Total Quality Management, 2015

Vol. 26, No. 5, 497 –514, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2013.856543

The use of quality management systems, tools, and techniques in ISO

9001:2008 certified companies with multidimensional statistics: the
Greek case
∗
Vasileios Ismyrlis and Odysseas Moschidis

Department of Marketing and Operations Management, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki,

Greece

The purpose of this paper is to examine the level of use of quality management systems
(QMS) and quality tools/techniques in ISO 9001:2008 certified Greek companies. It
also considers the differences between the extent of use of QMS, tools/techniques,
the importance of critical success factors (CSFs) for the implementation of a QMS,
and other demographic characteristics like size and years of certification. A research
project was carried out in 146 Greek companies from all business sectors using the
questionnaire technique. The selected companies have been implementing a QMS in
accordance with the ISO 9001:2008 standard. Correspondence analysis, a method
from the multidimensional statistics field, was mainly used. The findings showed
that the use of standards and tools/techniques was low (compared with companies
from other countries). On the contrary, the importance the quality assurance
managers attributed to CSF was high enough in most of the items-elements.
Differences were evident between all the above variables and certain demographics,
like years of certification, size, and the implementation of more than one QMS.
Keywords: quality management systems; correspondence analysis; tools; techniques;
CSF; Greek

Introduction
The large quantities of goods and services in the economy, the intense competition, the
continuous technological evolution, globalisation, and increasingly demanding customers
establish quality as a very important tool for the survival and evolution of a modern enter-
prise. Many definitions for quality exist, but the most appropriate seem to be: ‘the extent to
which a product or service meets and/or exceeds customers’ expectations’ (Reeves &
Bednar, 1994, p. 432), or, according to the ISO 8402 (1986): ‘the totality of features
and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to meet a stated or
implied need’ (p. 11).
In this respect, quality management systems (QMSs), which often exist as standards,
are the most comprehensive in scope. These QMSs deal with the improvement of company
performance and assist in the continuous effort for quality. They take the shape of formal
standards (like ISO) or of theories and concepts (like TQM). One of these standards is the
ISO 9000 series, which is internationally recognised and designed to demonstrate the capa-
bility of an organisation to control the processes that determine the acceptability of the
product or service being produced and sold.
The ISO systems and especially 9001, which are applicable in every kind of organis-
ation, have greatly expanded in developed countries and become widespread phenomena

∗
Corresponding author. Email: vasismir@gmail.com

# 2013 Taylor & Francis

498 V. Ismyrlis and O. Moschidis

around the world (Zutshi & Sohal, 2005). Moreover, the same phenomenon has recently
become evident in developing countries, too (Casadesus, Marimon, & Heras, 2008). After
the arrival of ISO 9001:2008, the number of certified organisations continues to increase
(Karthi, Devadasan, Murugesh, Screenvasa, & Sivaram, 2012). Research conducted in
European countries, regarding the companies certified with ISO 9001 standards, has
pointed out that Greece is still in the phase of developing, that is to say, there is a possi-
bility of further expanding systems of quality assurance in Greek companies
(Franceschini, Galetto, Maisano, & Mastrogiacomo, 2011).
With a questionnaire addressed at Greek enterprises, there was an attempt to evaluate
the implementation status of management systems such as ISO standards, TQM, Six
Sigma and other quality tools/techniques (e.g. Pareto, seven tools, Statistical Process
Control) in Greek companies. This paper examines simultaneously which critical
success factors (CSFs) are the most important for a successful implementation of a
quality programme, from the viewpoint of the experts in quality departments.
From the questionnaire responses, statistical analysis was realised, with the intention
of finding differences between the level of use of quality management techniques, tools/
techniques, and the importance of CSF and other variables, such as years of existence,
sector of the economy, size, use only of ISO 9001 standards/or use of another, and
years of certification. For the statistical analysis of the data, correspondence analysis
(CA) was mainly used as the most suitable for discovering correspondences (Benzecri,
1992) between the answers of the companies’ representatives and the demographic charac-
teristics of the companies. As the data were ordinal and nominal, this methodology was
preferred to Factor analysis, which is utilised with quantitative data.
The study yielded interesting results, such as the fact that the level of use of QMSs and tools/
techniques was not quite high in Greek companies. Another important result was the difference
between the use of methodologies, tools/techniques, and specific demographic variables like
size, years of certification, and use of only ISO. Moreover, companies which gave a higher
importance level to the CSF displayed a higher interest in the use of tools/ techniques and QMS.

Theoretical background
A. Quality management systems
Except for the ISO standards published by the ISO, which are mainly examined in the present
study, many other management practices have emerged mainly in the sector of manufactur-
ing, and large companies like Toyota, Motorola, and Ford (Karthi et al., 2012). Certainly,
these methods did not remain only in the field of manufacturing but expanded in all kinds
of organisations. All of these QMSs with requirements for continuous quality improvement
and assuring quality in products or services will be referred to in the present study as quality
management methodologies, systems or standards. Some of these QMSs are: the excellence
European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM) model, TQM, Lean, and Six Sigma,
among others. In an ISO relevant vocabulary, QMS is defined as a ‘management system
which leads and manages the organization from the quality point of view’ (ISO, 2000, p. 7).

ISO 9001
Quality standards like ISO 9000, which are examined in the current paper and are the most
popular, have already entered a new era; the latest fourth revision of the 9001 standard,
which appeared in 2008, is more customer-focused than the previous ones, also less
biased towards the manufacturing sector and thus more generic. Starting with the
 Total Quality Management 499

Figure 1. Mean averages for the importance of the 27 elements.

1987 initial edition, the ISO 9000 standard changed in 1994 and again in 2000. The
2000 change was quite extensive as it introduced the concept of process auditing and
placed much emphasis on the importance of top management in the effectiveness of
the QMS, and the standard was presented as 9001, therefore unifying all the previous
9000 versions. The last edition of ISO 9001 contains no substantive changes or new
requirements, except for some clarifications to the requirements of ISO 9001:2000
and efforts to improve alignment with ISO 14001:2004, in order to make the combi-
nation easier and more efficient. The desire for continual improvement and customer
satisfaction place the ISO 9000 standards alongside TQM methodology and philosophy
(Coleman & Douglas, 2003). The ISO series is applicable to all organisations, large and
small, manufacturing or services (Heuvel, Koning, Bogers, Berg, & van Dijen, 2005).
Up to the end of December 2010, at least 1,109,905 ISO 9001 certificates had been
issued in 178 countries and economies and the increase from 2009 was 4% (ISO,
2011). It is also noteworthy that the sectors with most growth in EU-27, in the
period 1997 – 2003, were all from the service sector (Heras-Saizarbitoria, Casadesús,
& Marimón, 2011).
Naturally, Greece is not an exception in the ongoing efforts of the business operations
field to implement quality assurance systems (Fotopoulos, Psomas, & Vouzas, 2010). For
example, Greece ranks second in the ISO 22000 standards measurement of yearly growth,
from 2010 to 2011 (ISO, 2011).
Standards/methodologies examined in the current study besides IS0 9001 were: ISO
14001 (environmental management), OHSAS 18001 (safety management), TQM, Six
Sigma, Lean, EFQM, and Business Process Reengineering (BPR).
Other ISO standards (the following standards belong to the category ‘other ISO stan-
dards’ in Figure 2): ISO 27001 for informations security management, ISO 17025 for the
competence of testing and calibration laboratories, etc.
Others standards for specific activity sectors (the following standards belong to the
category ‘other standards for specific activity sectors’ in Figure 2). Some of these are:
500 V. Ismyrlis and O. Moschidis

Figure 2. Extent of usage (percentage) of methodologies/standards in the Greek companies of the

sample.
Note: ∗ Includes the lean manufacturing, lean production, lean enterprise, lean Six Sigma methodologies.

International Food Standard (IFS), British Retail Consortium (BRC), Conformité Europé-
enne (CE), and ISO 22000 (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP)) for food
safety, among others.

B. Tools/techniques
The use of quality management tools and techniques is a very important and crucial factor
in the functioning of the QMS and the support of the quality improvement process (Hell-
sten & Klefsjo, 2000). The reason is because the tools and techniques are the means for the
appropriate implementation of the quality programme.
A tool is a simple way to solve a problem, examples of which are Brainstorming and
Flowchart. Of course there are seven quality control tools: Fishbone, Checksheet, Control
chart, Histogram, Pareto chart, Scatter diagram, and Flowchart, which are the most well
known. Some new quality control tools have emerged, which are mostly used with quali-
tative data: Affinity Diagram, Relation Diagram, Tree Diagram, Matrix Diagram, Arrow
Diagram, Process Decision Program Chart (PDPC), and Matrix Data Analysis.
A technique has a broader application than tools and may include many tools (McQua-
ter, Scurr, Dale, & Hillman, 1995). Examples of techniques are: statistical process control
(SPC), SWOT analysis, and quality function deployment (QFD), among many others.
As mentioned, the list of all tools and techniques utilised in a quality management pro-
gramme is huge. From the above tools, those frequently used and appropriate for the quality
systems, according ISO 9001 (Jain & Ahuja, 2012), were selected. These are listed in Figure 3.

C. CSF
The CSFs are of great importance in the implementation of a QMS, because they are the
means and essential ingredients to accomplish the aim of the system. Rockart (1979)
argued that ‘the critical success factors are areas of activities that should receive constant
and careful attention from management’ (p. 85). For Saraph, Benson, and Schroeder
(1989), CSFs are ‘critical areas of managerial planning and action that must be practiced
to achieve effective quality management in a business unit’ (p. 811). In addition, if the
objectives associated with these factors are not achieved, the organisation will fail, with
serious negative consequences (Rockart, 1979).
 Total Quality Management 501

Figure 3. Level of use of tools/techniques.

Note: ∗ The category graphics includes all the graphical tools like histograms, bar charts, pie charts,
line charts, stem and leaf, box plots and others.

According to Sila and Ebrahimpour (2002), there are 25 common factors in the
TQM literature. In another study also by Sila and Ebrahimpour (2003), the most
commonly extracted factors of TQM were found to be 17 of the above 25 factors.
Given that the ISO 9000 standard is much more in line with TQM than other
quality standards (Psomas, Fotopoulos, & Kafetzopoulos, 2011), and other research-
ers suggest using ISO 9000 as a route to TQM (Ho, 1995; Tsiotras & Gotzamani,
1996), there was an effort to include most of the abovementioned factors in this
paper. Finally, in total 27 items-elements of the CSF for the quality management(s)
systems were applied by the companies to which the respondents replied. These are
shown in Table 1.

Aim and design of the study

The purpose of the study is to investigate which QMS/standards, tools/techniques are most fre-
quently used by Greek ISO 9001:2008 certified companies, the association between their
implementation and other characteristics, such as number of employees and years of existence.
Therefore, the research questions are the following:

. Research question (R.Q.) 1: The importance level of CSF is positively related to the
implementation of standards.
. Research question 2: The importance level of CSF is positively related to the usage
of tools/techniques.
. Research questions 3,5,7,9,11: Is there a difference in the level of use of standards
by firm industry (R.Q.3), firm size-number of employees (R.Q.5), years of existence
(R.Q.7), years of certification (R.Q.9), and use of only ISO (R.Q.11)?
. Research questions 4,6,8,10,12: Is there a difference in the level of use of tools/tech-
niques by firm industry (R.Q.4), firm size-number of employees (R.Q.6), years of
existence (R.Q.8), years of certification (R.Q.10), and use of only ISO (R.Q.12)?
. Research question 13: Which are the most frequently used standards?
. Research question 14: Which are the most frequently used quality management tools
and techniques?
502 V. Ismyrlis and O. Moschidis

Table 1. The 27 items-elements of the CSFs.

Items-elements of the CSF of QMS Referred as
Commitment and involvement of the management Management
Management of cultural change Cult.change
Spirit of innovation in the company Innovation
Attaching the success to financial benefits Fin.benefits
Training and education of the staff Training
Primary principle to satisfy the needs of the customer Customer
Effective cooperation with the suppliers Suppliers
The principles of the QMS are attached to the business strategy Strategy
Active participation and encouragement of the employees Part.and encour
Effective communication between the different departments Communication
Existence and assurance of all the adequate resources Resources
Linking the implementation of the QMS to the information management systems Inf.manag.syst
Setting measurable goals and objectives Goals
System to analyse and measure processes Measure proc
Data from measurements are easily obtainable Data obtain
Sufficient knowledge of statistics and statistical methods Statistics
Employees promotion and incentive compensation Promotion
Focus on quality in product/service design Design
Role of quality department Qual.deparmt
Use of benchmarking Benchmarking
Quality culture Qual.culture
Environmental aspects and effects are taken into account Environment
Knowledge of the quality methodology and its techniques method.techn
Creation of teams to participate in quality management projects Teams
Use of quality tools and techniques Use of tools
Market knowledge Market
Inspection and qualified suppliers Qual. Suppliers

Methodology
After the review of literature on QMS, tools/techniques, and CSF, the final step was the
development of a questionnaire to include all the aspects needed to be analysed for the
purpose of this paper.
Descriptive statistics were also calculated and presented, but the main analysis and
derivation of results is realised with the contribution of the CA methodology.

CA methodology
The data collected were analysed with CA, an exploratory methodology of the Multidi-
mensional Statistics field, which does not assume any distribution for the data and puts
forward possible trends that exist in the data, including graphically. It is a dimension
reduction methodology applied in categorical and/or ordinal variables with non-negative
values, which treats rows and columns equivalently.

Questionnaire
This study covers the results from research started in early 2012 and completed in Septem-
ber of that same year. The questionnaire created was addressed at the quality manager of
each company and, before its final form, had been tested on a small sample of firms which
applied the ISO 9001 standard. Experts in the field of quality assurance in these firms, for
 Total Quality Management 503

example, quality managers, quality representatives, and quality engineers (Douglas,

Coleman, & Oddy, 2003) reviewed the questionnaire, in order to express their opinions
about its content. After this process, new variables-questions were included and others
that seemed difficult to answer or of no importance were removed.
In the final questionnaire, the respondents, who were eventually the quality managers/
representatives of the companies, were invited to answer questions about which quality
initiatives (like TQM, Six Sigma, etc.) and other quality tools/techniques they
implemented, CSF importance, the level of satisfaction of the interested parts, perform-
ance in terms of specific aspects, opinion about Six Sigma, opinion about quality in
general, and QMS. There were also questions about demographic characteristics that
can be seen in Table 1.
The question about the QMS and tools/techniques was simple: ‘Do you use (Yes/No)
the following tool/technique or methodology?’ As for the CSF, there was a 5-point Likert
scale (1, very low; 5, very high) measuring their importance.

Sample
The questionnaire survey was conducted in Greek companies from all sectors of the
economy, which were certified with the latest version of ISO 9001:2008 standard. The
ISO 9001:2008 certified companies were selected because they had already implemented
at least one QMS and have the appropriate experience in this field. These firms have also at
least one person engaged in the quality system, with quality tasks (Tari & Sabater, 2004).
The companies were chosen from the ICAP (an information and consulting firm in
Greece) catalogue, where a total of almost 2000 certified companies were listed. A repre-
sentative sample of 165 companies was selected and the questionnaires were sent by post
and e-mails; the responses were collected by the same methods. After the second remin-
ders and e-mails, the total valid responses suitable for the purposes of this paper, up to Sep-
tember 2012, were 146.

Results
A. Descriptive statistics
Some descriptive statistics for the companies of the sample examined and their demo-
graphic characteristics are shown in Table 2.
As shown in Table 2, most of the companies (74.43%) are small or medium size
(SME), which is characteristic of Southern Europe economies like that of Greece
(European Commission, 2012). A large percentage of the companies (54.14%) is from
the manufacturing sector, and as regards years of existence and certification, there is
almost an equal number of companies in all the five and three categories, equivalently.
The percentage of companies that implemented only the ISO 9001 standard is quite
large (44%), which means half of the companies are satisfied with the current functioning
of the quality system, or even if they are not they do not want to move further along the
quality journey.
In the above Figure 1, the mean scores for the importance of the 27 elements are dis-
played; they are quite high in most cases, with a total mean average of 4.16. As it is
obvious, the most important elements for the implementation of a QMS are: Management
involvement and commitment, followed by Quality Culture and Training. On the other
hand, the use of Statistics, Measurement, and the Availability of Data are considered to
be the least important factors for the QMS implementation.
504 V. Ismyrlis and O. Moschidis

Table 2. Companies’ demographic characteristics.

Characteristic-variable Description Percentage Symbol
Size (number of employees) Small ,50 36.84 A1
Medium 50 –249 37.59 A2
Large ≥250 25.56 A3
Industry Manufacturing 54.14 C1
Service 21.80 C2
Trade- 24.06 C3
commercial
Years of existence 1–10 18.04 D1
11–20 19.55 D2
21–30 21.80 D3
31–40 15.79 D4
.40 24.81 D5
Total years of certification in any version of ISO 9000 0–7 32.88 H1
(years: 1987, 1994, 2000) 8–14 34.93 H2
≥15 32.19 H3
Currently certified only with ISO 9001:2008 Yes 44 F1
Noa 56 F2
a
Certified or implement any other/s methodology from Figure 2, except ISO:9001.

Results of R.Q.11
The extent of use of quality management practices (ISO 14001, ISO 18001, TQM, Six
Sigma and others) was also examined and the results (Figure 2) reveal that only the
TQM methodology seems to be more frequently used by the companies, followed by
the 14001 standard. Other methodologies like BPR and Six Sigma, which are more
process-oriented, had a higher percentage of implementation in other countries, but
were almost neglected by the Greek companies.

Results of R.Q.12
As shown in Figure 3, from the 21 listed tools/techniques, only nine-tenth of them had any
significant use (percentage over 30%). The most frequently used tools or techniques in
Greek companies are: Graphics, Flowchart, Check Sheet, Cause and Effect Diagram,
and SPC. The least utilised are: Suppliers Input Process Output and Customers
(SIPOC), Failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA), QFD, Process Capability Analysis,
and Balanced Scorecard. Some of the latest are considered more sophisticated (Fotopoulos
& Psomas, 2009) like QFD, Design of experiments, and FMEA, which suggests that the
Greek companies of the sample seek to implement those which are easier to learn and use.

B. Analysis with CA
For the Research questions 1 – 12, the CA methodology was implemented and only the out-
comes of the R.Q. 5,9,11 are presented analytically.

Results of R.Q.3,4,7,8
No differences were evident between the level of use of standards, tools/techniques and the
demographic variables: sector and years of existence.
 Total Quality Management 505

Table 3. Eigenvalue-inertia.
Axis Inertia %Interp Sum Scree plot
∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗
1 0.0207850 47.12 47.12
∗∗∗∗
∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗
2 0.0058001 13.15 60.27
∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗
3 0.0039662 8.99 69.27
∗∗∗∗∗∗∗
4 0.0032406 7.35 76.61
∗∗∗∗∗∗
5 0.0027918 6.33 82.94
∗∗∗∗∗
6 0.0023678 5.37 88.31
∗∗∗∗
7 0.0017130 3.88 92.20
∗∗∗
8 0.0011065 2.51 94.70
∗∗
9 0.0009840 2.23 96.93
∗∗
10 0.0006269 1.42 98.36
Note: Total inertia 0.04411.

Results of R.Q.1,2,5,6,9,10,11,12
After the analysis with CA, the results of R.Q. 5,9,11 are presented analytically (Tables 3
and 4 and Figures 4 and 5).
The total inertia is 0.04411 (Table 3). The first factorial axis interprets the researched
issue with a percentage of 47.12. The first three axes interpret the data with a percentage of
69.27.
From the results of CA, which are presented in Table 4, we will use the most important
interpretation indicator of point (characteristic) towards axis, which is Contribution

Table 4. Interpretation indicators: coordinates (#F), correlations (COR), contributions (CTR) of the
first four axes.
#F1 COR CTR #F2 COR CTR #F3 COR CTR Descript
A1 2348 791 121 2134 116 64 2108 75 60 Size1
A2 238 401 46 28 5 2 214 326 197 Size2
A3 282 346 42 200 174 76 2121 62 40 Size3
F1 2371 797 125 2143 118 66 2110 69 57 ISO-only-yes
F2 244 797 86 94 118 45 71 69 39 ISO-only-no
H1 2317 638 76 2124 97 41 35 7 4 Year.cert-1
H2 27 7 0 200 398 118 28 0 0 Year.cert-2
H3 293 572 66 293 56 23 228 5 3 Year.cert-3
11 2101 434 18 211 4 0 72 222 48 Tqm-no
12 296 434 50 30 4 1 2213 222 136 Tqm-yes
21 235 362 2 23 165 4 5 8 0 Six Sigma-no
22 681 362 44 2462 165 73 2107 8 5 Six Sigma-yes
31 228 212 1 32 286 8 212 35 1 BPR-no
32 476 212 21 2553 286 105 193 35 18 BPR-yes
41 266 473 9 35 138 9 13 20 2 Lean-no
42 498 473 59 2270 138 62 2103 20 13 Lean-no
51 257 410 6 24 1 0 48 311 26 EFQM-no
52 490 410 57 31 1 0 2428 311 230 EFQM-yes
61 280 394 12 32 64 7 18 22 3 14001-no
62 320 394 44 2131 64 26 276 22 13 14001-yes
71 234 334 2 32 306 8 216 73 2 18001-no
72 673 334 43 2645 306 143 314 73 49 18001-yes
506 V. Ismyrlis and O. Moschidis

Figure 4. First axis.

(CTR), as it expresses its contribution’s percentage in axis construction (Greenacre, 2007).

The points with large CTR towards axis, construct, and often highlight, its physical impor-
tance. Using the F-indicator (coordinate), we define the side of the axis in which the point
(characteristic) is represented. Therefore, the points with positive coordinates are on the
right side and those on the other side are negative (Figure 1). We note that the average
CTR is 1000:22 ¼ 45.45, where 22 is the number of points-elements. Thus, points of
high contribution in axis construction are considered those with CTR values above
average (baseline criterion – Le Roux & Rouanet, 2010). In our case, these values of
CTR over 45.45 are in bold (Table 4).
Therefore, the first axis opposes (see Figure 4) the points: ‘Small size’-A1, ‘Use of
only ISO’-F1, ‘Years of Certification 0 – 7’-H1 to characteristics like: ‘Certified/used

Figure 5. First factorial space.

 Total Quality Management 507

QMS other than ISO’-F2, ‘Years of certification ≥15’-H3, ‘Implementation of Lean’-42,

‘Implementation of EFQM’-52, and ‘Implementation of TQM’-12.
Having in mind the above estimations and with the help of the visualisation of the first
axis, the factorial space (see Figures 4 and 5), and Table 4, we reach the following results
for the explanation of the first four axes. The characteristics (categories of the variables) –
bigger size, more years of certification, use of standard other than ISO – seemed to be
positively related to the use of most of the QMS/standards and mainly with TQM,
Lean, EFQM, 14001.
The same results (differences between the variables and the demographics) were found
in the use of tools/techniques (R.Q. 6,10,12), the importance of CSF (R.Q.1,2), and the
effect of the above demographic variables. Tools that differentiated more than others
were: Checksheet, Flowchart, Questionnaire, and Benchmarking.
All the results for the research (R.Q.1 – 14) are presented analytically in Table A1.
Finally, from all the above results, it can be concluded that differences were detected
between the demographic variables: years of certification, size, the use of just ISO
9001, and the level of use of QMS, tools/techniques, and the importance of the CSFs.

Discussion
After research into similar studies on the use of tools/techniques and QMS in ISO 9001
certified or not companies, the following findings were recorded (more analytically pre-
sented in Tables A2, A3, and A4).

(1) Usage of tools/techniques

In most of the studies the tools/techniques simplest to understand and
implement were utilised. More specifically, the tools/techniques SPC, Bench-
marking, Graphics, Checksheet, and Flowchart seem to receive high scores in
other studies too.
(2) Implementation of QMS/standards
The ISO standards seemed to be universally accepted and used by all compa-
nies and countries. The TQM method despite its age is still appreciated in the same
way. On the other hand, many other utilised QMS are not very popular in Greece,
such as: Kaizen, Quality circles, PDCA cycle, and Excellence models.
(3) Demographic variables, CSF, Quality system functioning
The bigger-sized companies constitute an important factor in terms of the
extent to which tools/techniques are used. On the contrary, a company’s sector
seemed to produce no differences. The importance given in the CSF to a
quality programme and the level of functioning of a quality system were indicative
of a higher level of use of tools/techniques and QMS.

Conclusion
The most popular quality methodologies in Greek companies, except for the ISO
9001:2008 standard, which was already implemented, seemed to be the TQM method, fol-
lowed by the 14001 standard. The percentages of implementation are small as regards all
the other methods about which the companies were questioned. In many other studies in
different countries the percentages are quite higher and the excellence models in particular
seemed to be more frequently used.
508 V. Ismyrlis and O. Moschidis

The extent of use of the tools/techniques is also not very high and the most used are:
Check sheet, Graphics, Flowchart, Brainstorming, and Benchmarking. These tools are not
characterised as complex and they are the easiest to use. Many other tools and techniques
like Quality costing, Design of experiments, QFD, and Quality circles are used by compa-
nies in other countries and are not given the same importance by Greek companies.
Compared with other studies, the extent of use of both QMS and tools/techniques is
low in Greek companies. Even in studies with companies not certified with the ISO stan-
dard, the performance in usage was much higher than the Greek case. A reason for the
above two conclusions (low percentage usage in tools and QMS) could be the relatively
small size of the Greek companies, which is a serious obstacle for their development
plans, as it is also apparent in other parts of the analysis of the current study (R.Q. 5,6).
The importance that the quality managers attribute to the CSFs of the quality system
included in the present study is high in most of the elements, which means that the people
responsible for the implementation of quality in an organisation understand the continuous
need for assuring quality in products/services.
In the case of the demographic variables of the companies, differences were evident in
the number of employees (size), years of certification, holding only ISO 9001 standard or
not; companies with more employees, more years of certification, and certified with
another QMS except ISO 9001 seemed to achieve better performances in the level of
implementation of QMS, tools/techniques. Companies with the same characteristics
also had a greater score in the importance level of the 27 elements of QMS.
The data were analysed through a multidimensional methodology, presented in a way
that enabled an immediate visualisation of the differences and, at the same time, those
variables that may be distinguished intensively from the others.

Limitations and direction for further research

The study was based on the perception (subjective data) of only one quality manager/
representative of each company. These constitute research limitations but also future
research orientations. This paper is based on PhD research which has raised many other
questions regarding QMSs in Greek companies.

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Appendix

Table A1. Results on R.Q.1– 14.

Differences
detected
R.Q. Variable 1 Variable 2 (yes/no) More intense difference/s
1 Implementation of Importance Yes TQM, Lean, EFQM, 14001
QMS/ level of CSF
methodologies
2 Usage of tools/ Importance Yes Checksheet, Graph, Flowchart,
techniques level of CSF Questionnaire, Quality costing,
Affinity diagram, Cause– effect
3 Implementation of Firm’s No
QMS/ industry
methodologies
4 Usage of tools/ Firm’s No
techniques industry
5 Implementation of Size Yes TQM, Lean, EFQM, 14001
QMS/
methodologies
6 Usage of tools/ Size Yes Checksheet, Data collection, SPC,
techniques Flowchart, Questionnaire,
Qual.costing
7 Implementation of Years of No
QMS/ existence
methodologies
8 Usage of tools/ Years of No
techniques existence
9 Implementation of Years of Yes TQM, Lean, EFQM, 14001
QMS/ certification
methodologies
10 Usage of tools/ Years of Yes Benchmarking, Checksheet,
techniques certification Flowchart, Questionnaire, Data
collection, Cause–effect
11 Implementation of Use of only Yes TQM, Six Sigma, EFQM, 14001
QMS/ ISO
methodologies
12 Usage of tools/ Use of only Yes Benchmarking, Flowchart,
techniques ISO Questionnaire, Qual.costing,
Cause–effect
Question Mostly used
13 Frequently used standards TQM, 14001
14 Frequently used tools and techniques Graphics, Flowchart, Checksheet,
Cause–effect
 512 V. Ismyrlis and O. Moschidis
Table A2. Results from other similar studies for the most frequently used tools and techniques.
ISO certified Size of
Year Author/s Country Sectora (yes/no) companiesb Responses Most frequently tools and techniques
2002 Curry and Kadasah S. Arabia All Yes All 83 Check sheet, Flowchart, Brainstorming
2003 Bayazit Turkia Manufactur No (TQM Large 100 Pareto chart, SPC, Cause–effect,
mature) Process chart
2004 Tari and Sabater Spain All Yes All 106 Graph, Flowchart, Quality costing
2004 Vouzas Greece Industrial Yes All 10 Checklist, Flowchart, 7qc
2005 Sousa, Aspinwall, Portugal All Yes SME 103 Graph, Check sheet, Flowchart,
Sampaio, and histogram
Rodgriguez
2005 Tari Spain All Yes All 106 Graphics, SPC, Flowchart, Histogram,
Benchmarking
2005 Lagrosen and Lagrosen Sweden All No Mostly large 186 Flowchart, FMEA, 7qc, SPC, quality
circles, Design of experiments, QFD
2007 Alsaleh S. Arabia Food industry- No All 83 Control charts, Histogram, Run chart,
manufacturing Cause– effect
2009 Fotopoulos and Psomas Greece All Yes All 370 Flowchart, Data coll., Check sheet,
Benchmarking, Graphics
2010 Clegg, Rees, and Tischen UK, USA, All No All 79 5 why’s, 5s, QFD, Correlation,
Germany Brainstorming
2011 Bayo-Moriones and Mexico All No All 90 SPC, 7QC tools
Contreras-Diaz
2011 Lopes, Nunes, Sousa, Portugal All No All 83 Brainstorming, Flowchart, Pareto,
and Esteves Check sheet, Questionnaire
2012 Idris, Aziz, and Zailee Malaysia All No (ISO All 143 7QC tools, SPC, FMEA
85%)
a
The three sectors considered to be : Manufacturing, Commercial, Services. ‘All’ means companies from all the three sectors.
b
‘SME’ are Small and Medium sized companies. ‘All’ means companies from all three sizes (Small, Medium, Large).
Table A3. Results from other similar studies for the most frequently used QMS/standards.
ISO certified Size of
Year Author/s Country Sector (yes/no) companies Responses Most frequently implemented QMS
2003 Bayazit Turkia Manufacturing No, but TQM Large 100 Quality control circles, Just-in-time,
mature TPM
2005 Lagrosen and Sweden All No All 265 ISO: 86%, Six Sigma: 8.3%, EFQM +
Lagrosen Bald + Swed: 20.1%
2007 Alsaleh S. Arabia Food industry- No All 83 67% of the companies possess a
manufacturing quality award
2007 Uhar Turkey Industrial No Top 500 102 TQM, SS, EFQM + kalder
2008 Kumar and Antony UK Manufacturing No SME 62 Lean: 26.5%, Six Sigma: 15.6%,
TQM: 7.8%
2010 Clegg et al. UK, USA, All No All 79 Six Sigma + lean: 45%, ISO: 33%,

Total Quality Management 513

Germany EFQM: 8%
2011 Lopes et al. Portugal All No All 83 PDCA, TQM, Six Sigma, EFQM
2011 Bayo-Moriones and Mexico All No All 90 TQM: 83%, ISO: 68%,
Contreras-Diaz Empowerment: 50%, Kaizen 23%
2012 Idris et al. Malaysia All No, ISO 85% All 143 TQM 42%, Six Sigma: 19%, Lean:
14.75 EFQM: 16%
514 V. Ismyrlis and O. Moschidis

Table A4. Results from similar studies for the effect of other variables in the usage of QMS, tools,
techniques.
ISO
certified Size of
Year Author/s Country Sector (yes/no) companies Responses Results
2004 Tari and Spain All Yes All 106 The use of tools/
Sabater techniques is
positive
correlated with
size and TQM
level. No effect
from sector and
ISO
certification
2005 Lagrosen Sweden All No Mostly 186 The use of tools/
and large techniques is
Lagrosen positive
correlated with
a well
functioning
quality system
2006 Drew and Ireland All No All 934 The use of tools/
Healy techniques is
positive
correlated with
commitment to
quality (or
TQM)
2009 Fotopoulos Greece All Yes All 370 The use of tools/
and techniques is
Psomas positive
correlated with
size. No effect
from sector
2011 Lopes et al. Portugal All No All 83 The use of tools/
techniques is
positive
correlated with
size
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