Date of Award

9-1995

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

First Advisor

Cindy L. Fossum, PhD

Second Advisor

David J. Murphy, PhD

Abstract

Measurement provides factual information which is necessary for effective control of business processes. Implementing a Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy is a common process in many organizations today. The United States Air Force is using the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria to measure organizational performance in implementing the Quality Air Force (QAF) initiative. Unfortunately, the Baldrige-based unit self-assessment (USA) process is an inconsistent measure due to its subjectivity, and is also time consuming to use. This study determined that a new USA method based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was not a significant improvement over the existing QAF-USA method. Specifically, this study developed a new USA scoring method by adapting the AHP to use existing QAF evaluation criteria. A group of 11 evaluators used this new AHP-USA method to score a portion of a USA report, and they also compared the AHP-USA method to the QAF-USA method to gauge its understandability, usability, believability and applicability. The resulting data was used to determine the overall feasibility and desirability of using the new method as a replacement for the QAF-USA method.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GSM-LAS-95S-3

DTIC Accession Number

ADA300652

Comments

The author's Vita page is omitted.

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Logistics and Acquisition Management of The Air Force Institute of Technology

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