Computer supported visualisation of quality systems developed by network teams

This paper reports a pilot study and three case studies to examine aimed at studying if a quality system, according to the ISO 9000 quality standard, can be visualised, exploring how the visualisation should be designed in order to support continuous improvements and evaluating the design process for development of prototypes. By discussing with the research team, three companies in southern Sweden set up design teams to establish principles for visualisations of their quality systems on their intranets. Together with one of the researchers, the design teams created and evaluated computer supported prototypes and exchanged ideas between the teams via the Internet. The results show that quality systems can be adequately visualised and that the companies preferred descriptions of the physical plant layout containing symbols that connect to further information by hyperlinks. A quality system based on computer supported visualisation will make the quality system more understandable and have better possibilities to engage personnel in the quality work; it will be faster, easier, and more interesting to use than systems with only paper documents. The use of design teams with access to each other's prototypes via the Internet supported the design process by stimulating generation of ideas and solutions to visualise a quality system.