Real-world examples and hands-on experience are invaluable resources when learning how to use new methods and tools, whether in training or in a classroom. Yet there are very few books on Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) that provide the practical knowledge required to be up and running quickly. Until now. Design for Six Sigma in Product and Service Development: Applications and Case Studies provides step-by-step analysis and practical guidance on how to apply DFSS in product and service development.

The book discusses the DFSS roadmap and how it is linked to methodologies, including organizational leadership, product development, system integration, critical parameter management, voice of the customer, quality function deployment, and concept generation. The chapter authors provide real-world case studies that demonstrate how the application of DFSS has significantly improved meeting customer requirements. They follow the Identify-Define-Design-Optimize-Validate (IDDOV) structure for new product or service development. Examples of tools covered include Quality Function Deployment, Voice of the Customer, Pugh Concept Selection, Ideal Function, Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, Reliability, Measurement Systems Analysis, Regression Analysis, and Capability Studies, among others.

Clearly outlining the tools and how to integrate them for robust product and service design, the case studies can be used by industry professionals and academics to learn how to apply DFSS. The book gives you hands-on experience in a safe environment, where experienced Black Belts and Master Black Belts act as mentors and prepare you to touch actual data and make decisions when embarking on real-world projects. Even after you've mastered the techniques, the breadth and depth of coverage contained in this book will make it a vital part of your toolkit.

Lean Six Sigma (LSS), Design for Six Sigma (DFSS), and Value Engineering (VE) have a proven track record of success for solving problems and improving efficiency. Depending on the situation, integrating these approaches can provide results that exceed the benefits of each individual approach. Value Engineering Synergies with Lean Six Sigma: Combining Methodologies for Enhanced Results describes how to integrate these dynamic tools to achieve unprecedented improvements and break down the organizational stovepipes that can occur when different offices are assigned responsibility for different problem-solving methods.

The book identifies opportunities where readers can integrate these approaches to go beyond what is currently possible with the individual approaches. Explaining the VE methodology, it supplies a high-level discussion of LSS and DFSS. Next, it compares VE with LSS and identifies the different opportunities for synergies that can provide your organization with a competitive edge.

• Includes detailed LSS-VE cross-reference charts
• Contains product- and process-oriented VE material designed for LSS black belt training
• Provides a list of the most commonly used LSS, DFSS, and VE tools

The authors describe VE and LSS in a way that is different from, but consistent with, the current literature. To facilitate comparison, the book graphically depicts VE and LSS and maps the two tools into one another to provide you with a clear understanding of the circumstances and types of problems where integrating these techniques will be most effective. The ideas and synergies presented in this book can help industry professionals and those in government accelerate the adoption of efficiencies in their operations.

The delivery of real bottom-line results from manufacturing improvements has proven to be much harder than expected for most companies. TQM, Zero-Defect Manufacturing, and Business Process Re-engineering have dropped off the landscape for taking much too long and failing to deliver the promised results. Lean Six Sigma is now experiencing the same fundamental difficulty. Delineating a quantitative approach, Lean Manufacturing: Business Bottom-Line Based shows you how to revitalize Lean Six Sigma by aligning it with your business' bottom line and thus delivering results that your executives, business leaders, and customers expect. Written by an expert who has transformed product design and manufacturing at companies ranging from Maytag and Visteon to General Electric, the book demonstrates that an awareness of manufacturing business metrics is absolutely essential for every lean manufacturing practitioner. The author has seen first-hand the limitation of traditional lean manufacturing driven by business bottom lines. He outlines case studies linking world events and manufacturing efficiency and presents lean manufacturing strategies and techniques designed to accelerate responses to current and future events on the floors of the world's manufacturing facilities. Typically, advice on lean manufacturing comes in the form of techniques regarding a particular tool or tool-box, yet the factory floor, like everything in the global community, is profoundly driven by business bottom lines. This book presents a systematic approach to improve business bottom lines through identifying and eliminating waste, and adding value and fulfillment by flowing the product at the demand of the customer.

Fashion buying and merchandising has changed dramatically over the last 20 years. Aspects such as the advent of new technologies and the changing nature of the industry into one that is faster paced than ever before, as well as the shift towards more ethical and sustainable practices have resulted in a dramatic change of the roles. As a result, contemporary fast fashion retailers do not follow the traditional buying cycle processes step by step, critical paths are wildly different, and there has been a huge increase in 'in-season buying' as a response to heightened consumer demand. This textbook is a comprehensive guide to 21st-century fashion buying and merchandising, considering fast fashion, sustainability, ethical issues, omnichannel retailing, and computer-aided design. It presents an up-to-date buying cycle that reflects key aspects of fashion buying and merchandising, as well as in-depth explanations of fashion product development, trend translation, and sourcing. It applies theoretical and strategic business models to buying and merchandising that have traditionally been used in marketing and management. This book is ideal for all fashion buying and merchandising students, specifically second- and final-year undergraduate as well as MA/MSc fashion students. It will also be useful to academics and practitioners who wish to gain a greater understanding of the industry today.

In the past, when goods and services were simpler, measurement of quality was self-evident. As business became more complicated, so too did the implementation of quality management and our ability to measure it. Ultimately, the practice of quality strayed from being a business practice to become much more of an engineering discipline producing plenty of data, but little actual improvement.

In Quality Management: Theory and Application, highly respected quality management specialist Peter Mauch shows you how to set up a Quality Management System (QMS) that will stay aligned with your business goals. Using examples from actual situations that can be readily applied in any industrial situation, these pages will show you how to:

• Plan for quality by setting objectives and metrics, and creating effective flexible blueprints, and procedures
• Get staff involved by understanding how to motivate and train them
• Establish responsibility and accountability across your entire organization
• Create the right reporting mechanisms and learn how to analyze them
• Understand the value and particulars of certification

QMS is a performance-reporting system designed to accumulate and report data useful for the achievement of management's objectives. Combining the technical aspects of quality engineering with successful business management practices, this book will teach you that quality is an ongoing practice, and that it must be implemented throughout an organization rather than stand as the responsibility of one department. Ultimately, through this system, you will align individual departments to continuously maximize quality throughout your entire organization.

This book presents the mechanics of implementing visuality on the value-add level known as Work That Makes Sense (WTMS). The step-by-step WTMS process described in this book teaches operators a proven method for translating information deficits into visual solutions that take the struggle out of their day-to-day work. As a result, operators transform their work area into a work environment that speaks-a work environment that, by design, shares vital information in the form of visual devices that help them perform their day-to-day work with precision and completeness. At the heart of this visual conversion approach is an element unique to Galsworth's paradigm called I-driven that recognizes that operators will pursue self-leadership in the company's improvement initiatives if they are given the opportunity to learn how to do so. Also recognized is the fact that this can only happen if associates are taught-and given the opportunity to learn and apply a new system of thinking. The author calls this new system visual thinking. This book provides that learning pathway, in detail, supported by hundreds of actual visual solutions, developed by operators who have followed that pathway and become visual thinkers for themselves-I-driven. They become self-leaders, in control of their corner of the world and able and willing to share their strengths with others. In this way, the WTMS process produces a deep and abiding change in the company's work culture that builds creativity and ownership. As a result, the organization's leadership framework widens to include operators. When effectively applied the WTMS process detailed in this book produces 15% to 30% improvement in local KPIs, including productivity, on-time delivery, quality, and costs; these figures are documented and presented in the pages of this book. Written for operators, this book includes a wealth of color photographs, the majority of which are visual solutions created by visual thinkers who have lived this process for themselves. All are fully captioned and thoughtfully described. The book also includes twelve tasks that managers implement in support that they seek on the operator level. WTMS teaches that visual devices translate information into exact behavior, embedding and sustaining precision through visual solutions. Precision is built in by the same operators who execute it. This is the heart of an I-driven visual enterprise. Once learned and operationalized, this paradigm allows the organization to take on any new improvement effort. Organizational alignment and teamwork have been redefined and operationalized.

The fashion industry is a multibillion-dollar global industry with a variety of organizational structures and a multitude of challenges. Such scope triggered the recent rise in management programs in the U.S. and Europe aiming to produce and train young managers to meet such global and diverse challenges. Managing Fashion covers the fashion business with a twist - a management twist. Its goal is to tackle the topics from a fashion manager perspective referencing relevant management concepts and theories, thus offering a deeper and more practical dimension to the issues addressed. It offers a balanced mix of fashion and management, theory and application, as well as creating an opportunity for analysis and critical thinking. Discussions throughout the book are supported by specially developed case studies and relevant examples taken from the fashion industry. It is an opportunity to expose the fashion student or reader, as well as aspiring fashion managers, to a more practical approach to fashion theories and issues. Managing Fashion will serve as a core text for Fashion Studies, Fashion Entrepreneurship, and Fashion Merchandising majors as well as for special business degrees and management certificates targeting the fashion industry.

Although Lean and Six Sigma appear to be quite different, when used together they have shown to deliver unprecedented improvements to quality and profitability. The Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Handbook: Tools and Methods for Process Acceleration explains how to integrate these seemingly dissimilar approaches to increase production speed while decreasing variations and costs in your organization.
Presenting problem-solving tools you can use to immediately determine the sources of the problems in your organization, the book is based on a recent survey that analyzed Six Sigma tools to determine which are the most beneficial. Although it focuses on the most commonly used tools, it also includes coverage of those used a minimum of two times on every five Six Sigma projects.
Filled with diagrams of the tools you ll need, the book supplies a comprehensive framework to help you for organize and process the vast amount of information currently available about Lean, quality management, and continuous improvement process applications. It begins with an overview of Six Sigma, followed by little-known tips for using Lean Six Sigma (LSS) effectively. It examines the LSS quality system, its supporting organization, and the different roles involved.
Identifying the theories required to support a contemporary Lean system, the book describes the new skills and technologies that you need to master to be certified at the Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (LSSBB) level. It also covers the advanced non-statistical and statistical tools that are new to the LSSBB body of knowledge.
Presenting time-tested insights of a distinguished group of authors, the book provides the understanding required to select the solutions that best fit your organization's aim and culture. It also includes exercises, worksheets, and templates you can easily customize to create your own handbook for continuous process improvement.
Designed to make the methodologies you choose easy to follow, the book will help Black Belts and Senseis better engage their employees, as well as provide an integrated and visual process management structure for reporting and sustaining continuous improvement breakthroughs and initiatives.
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From TQM to Six Sigma and the Balanced Scorecard, there appears to be no end to the 'revolutionary' approaches proposed to improve business performance. However, on closer inspection, most new performance improvement approaches offer few differences from their predecessors. This thought-provoking book provides a critical perspective on the management of performance improvement initiatives by relating major theories to practical examples from a wide range of organizations. Baxter and MacLeod analyze ideas on performance improvement and discuss how these concepts might not make any impact on organizations, using cases as diverse as telecommunications, cement manufacturing, a major airport, and an economic development organization. In their critique of popular performance improvement 'innovations', the authors highlight the possible damage to organizations they can cause. In response to prevailing performance improvement practices, the authors put forth the concept of repair as a way to rescue these efforts. Working from the authors' extensive research, they present alternative perspectives on improvement that shifts forward the stagnant debates on these processes. Offering a needed alternative perspective and real insights into the process of implementing performance improvements, this book will prove invaluable to advanced students and MBAs studying quality, performance improvement, operations management, and HRM.

Like top-notch athletes, corporations need to stay in fighting shape to compete. And assessing the fitness-both functionally and financially-of every corporate operation and activity is the role played by the benchmarking process. Not simply a detailed company physical that isolates operational weaknesses and fiscal bloat, when effectively implemented, benchmarking also represents the cure-a set of best practice guidelines for maximizing performance, guiding the company toward corporate health, while cleaning up operating inefficiencies and financial waste.

Written by a leading benchmarking authority, Benchmarking Strategies is a state-of-the-art how-to manual for transforming your organization into a lean, optimally performing endurance runner-no matter what sort of shape your company is in now. In a practical, user-friendly format, Reider helps you identify just what sort of businesses your company is in (and not in), develop a set of benchmarks and basic business principles as part of a corporate strategic plan, identify areas or functions that need improvement, implement best practices in a companywide program of continuous improvement, and develop performance measures to chart genuine gains as a learning organization.

A best practice is defined not simply as an operational change that is cost effective, but one that moves the company toward fulfilling the expectations of its stakeholders (from boards of directors, CEOs, and frontline employees to vendors and customers). The book then offers a practical vision of achievable excellence in which every activity affects every other and every employee and department is a shaper of corporate destiny. In clear, practical language, Benchmarking Strategies de-cants the often unwieldy theory behind corporate improvement into expert advice on:
* Benchmarking principles, techniques, and implementation
* Identifying your company's basic operational principles
* Benchmarks for organizational growth-including cost reductions, price and sales volume increases, and new distribution channels
* Strategies for gaining competitive advantage-not just meeting your competition but surpassing them
* How effective benchmarking encompasses both internal and external needs

Offering the insight, wisdom, and hard-nosed realism of a seasoned coach, Benchmarking Strategies is the essential manual to making excellence an ongoing reality in every corner of your firm and to transforming a good organization into a world-class competitor.

Find out how operationally and financially fit your company really is . . .and the secret to transforming it into a tough competitor if it isn't. Both the diagnosis and the cure for an out-of-shape organization, benchmarking is one of the most effective regimens available for transforming any company into an optimally functioning, world-class performer. Used in a program of continuous improvement, benchmarking is a process that allows a company to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of each of its activities and operations and put in place a set of best practices designed to move the company toward improved performance and profits. And Benchmarking Strategies shows you exactly how.

Written by one of its leading experts, Benchmarking Strategies is a practical manual to benchmarking principles, techniques, and implementation, outlining just how to set up benchmarking criteria, monitor overall progress-while fulfilling the expectations of the company's various stakeholders.

Inside, you'll find expert guidance on:
* Developing benchmarks and basic business principles for your company as part of a detailed corporate strategic plan.
* Identifying internal operational areas or functions to benchmark and establishing best practice target triggers for building internal excellence in Using external benchmarks to compare your company to competitors, industry, and best-in-class functions to become the best you can be.

Projects are inherently risky, since they involve some level of uncertainty, doing something new in the target environment, but the percentage of projects seen as a success is still disappointingly low, especially for IT projects. The 'Iron Triangle' of time/cost/quality suggests that all three aspects are equal, but with quantitative methods for monitoring project performance, the focus is primarily on managing cost and time. This book seeks to redress the balance, explaining the rationale and benefits of focusing more on quality (fitness for purpose and conformance to requirements) before detailing a range of tools and techniques to support rebalancing the management of projects, programmes and portfolios. It shows how managing project quality actively can reduce costs through minimising wastage, and reduce delays through avoiding rework, leading to improved project success rates and customer satisfaction.

Negotiation is an essential skill for all those operating commercially on behalf of their organisations. The ability to negotiate quotations, tenders, proposals, internal and external stakeholders, licensing agreements and so on, could form a critical part of any employee's role, be it on the buy or supply side. The Negotiation Handbook is a useful guide for all those wanting to understand how to apply tools and techniques to the negotiation process. This handbook has been subdivided into seven key sections, each representing a key phase in the negotiation process. The models and concepts are presented so that both a pictorial and explanatory commentary is available to the reader. This practical handbook supports all those working in a commercial capacity, so that they may apply commonly used tools and techniques and gain maximum benefit on behalf of their employers.

This practical text provides an up-to-date guide to the introduction, development and advancement of TQM. Combining theory and practice it adopts a balanced approach relevant to practising managers and students.

"Total Quality Management Blueprint" explores key issues and cutting-edge tools and techniques in a simple and practical style. Drawing on case studies, industrial practice and empirical research the text guides readers through the influence of quality management gurus, quality awards and self assessment, quality costing, quality management systems, teamwork, training, and business process management. Not only do both authors facilitate a thorough understanding of TQM, but Heather Bunney acts as a role model for aspiring female industrialists.

Take a look at the cover of this book, particularly the two images you see there. One image is of electronic components, which makes sense-quality management has been an important tool in the electronics industry for some time now. The other image however is a little more surprising. What does a short-order cook have to do with quality? The answer is simple-quality is needed everywhere, from high-tech manufacturing to pancakes. In fact, quality management is vital to the production of just about any goods, services, or information products you can imagine. This book is all about quality-how to achieve it, how to measure it, how to maintain it. In it, you'll explore all aspects of quality, from quality of goods and services to the processes that are necessary to achieve quality. Plus, this book will show you quality management in action. A series of real-life cases illustrate how theory hits the workplace, including:
* The Pancake Dilemma, in which you are asked to determine a pancake quality improvement plan
* Acme Electronics, in which you are asked to critique their new quality programs, and list some specific steps to take to improve them.

Risk management and measurement are now, without doubt, the hottest topics in the finance world. Today, quantifying risk management is not only a management tool — but is also used by regulators for banks and finance houses. Beyond Value at Risk provides a comprehensive guide to recent developments and existing approaches to VaR and risk management, going beyond traditional approaches to the subject and offering a new, far-reaching perspective on investment, hedging and portfolio decision-making. The key to this distinctive approach is a new decision rule — the ‘Generalised Sharpe Rule’, and its practical applications. Beyond Value at Risk provides the answers to key questions, including:

• How to implement VaR and related systems in the real world
• How to make vital investment decisions and estimate their effect
• How to make hedging decisions
• How to manage a portfolio

To understand and profit from Total Quality Management, companies must pay particular attention to the first word in the phrase—total. The spectacular rewards enjoyed by top companies like 3M, FedEx, and Ben & Jerry's were earned through a total commitment to achieving superior quality and customer satisfaction across all company functions and processes.

Total Quality Management, Second Edition gives you a completely up-to-date look at how 51 of the world's most successful companies put the total into TQM. Each of these companies, including 13 new additions and 23 Baldrige Award winners, is cited as a benchmark performer in a particular business function. Their examples help you set your sights on specific goals and learn a variety of ways to go about achieving each goal. Each chapter features the best practices of one manufacturing company, one service company, and one small business. Following the examples set by these overachievers, you'll discover how to:

• Lead the transition from traditional management to management by quality
• Identify customer needs and use that knowledge to drive the organization
• Integrate strategic quality and business planning into a single strategic process
• Communicate customer and company requirements throughout your organization
• Recognize and reward employee efforts and promote improved quality
• Establish uniform measurement systems and manage by fact, not fiction
• Borrow shamelessly from industry leaders to encourage breakthrough thinking
• Build strengths and eliminate weaknesses through an annual assessment process.

Fully updated—the book that puts the total into.

Total Quality Management.

In this book, the former chairman of the Baldrige Award panel of judges teams up once again with a leading quality consultant to bring you a Baldrige-based TQM model that covers every aspect of your business. Built from the best practices of 51 companies (including 23 Baldrige Award winners) whose star performances have made them benchmark corporations, this book brings you:

• Best practices and TQM applications from small businesses, huge corporations, and everything in between
• TQM practices from retail stores, service companies, manufacturers, and more
• Hundreds of real-world examples, tested processes, and innovative techniques
• Proven ways to boost profits, inspire workers, and delight customers.

Praise for the First Edition

"Alive . . . vivid, entertaining, successful. . . . Even the most inexperienced can understand and implement TQM using this book."—Charles A. Aubrey Vice President, Juran Institute.

"If you read only one book about quality management, read this one . . . the definitive management handbook of the decade."—Lynn A. Moline Former Executive Director, Minnesota Council for Quality.

"A great book about a better way to run a company."—Bob G. Gower President and CEO, Lyondell Petrochemical Co.

"Packed with strategies that can be implemented in any organization . . . must reading for those interested in proven quality strategies."—Ellen Gaucher Senior Associate Director, University of Michigan Medical Center

"Get it. This book is jammed full of practical case studies from a management and profitability perspective."—C. Jackson Grayson Jr. Chairman, American Productivity and Quality Center.

Supplemented with an updated list of resources and a contact list for all profiled companies, Total Quality Management, Second Edition shows you how to lead your organization straight to the cutting edge of quality and keep it there.

Any management team interested in making best use of tools and techniques would benefit from studying the contents of this book. A conscious effort has been made to produce the text in language which is free from jargon.

The emphasis of Quality is pervading every facet of business, and managers are required to know and apply TQM principles. This book explores the strategic role of quality global competition, the roles of management in attaining quality excellence, the structures and systems needed to support a total quality strategy, and the main statistical and analytical tools for achieving quality improvement and control.

Written by the ISO 9000 authority, Greg Hutchins, The ISO 9000 Workbook is a comprehensive resource that will assist any information and updates on ISO standards. The Workbook outlines a proven approach to developing and maintaining quality systems documentation. Starting with a review of quality procedures, work instructions, and quality manuals, Hutchins includes a complete explanation of how to prepare each type of quality documentation. Sample Quality Manuals are included along with step-by-step advice and guidelines. ISO implementation teams and team leaders will see invaluable guidelines on preparing vital quality procedures and work instructions. Hutchins outlines an easy-to-follow process for developing this level of quality documentation. In addition, The Workbook includes dozens of sample quality procedures and work instructions for a wide variety of business processes.

This book introduces fundamental, advanced, and future-oriented scientific quality management methods for the engineering and manufacturing industries. It presents new knowledge and experiences in the manufacturing industry with real world case studies. It introduces Quality 4.0 with Industry 4.0, including quality engineering tools for software quality and offers lean quality management methods for lean manufacturing. It also bridges the gap between quality management and quality engineering, and offers a scientific methodology for problem solving and prevention. The methods, techniques, templates, and processes introduced in this book can be utilized in various areas in industry, from product engineering to manufacturing and shop floor management. This book will be of interest to manufacturing industry leaders and managers, who do not require in-depth engineering knowledge. It will also be helpful to engineers in design and suppliers in management and manufacturing, all who have daily concerns with project and quality management. Students in business and engineering programs may also find this book useful as they prepare for careers in the engineering and manufacturing industries. Presents new knowledge and experiences in the manufacturing industry with real world case studies Introduces quality engineering methods for software development Introduces Quality 4.0 with Industry 4.0 Offers lean quality management methods for lean manufacturing Bridges the gap between quality management methods and quality engineering Provides scientific methodology for product planning, problem solving and prevention management Includes forms, templates, and tools that can be used conveniently in the field

This text has been written for managers in higher education as well as for headteachers and deputy heads in the school sector.;"Total quality management" (TQM) is a philosophy and a methodology that is widely used in business, and increasingly in education, to manage change or other processes. With the pressure for change and quality in education never more acute, this book provides an opportunity for readers in education to acquaint themselves with TQM.;Revised and updated, this edition introduces the key concepts of TQM in the education context. It discusses organizational, leadership and teamwork issues and the tools and techniques of TQM. This text should help educators develop a framework for quality management in their school, college, department or university.

A research network has examined how quality management is implemented in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Germany, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The research has taken place within the framework of the Leonoardo Da Vinci pogramme. Managers of SMEs in the metalworking and food processing industries were asked what the consequences of the implementation of quality management were for the qualification needs of employees. This book presents the survey results as two sector studies. Analysed are competitive and specialisation tendencies of the sectors and company concepts of "Quality" and "Personnel" including current profiles of quality-related skill demands on staff as well as current training areas in the companies. Special objectives are: Anticipation of qualification needs for preventive vocational training strategies; Documentation of good practice and typical barriers as support for practitioners within SMEs and training bodies.

This book shows how to consistently obtain annual and multiannual manufacturing target profit regardless of the evolution of sales volumes, increasing or decreasing, using the Manufacturing Cost Policy Deployment (MCPD) system. Managers and practitioners within the manufacturing companies will discover a practical approach within the MCPD system that will help them develop and support their long-term, medium-term, and short-term profitability and productivity strategy. The book presents both the basic concepts of MCPD and the key elements of transforming manufacturing companies through MCPD system, as well as supporting the consistent growth of external and internal profit by directing all systematic and systemic improvements based on meeting the annual and multiannual Manufacturing Cost Improvement (MCI) targets and means for each Product-Family Cost (PFC). This book is unique because it presents two types of systematic and systemic improvement projects for MCI that have been applied over the years in various multinational manufacturing companies operating in highly competitive markets, in order to address the consistent reduction of unit manufacturing costs by improving the Cost of Losses and Waste (CLW). Readers will discover the practical approach of MCI based on a structured approach to MCPD system beyond the traditional approach to manufacturing improvements based mainly on improved time and quality. Therefore, from the perspective of the MCPD system, the multiannual manufacturing target profits are met while the annual and multiannual manufacturing target costs are a predetermined stake and not a result of the improvements already made.

A research network has examined how quality management is implemented in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe and what the consequences are for the qualification needs of employees. The research has taken place within the framework of the Leonardo da Vinci programme, which is an action programme of the European Commission DG XXII - Education Training and Youth. This book presents conclusions including three parts: "Results" deriving from the sector studies - specialised "Scientific contributions" of network partners - "Action-oriented dialogue" documenting comments of key actors in vocational training from the participating countries. Special objectives are: Support of quality-oriented development of SMEs and their staff; Support of quality-oriented development of vocational education and training; Support of implementation requirements including regional aspects.