001
ISO 9001:2000
ISO 14001
ISO/TS 16949
OHSAS 18001
QS 9000
RC14001

ISO 9001:2000: the requirements for quality management systems. For use by any organization, of any size, service-based or manufacturing-based or other for systems managing quality. Part of the ISO 9000 Series of standards: ISO 9000:2000 contains fundamentals and vocabulary and ISO 9004:2000 contains guidelines for performance improvements (often representing future requirements).

ISO 14001:1996: the requirements for environmental management systems. For use by any organization, of any size, service-based or manufacturing-based or other for systems managing environmental performance. Part of the ISO 14000 Series of standards: ISO 14004:1996 contains guidelines on principles, systems and supporting techniques.

ISO/TS 16949:2002: technical specification, particular requirements for the application of ISO 9001:2000 for automotive production and relevant service part organizations. For use throughout the automotive supply chain, the American and European automobile manufacturers endorse this standard.

ISO/IEC 17799:2000: code of practice for information security management. Not yet system requirements, this standard is related to the British Standard BS 7799-2:2002: information security management systems – specifications with guidance for use.

ISO/IEC 17025:1999: general requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories.

ISO 13485:2003: For regulatory purposes - quality management system requirements relating to medical devices.

OHSAS 18001:1999: specification for occupational health and safety management systems. No international standard for the requirements of an OH&SMS yet published, but expect it in the next few years.

TL9000, Release 3.0: Requirements for quality management systems for companies doing business in the telecommunications industry. This standard is controlled by the QuEST Forum (Quality Excellence for Suppliers of Telecommunications) and contains cost and performance-based metrics for the system.

FREE DOWNLOAD OF SYNOPSIS OF EACH QMS
CLICK THE LINKS
lifecycleassess@yahoo.com

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Product Liability

Guaranttee
Warranty
Product life
Product Liability Insurance

Process performance indicators

Marketing Process
Annual Value of Sales Promotion expenses / Value of Enquiries received

Sales Process
Conversion Ratio = Orders received Value / Enquiries received Value
Hit Ratio = Orders received Value / Offers sent Value

Purchase Process
Annual Purchases Value / Sales Value
Incoming Process Rejection Value / Total Incoming Inwards Value
No. of Late receipt of Supplies / Total No. of Supplies received


Internal Audit Process
No. of OFI's identified / No. of audit hours


Management review Process
No. of problems resolved / No.of problems presented to CEO


Training Process
Increase in Competency index of staff and workers / No. of training man hours


Corrective Action Process
No. of NC's effectively closed / No. of NC's registered


Casting Process
Value of castings rejected / Value of castings casted


Machining Process
Value of products rejected post machining because of machining errors / Value of products machined

Assembly Process
Value of products rejected because of incorrect assembly / Total value of Assembled products

Quality Control Process
No.of customer complaints for product quality / No.of deliveries made

Production Process overall
No. of late deliveries / No. of deliveries made

Packing Process
No. of shipments made resulting in transit damage / Total No. of shipments made

Delivery Process
No. of instances of wrong delivery / Total No. of deliveries



Key performance indicators

more KPI's



Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are financial and non-financial metrics used to help an organization define and measure progress toward organizational goals[1]. KPIs are used in Business Intelligence to assess the present state of the business and to prescribe a course of action. The act of monitoring KPIs in real-time is known as business activity monitoring. KPIs are frequently used to "value" difficult to measure activities such as the benefits of leadership development, engagement, service, and satisfaction. KPIs are typically tied to an organization's strategy (as exemplified through techniques such as the Balanced Scorecard).

The KPIs differ depending on the nature of the organization and the organization's strategy. They help an organization to measure progress towards their organizational goals, especially toward difficult to quantify knowledge-based processes.

A KPI is a key part of a measurable objective, which is made up of a direction, KPI, benchmark, target and time frame. For example: "Increase Average Revenue per Customer from £10 to £15 by EOY 2008". In this case, 'Average Revenue Per Customer' is the KPI.

KPIs should not be confused with a Critical Success Factor. For the example above, a critical success factor would be something that needs to be in place to achieve that objective; for example, a product launch.

Contents
1 Identifying indicators
2 Marketing KPIs
3 KPIs for Manufacturing
4 Categorization of indicators
5 Problems
6 See also
7 References
8 External links
9 Further reading
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Presentation of KPI's for management review

Voice of the customer

Process: Voice of the customer and market data processing- data posting - Actions required

Scope: All data received from- Customer care centre- Sales and Marketing- After Sales Service- Customer satisfaction survey

Procedure:

all the above centres will post monthly updates
The recepients may comment on the accuracy and reliability of the data

At the end of the month data processing centre will convert the raw data into information and post to concerrned departments and MR

After receipt of the posting, the concerned department will report on the action taken and the expected completion date

If no action proposed, the reasons will be reported to data processing centre
Annual report will be made by data processing centre in the following format:

SL/DATE / INPUT CENTRE / INPUT DATA / COMMENTS, IF ANY / INFORMATION / CONCERNED DEPARTMENT / REASON FOR NO ACTION / ACTION TAKEN / ECD /

Now go here

you dont have to be certified

It is important that you implement, establish and continually improve your Quality Management System

any organization can adopt the QMS, even your family


Certication is just a piece of paper for advertizement purposes
and that too is no longer effective

it is no big deal getting certified
a good consultant can certify your existing QMS (even if not existent) in 21 days

the benefits of having a good QMS is huge
the 2000 version is based on the PDCA cycle of Deming

How to develop your QMS

a customer focussed QMS

How to develop your QMS if you are customer focussed

Do a customer satisfaction survey to hear the Voice of the Customer
Define the customer requirements as CTQs or specs
Identify the processes that contribute to each CTQ characteristic
Define process performance indicators for each process
Measure and monitor all the process performance indicators. Know where you stand now
Set targets for improvement for each process performance indicator

Do a RCA for each low performing process indicator
Take CA to improve the process
Measure process performance indicator again
Repeat the cycle again to improve effectiveness of processes

for profitability, efficiency of processes must be improved too

ISO/TC 176/SC 2 Current Activities

ISO/TC 176/SC2 Quality Systems held its 32nd plenary meeting in Helsinki, Finland, during 11- 15 June 2007.

The main purpose of the meeting was for Working Group 18 (WG18) to progress the development of the amendment to ISO 9001:2000 and the revision to ISO 9004:2000.

In addition, concurrent meetings of ISO/TC 176/SC1/WG1 on the ISO 9000:2005 standard and of the ISO/TC 176/WG on Interpretations were held.

The meetings were attended by delegations from 36 countries and 8 liaison members, with some 122 delegates participating.

After lengthy deliberations, it was agreed that the work on the amendment to ISO 9001:2000 had reached the point of maturity where it should advance to the Draft International Standard stage, and should not be circulated as a second Committee Draft (CD).

In contrast, the work on revising ISO 9004:2000 is proving to be a more difficult task, involving a complete re-writing of the standard to address "Managing for sustainable success – a quality management approach". Many ideas and approaches are being proposed and discussed, and it is taking a little longer to mature. As a result, it was agreed that a second CD of ISO 9004 will be issued for review and comment, and then after incorporating these comments a 3rd CD will be issued for ballot.

These pragmatic decisions were based on the progress of the work; however they have one major consequence, which is the two standards will no longer follow concurrent development paths. The next edition of ISO 9001 is expected to achieve publication around October 2008, whereas the next edition of ISO 9004 is not expected until August 2009.

The work was well supported by inputs from ISO/TC 176/SC 1/WG1 on terminology and also from ISO/TC 176/WG Interpretations who were reviewing the draft of ISO 9001 to see if we had removed the need for some of the sanctioned interpretations of the standard. ISO/TC 176/SC 2 is grateful to both of these working groups for their assistance.

In addition to the main drafting groups, WG18/TG 1.21 which is responsible for undertaking verification and validation on the drafts, and WG18/TG 1.22 for communications and product support, also met in Helsinki.

WG18/TG 1.21 reported that the two draft standards were on track from a verification viewpoint, and also how overwhelmingly positive the response to their pilot validation programme on the initial CDs of the standards had been. Over 100 companies had participated in this pilot programme, and they provided excellent feedback on the changes to the standards. The responses were collated, analysed and transmitted to the drafting groups as a key input into their work.

WG18/TG 1.22 continued its work to develop a Top Management brochure, which will include a self assessment guidance tool, to help top managers understand the quality maturity of their organizations, and to provide guidance within the ISO 9000 family of documents on improving their performance. Additionally, TG 1.22 undertook further development of its communications and product support plans to accompany the publication of the amended and revised standards. .

Helsinki was a wonderful location for the meeting, with a week of bright sunshine and high summer temperatures; although the long hours of daylight did cause some confusion. The Helsinki Fair Centre is a modern comfortable venue, and greatly facilitated our work.




Helsinki Fair Centre




Overriding all of this was the wonderful support and hospitality provided by SFS, the Finnish Standards Association, and their staff, to whom we are eternally grateful.



Sirpa Sipola, Virve Ukkonen, Anne-Mari Miikkala
(our fantastic support team)

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for updates go here

University of Regina Carmeli

University of Regina Carmeli (URC) formerly Colegio de Nuestra Señora del Carmen and Regina Carmeli College is a private, non-stock, nonprofit Catholic school owned and managed by the Augustinian Sisters of Our Lady of Consolation. Located in Malolos City, Philippines, a bustling town approximately 44 kilometers north of Manila, the University has a proud tradition of seventy (70) years of service to the people of Bulacan province. It has campuses in Catmon and Barasoain, the latter which sits beside Barasoain Church. Called the "Cradle of Democracy in the East", the church was the venue of the 1898 Malolos Congress which drafted the first Philippine Constitution, also the first democratic constitution in Asia.

Accredited by the Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities (PAASCU), the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities Commission on Accreditation (PACUCOA) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) (ISO 9001:2000 Certified), University of Regina Carmeli promotes an education committed to developing Filipino Christian nationalist graduates who are Gospel-value oriented and responsive to the needs of Philippine society. URC offers Business Management, Public Administration, Behavioral Sciences, Information Technology and Education in its Graduate degree programs. The College Department offers various courses in the fields of Medical Sciences, Computer Science and Engineering, Business Education, Liberal Arts, and Education.
Contents[hide]
1 The University Seal
2 A Brief History
2.1 1937-1945 - Humble Beginnings
2.2 1950 - 1984
2.3 1985-1995
2.4 1996 – Move Toward University Status
2.5 The Third Millennium
3 The Continuing Quest for Quality
4 Installation of New Leadership
5 References

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Pope Benedict XVI gets e-mail address

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Got a prayer or a problem for the new pope? Now you can e-mail him. Showing that Pope Benedict XVI intends to follow in the footsteps of John Paul II's multimedia ministry, the Vatican on Thursday modified its Web site so that users who click on an icon on the home page automatically activate an e-mail composer with his address.
In English, the address is benedictxvi@vatican.va. In Italian: benedettoxvi@vatican.va.
Vatican spokesmen could not immediately be reached for comment on how many messages Benedict may have received already.
John Paul, who died April 2, was the first pope to use e-mail, a medium that made its debut during his 26-year papacy. The Vatican said he received tens of thousands of messages in his final weeks as he struggled with illness.
In 2001, sitting in the Vatican's frescoed Clementine Hall, John Paul used a laptop to tap out an apology for Roman Catholic missionary abuses against indigenous peoples of the South Pacific.
The Vatican also used e-mail to notify journalists of John Paul's death.
The Holy See often issues news or documents to journalists via e-mail, and its labyrinth of obscure offices and councils are online in half a dozen languages. Even the Sistine Chapel, with its famed art collection, offers a virtual reality tour.

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Pope, Vatican website

ISO 9001: 2008 will be delayed

ISO 9001 Revision Postponed

The proposed 2008 revision to ISO 9001 has been postponed until mid 2009.
The reason seems to be that the writers couldn’t gain consensus on all the changes.
The proposed changes in the working draft involve 24 possible changes to 17 of the requirements. This is more extensive than originally proposed and has delayed elevating the working draft to the status of committee draft. The revision cannot move forward until a consensus is reached.

The disagreement revolves around some proposals that would be more suited for reference documents opposed to the actual standard.
Speaking of reference documents, the proposed changes to ISO 9004 are extensive. The revision is currently titled “Managing for Sustainability”.

Here’s a sneak peak at the Table of Contents that is currently being considered:
Contents
Foreword
Introduction0.
1 General
0.2 Relationship with ISO 90010.
3 Compatibility with other management standards0.
4 Relationship with performance excellence models
1 Scope
2 Normative references
3 Terms and definitions
4 Quality management principles
5 Management Responsibility
6 The organization's identity
6.1 General
6.2 Establishing an organization's identity
6.3 Sustaining the organization's identity
7 The organization's environment
7.1 General
7.2 The organization and its external environment
7.3 The organization and its interested parties
8 Mission, vision and strategy
8.1 General
8.2 Mission and Vision
8.3 Strategy
8.3.1 Aspects of strategy
8.3.2 Gap identification and risk management
8.4 Policies and objectives
8.5 Review of strategy
9 Structure and Communication
9.1 Structure
9.2 Communication
9.2.1 General
9.2.2 Communication effectiveness
10 Business planning
10.1 General
10.2 Identification of an organization's capability profile
10.3 Alignment to the organization’s strategy
11 Resources Management
11.1 General
11.2 Planning of resources
11.3 Resource allocation
11.4 Financial resources
11.5 Infrastructure
11.6 Work environment
11.7 Intellectual resources
11.8 Effective utilization of natural resources
12 People in the organization
13 Processes
13.1 General
13.2 Type of processes
13.3 Identification of processes in the organization
13.4 The roles and responsibilities of a process owner
13.5 Objective setting for each process
14 Measurement and analysis
14.1 Why measure and analyze
14.2 The essentials of effective measurement and objective setting
14.3 Making effective use of measurement processes
15 Continual improvement
15.1 General
15.2 Why is “process level” improvement important?
15.3 Why are timely “strategic level” review and improvement important?
15.4 Managing Improvement
15.5 Learning
15.5.1 General
15.5.2 Factors influencing learning effectiveness
15.5.3 Sources of Learning
15.6 Innovation
15.6.1 General
15.6.2 Factors influencing the effectiveness of the innovation process
15.6.3 Planning of the Innovation process
Annex A (Informative) Self-assessment tools

The content of this ISO 9004 revision doesn’t follow the standard as have the previous revisions. My initial reaction is that this could really be a reference worth using. However, only time will tell.

If the ISO 9001 revision is not issued until mid 2009 this could conceivably put the revision after that into or close to 2020.
I’ll let you know when I hear more.

Wishing you all the best,
Hal Futhey
PresidentQPA - Quality Training and Consulting
P.S. If you know of someone who may be interested in this article, please forward it on. However, please also keep in mind that most of us don't like spam.
Please be sure your recipient will be interested in getting the information.

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ISO/DIS 9001:2008: Quality management systems - Requirements (DRAFT)

Note: You cannot print or share electronic standards. The file contains a digital watermark to protect the copyright. E-Standards purchases are non-refundable. This draft document, tentatively scheduled to be published in 2008, is not yet intended for use in designing quality systems. This Draft International Standard is for reference purposes only. For the current version, please click here.
This Draft International Standard specifies requirements for a quality management system where an organization:
a) needs to demonstrate its ability to consistently provide product that meets customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements, and
b) aims to enhance customer satisfaction through the effective application of the system, including processes for continual improvement of the system and the assurance of conformity to customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements

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NOTES by NIGEL

establishing the identity and location of operations

There have been cases where the organization rented the premises for a couple of months and obtained ISO 9001 certification

Now to prevent this from happening the organization will have to show the following registrations as applicable to the organization:
1. Shops and Establishment Act
2. Factory Act
3. SMED Act
4. Companies Act

Roman Catholic Church

Organisation
Pope - Pope Benedict XVICollege of CardinalsEcumenical CouncilsEpiscopal polityLatin Rite • Eastern Catholic Churches
Background
ChristianityCatholicismOne Holy Catholic and Apostolic ChurchApostolic SuccessionVirgin birth • Death • Resurrection
Theology
Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit)History of • Roman Catholic Theology • ApologeticsDivine Grace • Salvation • SacramentsOriginal sin • Mary • Saints
Liturgy and Worship
Catholic LiturgyEucharist (Catholic Church) · Liturgy of the HoursLiturgical YearBiblical CanonRoman Rite • Alexandrian Rite • Antiochene RiteArmenian Rite • Byzantine Rite • East Syrian Rite
Catholicism Topics
Ecumenism • MonasticismPreaching • PrayerMusic • Liturgy · Symbols • Art
Catholicism Portal
The Roman Catholic Church, often referred to as the Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, representing over half of all Christians and one sixth of the world's population.[1][2] It is made up of one Western and 22 Eastern Catholic churches and divided into 2,782 jurisdictional areas around the world.[3] These Churches look to the Pope, currently Pope Benedict XVI, as their highest visible authority in matters of faith, morals, and church governance.[4][5] The Church community is composed of an ordained ministry and the laity.[6] Numerous religious communities exist within the Church and are composed of members from each of these groups.[6]
The primary mission of the Catholic Church is to spread the message of Jesus Christ, found in the four Gospels, and to administer sacraments that aid the spiritual growth of its members.[7] To further its mission, the Church operates social programs and institutions throughout the world. These include schools, universities, hospitals, missions and shelters, as well as Catholic Relief Services and Catholic Charities that help the poor, families, the elderly, and the sick.[8][9][10]
The Catholic Church asserts that, via apostolic succession, it maintains continuity with the Christian community founded by Jesus in his act of consecrating Saint Peter.[11][12] Believing itself to be preserved by the Holy Spirit from error in doctrinal matters, the Church has defined its doctrines through various ecumenical councils, following the example set by the first Apostles in the Council of Jerusalem.[13][14][15] Roman Catholic faith is summarized in the Nicene Creed and detailed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.[16] Formal Catholic worship is ordered by the liturgy, which is regulated by Church authority. The celebration of the Eucharist, one of seven Church sacraments and a key part of every Catholic Mass, is considered the center of Catholic worship.[17]
The history of the Catholic Church is virtually inseparable from the history of Western civilization. The Church has affected and shaped the lives and beliefs of Christians and non-Christians alike for almost two thousand years.[18] In the 11th century, the Eastern Church and the Roman Catholic Church split, largely over disagreements regarding Papal primacy.[19] Eastern churches which maintained or later re-established communion with Rome now form the Eastern Catholic Churches. In the 16th century, partly in response to the Protestant Reformation, the Church engaged in a substantial process of reform and renewal, known as the Counter-Reformation.[20] Although the Catholic Church believes that it is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ, the church acknowledges that the Holy Spirit can make use of Christian communities separated from itself to bring people to salvation, and that Catholics are called by the Holy Spirit to work for unity or ecumenism among all Christians.[21][22] Modern challenges faced by the Church include the rise of secularism, and opposition to its pro-life stance on abortion, contraception and euthanasia.[23]
Contents[hide]
1 Origin and mission
2 Beliefs
2.1 Creed
2.2 Original sin and Baptism
2.3 Jesus, sin, and Penance
2.4 Holy Spirit and Confirmation
2.5 Church, works of mercy, and Anointing of the Sick
2.6 Final judgment and afterlife
3 Prayer and worship
3.1 Mass, Eucharist, and liturgical year
3.2 Liturgy of the Hours
3.3 Devotional life and personal prayer
4 Church organization and community
4.1 Ordained members and Holy Orders
4.2 Lay members, Marriage
4.2.1 Members of religious orders
5 Demographics
5.1 Membership
6 Church history
6.1 Roman Empire
6.2 Early Middle Ages
6.3 High Middle Ages
6.4 Late Medieval and Renaissance
6.5 Age of Reason
6.6 Modern era
6.7 Vatican II and beyond
7 See also
8 References
8.1 Footnotes
8.2 Bibliography
9 Further reading
10 External links
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Catholic religion ISO 9001 compliant? - a Gap Audit

The primary mission of the Catholic Church is to spread the message of Jesus Christ, found in the four Gospels, and to administer sacraments that aid the spiritual growth of its members.[7] To further its mission, the Church operates social programs and institutions throughout the world. These include schools, universities, hospitals, missions and shelters, as well as Catholic Relief Services and Catholic Charities that help the poor, families, the elderly, and the sick.[8][9][10