A Fuzzy Logic Model to Enhance Quality Management on R&D Units

Abstract

Nowadays, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), are becoming even more competitive, with the public ones, facing at the same time a greater restriction on public funding. Therefore, HEIs, have to be more effective and more efficient as well, on pursuing their own goals, which includes Research and Development (R&D) units as well. Such demands can be achieved, by enhancing R&D’s global performance. Therefore, the use of a framework such as European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), can bring value to an organization with the characteristics of a R&D unit. This work presents a new integrated method based on EFQM model, by using Fuzzy Logic, to enhance the organizations’ overall performance. The applicability of the proposed approach is demonstrated by a case study in a R&D unit, where an initial performance evaluation takes place, by using RADAR’s Logic approach. The proposed method, based on Fuzzy Logic, is then applied, followed by the identification of the strength points as well as the improvement areas, according to the EFQM framework. Then, the improvement actions with high priority are determined, followed by the correspondent action measures. Keywords: Quality management, Fuzzy logic, EFQM