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School buses and minibuses are one of the major modes of traveling for students in the state of Qatar. Many studies pointed to the fact that school buses travelling are safer for students than walking or car riding (Bolte, et al., 2000; Hinch, et al., 2002). For that reason, safety measures and performance of school buses in the State of Qatar should be studied and evaluated carefully and wisely. The project aims were done through merged qualitative and quantitative methods. Initially a safety checklist was constructed for school buses and a comprehensive schools map to evaluate of the current safety measures in school buses and to understand the conditions around the surrounding areas like the location of the bus stops and the availability of signage. Then, the second step focuses on conducting a survey for school bus drivers, school bus guides, students, and parents. Finally, the third steps compares between the school bus safety strategies followed in the State of Qatar and the strategies followed in other high income countries. The results of the field visits revealed many very important statistics for all surveys on the safety of school bus and the surrounding areas as well as the behavior of students and drivers. The results revealed that most of the parents are not happy with the safety while loading and unloading and with the safety procedures. In addition, 43% of school bus users didn’t attend any training or workshops about the safety procedures in school bus. References: [1] Bolte, K. et al., 2000. Simulations of Large School Bus Crashes. [Online] Available at: http://papers.sae.org/2000-01-0469/ [Accessed 10 october 2014]. [2] Hinch, J. et al., 2002. School Bus Safety: Crashworthiness Research, Washington: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

A new periodic damage model is proposed in this paper, where the damage produced by shocks is only measured at periodic times, without considering the stochastic shocks and the cumulative process of damage in discrete times. We model five replacement policies for the periodic damage models using three approaches of whichever triggering event occurs first, whichever triggering event occurs last, and replacing over a planned measure, which are named as replacement first, replacement last, over-damage replacement, over-damage replacement first, and over-damage replacement last, respectively. In analytical ways, we obtain their optimum replacement policies to minimize the expected cost rates and compare them to find which model is more economical. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the validity of the presented models. This paper was made possible by PDRA Grant # PDRA1-0116-14107 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of The Qatar Foundation), and NPRP 4-631-2-233 Scopus

Presents the key findings of a study into quality practices of a number of organisations in one of the Arab countries, Qatar, which is recognised as one of the leading liquefied natural gas‐exporting regions since its reserves of gas represent about 7.4 per cent of the world total. The purposes of the study were to assess: the awareness, the understanding, the progress of, and reasons for the implementation of ISO 9000 and TQM; the obstacles encountered in TQM implementation; and the knowledge and/or practices of TQM related activities. The information was gathered using a questionnaire. The participating organisations, of which there were 143, ranged in size from large to small and came from the manufacturing, services and public sectors. The analysis of the survey data concluded that although there was a high level of enthusiasm regarding the practice of, or the need for, quality initiatives in the country, they were a long way behind those of Western organisations. Many reported an interest in ISO 9000 but due to a lack of understanding of the standard, it was often considered to be a quality model. The awareness and understanding of TQM was at a very low level and the main TQM success factors were not well‐known and practiced. Interest at the time was centred on ISO 9000 certification.

This paper presents a general framework for planning and optimizing Condition-Based Maintenance scheduling. We assume that the hazard function depends, not only on time, but also on the system state which degrades over time. The optimum threshold value triggering the maintenance is obtained by maximizing the system's availability over its life cycle. A numerical illustration is provided and some future research directions are discussed.

Background: Many failures of engineering structures and equipment are attributed to the failure of a single component. It is of great importance to identify those critical components and understand how components' criticality changes over time under dynamic environments. Objective: In this paper, we investigate the criticality analysis for components with multi-dimensional degradation under time-varying environmental conditions. Methods: The component degradation is modeled as a k-dimensional Wiener process and a component fails when any of the k degradation processes attains a threshold level. Results: Since the degradation process is often influenced by the environmental conditions, we assume that both the mean and diffusion of the degradation process are time-dependent functions for a given environmental profile, which evolves either deterministically or stochastically. Conclusions: We derive expression for the criticality measure of the component with time, illustrate the analysis of component criticality under time-varying environmental conditions and demonstrate the necessity to consider the change of environmental conditions in analyzing component criticality.

Background: Traffic accidents have become a social scourge more serious than may be expected. Traffic accidents are greatly concerning for all members of society, and have become one of its most important problems, draining human and material resources. This is in addition to the incurred problems of social, psychological and material losses. Road traffic accidents are increasingly being recognized as a growing public health problem in Qatar. Objective: The main aim of this work is to identify the factors affecting the road accidents in Qatar, and the model that predicts the number of road accidents by year 2022. Method: The number of road accidents can be predicting by the Accident Prediction Model - a mathematical formula describing the relation between the safety level of existing roads (i.e. crashes, victims, injured, fatalities), and variables that explain this level (population ,driving license, number of vehicles). The methods that describe the existing case in Qatar were the multiple linear regression model and the artificial neutral network. Those methods were analyzed and their findings compared. Results: In this study we used multiple linear regression (using number of vehicles, type of vehicles, population, number of driving license) and neural networks to both back-cast (1992-2012) and forecast accidents (2012-2022) in the state of Qatar. The results estimated that if there is no intervention the number of accidents is expected to reach 320,000 by 2022. Conclusions: The main causes of road accidents have remained much the same over time with reckless driving, speeding and lane changing errors (at roundabouts and on higher speed roads) responsible for more than 90% of accidents. Pedestrian fatalities and accidents are of particular concern in Qatar and the number of heavy vehicles using roads has also increased, causing additional safety issues. Road safety has been given high priority for some years in Qatar through extensive safety and awareness campaigns and more aggressive law enforcement, which over the last three years has helped reduce fatalities to their lowest mark in two decades.

Many complex maintainable systems are subject to multiple dependent failure modes. In this research, we introduce a new model for modeling the stochastically dependent time-to-maintenance and time-to-failure of different failure modes. The model is then utilized to obtain the optimum Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) schedules that maximizes the system availability over its life cycle, or, minimizes the long-run cost per unit time. The proposed method efficiently solves the condition-based maintenance-scheduling problem for system with multiple dependent failure modes, which has not been well addressed in the literature.

To adequately predict reliability and optimize the time-to-maintenance for complex system design and reliability problems, this research develops a new model for complex systems, which are subject to performance degradation and multiple dependent failure modes. In particular, the hazard rate corresponding to each failure mode depends both on time and system state. The system state stochastically degrades over time, and the degradation is described by a stochastic process. The degradation rate, in particular, depends on time and is also a function of the degradation level. This research develops a reliability model for complex systems, which are subject to performance degradation and multiple dependent failure modes. A joint model of system degradation and failure time is constructed. The system state stochastically degrades over time, and the degradation is described by a stochastic process. Unlike existing reliability models, we consider a realistic scenario where the degradation rate is, not only a function of time, but also the degradation level at that time. The goal of this research project is to develop the optimum Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) schedules. The developed model will be used as the basis in our future research on CBM scheduling.

This paper presents the results of a study to identify the real motives behind ISO 9000 Certification. Towards this goal, a survey of some 300 ISO 9000 certified companies has been carried out for Malaysian manufacturing companies. Statistical tests on its relationship with performance improvement and the overall benefits and the barriers on gaining ISO 9000 certification are done. The paper also reveals other factors influencing the performance of ISO 9000, for example, the period of time after the company has been certified and size of company. Finally, factor analysis is applied to identify the main factors in certification motives, benefits, barriers, and their in-between relationship.

The main purpose of this paper is to assess the experience of different organisations in the state of Qatar upon adopting the ISO 9000:2000 quality management standard. It is required to report the available motives, achieved benefits, difficulties encountered and success factors from adopting the standard among certified organisations, and obstacles from its adoption among non-certified organisations. The data collected for the research is from 47 certified organisations utilising a closed ended survey questionnaire. Among the most significant findings is the overall positive notion that the companies in the state of Qatar believe in the benefits and importance of adopting the ISO 9000:2000 standard. Most of these companies are convinced to adopt the standard as a result of its importance to improve process performance/product quality rather than pressure from external customers. In addition, it is proven through the context of this paper that utilising foreign consultants during the certification process to aid companies' staff help to resolve the main difficulty with the certification process that is the cultural change. Last but not the least, lack of time and lack of human resources were considered by the non-certified companies as the main obstacles for getting certified.

This paper has presented the results of a study on Critical Success Factors for Total Quality Management (TQM) implementation in UK organisations. A survey instrument (10 Success Factors) developed by Yusof and Aspinwall for use in the automotive sector was used after some modification. The findings have supported previous study and validated the instrument as a reliable tool. The results indicated that the Manufacturing sectors in UK is embarked towards quality excellence. Suggestions were made to replicate the study in some developing countries.

There is growing concern about why some organisations fail in their attempts to implement TQM and so few gain the benefits of such implementation. The literature often points to the constraining effects of an organisation's culture as a major barrier. Few studies, however, link organisational culture and TQM implementation. In short, understanding the relationship between an organisation's culture and TQM philosophy can provide a greater insight into the TQM implementation process. A well known framework for an organisational model, the Competing Values Framework (CVF), was used to identify the ideal cultural profile for TQM implementation. A questionnaire using the CVF, was sent to "Quality Experts" in the UK to help identify the ideal cultural characteristics that they believed would support the TQM philosophy and facilitate its implementation. The findings indicated that the ideal cultural characteristics in the context of TQM can be classified as a group and developmental culture. Its characteristics tend to be flexible and customer oriented which emphasises participation, innovation, concern for human resource development and an attempt to decentralise decision making. This paper shows that the CVF can be a useful tool in helping organisations study the change needed to reach a desired quality culture.