Various quality management concepts are in practice in Japanese manufacturing companies for many decades. It is widely known that companies that embrace quality management concepts are able to achieve better quality results and hence business excellence. However, over the years, these quality management practices, particularly the quality management infrastructure practices (QMIP) and quality management core practices (QICP) have become quite dynamic and started influencing for varying quality results. Under this belief, it is attempted to measure the influence of changes in quality management practices on different quality results (both internal and external) in Japanese manufacturing companies. For this purpose a well structured survey is conducted with questions on both present state of activities and the changes that occur over time in the same activities. The survey data are used to test several hypotheses proposed under four different model settings. The outcomes of the study are discussed in detail. (72 refs.)
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