Ernesto Cilleruelo

ISO 9001 and residential homes for the elderly: a Delphi study

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to assess the appropriateness of applying the ISO 9001 quality standard to the residential aged‐care sector.Design/methodology/approach – The study undertakes a prospective qualitative survey using the Delphi methodology. A panel of 14 experts in the field constitutes the panel.Findings – ISO 9001 has certain shortcomings in the context of the residential aged‐care sector. There is a need to fit generic quality‐management models to the specific characteristics of the sector, and to integrate those generic quality management models with specialised models.Practical implications – Managers of residential aged‐care services should ensure: that they have sufficient resources to implement quality‐management models; that all personnel are involved in the implementation; and that generic models are appropriately adapted to the specific needs of the aged‐care sector.Originality/value – The paper provides an original conceptual overview of the application of a generic quality...

Standardization of management systems in Spanish care homes

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to give a brief introduction to the global phenomenon of standardization of management systems and to analyze the case of Spanish care homes.Design/methodology/approach – Observation and interviews were conducted with top and middle managers, consultants and employees of UNE 158001 certified Spanish care homes. The paper analyzes the impact of UNE 158001 standards for residential homes for the elderly, the only specific standard for care homes that has been enacted by a European standardization body.Findings – Those homes which have implemented and certified the UNE 158001 standard point out that the application of this standard has not been difficult, thanks to the prior implementation of the ISO 9001:2000 standard, and also due to the fact that most of the requirements laid down by the UNE 158001 standard were already deemed to be customary according in their systems, with only some “minor” requirements needing change. The reasons behind the implementation the UN...

Design and Implementation of a Cloud Computing Adoption Decision Tool: Generating a Cloud Road

Migrating to cloud computing is one of the current enterprise challenges. This technology provides a new paradigm based on “on-demand payment” for information and communication technologies. In this sense, the small and medium enterprise is supposed to be the most interested, since initial investments are avoided and the technology allows gradual implementation. However, even if the characteristics and capacities have been widely discussed, entry into the cloud is still lacking in terms of practical, real frameworks. This paper aims at filling this gap, presenting a real tool already implemented and tested, which can be used as a cloud computing adoption decision tool. This tool uses diagnosis based on specific questions to gather the required information and subsequently provide the user with valuable information to deploy the business within the cloud, specifically in the form of Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions. This information allows the decision makers to generate their particular Cloud Road. A pilot study has been carried out with enterprises at a local level with a two-fold objective: to ascertain the degree of knowledge on cloud computing and to identify the most interesting business areas and their related tools for this technology. As expected, the results show high interest and low knowledge on this subject and the tool presented aims to readdress this mismatch, insofar as possible.

Clusterization and mapping of waste recycling science. Evolution of research from 2002 to 2012

Characterization of waste recycling (WR) research has to start by defining the scope of this scientific area. Previous works and expert assessment recommend the adoption of an inclusive definition, with the aim of including all relevant uses of waste within this study. An ad‐hoc designed “capture” strategy has been used to retrieve WR‐related peer‐reviewed journal papers from selected databases, and the information contained in their author keyword field has been thoroughly cleaned. Author keyword co‐occurrence data have been used for building a similarity measure between keywords, plus cluster analysis for revealing the main WR research being addressed by the scientific community. Results have been further analyzed using advanced visualization tools to determine which clusters formed strongly‐linked research areas that could set the main cognitive divisions of WR science. This process has been repeated with 2002 and 2012 data, and science maps reflecting the main research areas and clusters have been generated. Results show that WR mainly deals with the recovery of basic, widely used raw materials like water and fertile soil. Energy generation and waste management are other relevant fields that show an interesting evolution, revealing signs of growth in research, together with the emergence of sub‐areas reflecting consolidating research specialties.

Forecasting the Big Services Era: Novel Approach Combining Statistical Methods, Expertise and Technology Roadmapping

This paper aims at proposing a novel approach to gathering and structuring information concerning an emerging technology, generating a relevant profile, identifying its past evolution, forecasting the short and medium-term evolution and integrating all of the elements graphically into a hybrid roadmap. The approach combines four families of technological forecasting methods, namely: Statistical Methods in terms of Bibliometrics and Data Mining; Trend Analysis; Descriptive Methods in terms of Technological Roadmapping; and Expertise. Its future application to forecast the evolution of emerging IT trends in current entities, which are creating the Big Services era, is proposed as future work.

Adoption of ISO 9000 management standard in EU's transition economies: the case of the Baltic states

This article analyzes the dissemination of the main global management standards, the ISO 9000, within the transition economies of the European Union (EU). In the article, the specific case of the Baltic States is analyzed in depth. The work refers to the diffusion of the ISO 9000 standard in the Baltic States in terms of its certification intensity and sectorial distribution. Likewise, the work refers to the huge increase of certifications achieved by the countries and the other transition economies in the previous years of their adhesion to the European Union in years 2004 and 2007. The conclusions drawn in the article may be of interest both for academic and professional spheres of activity but, overall, for public-decisors.

Knowledge Management Practices in SME: Case Study in Basque Country SME

In a competitive market like the current one, knowledge and its management have become the best partner to generate competitive advantages in small and medium enterprises. It is important for country economic development that SMEs, as main source of wealth, manage their intangible resources to continue creating value, both business and social, and get to be leader in an international and competitive market, in order to gain advantages to present difficult situation due to financial crisis. Therefore, this research study analyzes what the current situation of Knowledge Management in Basque Country SMEs is. More specifically, the use of Knowledge Management practices and strategies for capture explicit and tacit knowledge have been studied in depth, in order to identify what practices and knowledge capture strategies are the most frequent and what activity sector and size of SME, by number of employees, are using them more intensely.

Visualizing the Scientific Landscape Using Maps of Science

The use of tech-mining tools in Science and Technology databases can provide vital information to understand and foresee innovation processes. Some of that information can be visualized by using a wide variety of maps, which gives fast, intuitive comprehension of the social and cognitive structure of the analyzed topic. Among these, the maps of science are used to reflect graphically the structure, evolution and main actors of a given scientific field. Institutions can use maps of science with various purposes, ranging from benchmarking to the assessment of strategic choices about their position and direction in R&D efforts. The aim of this paper is to give a brief state-of-the-art review of science maps as visualization tools.

Forecasting Cloud Computing: Producing a Technological Profile

Migrating to cloud computing is one of the current enterprise challenges. In this sense, the small and medium enterprise should be the most interested, given that initial investments are avoided and the technology offers gradual implementation. However, 54.9 % of SMEs confess that they have no knowledge of cloud technology. Accordingly, this paper aims at generating a relevant profile of cloud computing technology, as the first part of a novel approach based on four families of technological forecasting methods to gather and structure information concerning an emerging technology, generating a relevant profile, identifying its past development, forecasting the short and medium-term evolution and integrating all of the elements graphically into a hybrid roadmap. The outcome of the approach will raise the awareness of such technology as well as facilitate its implementation.

Depicting Big Data: Producing a Technological Profile

Emerging Technologies are having a huge impact in the income statement of current enterprises and therefore they must be adopted as soon as possible. Thus, any attempt to introduce the characteristics and evolution of this kind of technologies is helpful for decision makers. In this sense, this paper aims at depicting Big Data, one of these cutting edge technologies, by obtaining a complete profile of it and generating the bases for a valid forecast. The approach is made within the Information Structuring and Technological Forecasting fields, with the application of several methods, namely: Text Mining and Natural Language Processing, Visualization Techniques and Trend Analysis.