title: Effective supply chain research via the quick scan audit methodology

authors: Childerhouse, Paul

subjects: auditing

abstract: Purpose – This paper aims to provide an answer to the important question of how can accurate assessment of supply chain practice and performance be conducted? By conducting audits across a sample of value streams it is thereby possible to identify the components of “good practice” via evidence-based procedures.

Design/methodology/approach – Quick scan audit methodology (QSAM) is a site-based, team-oriented action research-led investigative technique for establishing meaningful “snapshots” of value stream behaviour. The participants cover both academic researchers and host organisation staff.

Findings – QSAM is found to output repeatable results enabling the transfer of technique between companies, between businesses, between market sectors, and between countries.

Research limitations/implications – Care must be taken when training new auditors and QSAM teams to ensure the required degree of consistency. There is no substitute for operating a “watch one, share one, do one” regimen.

Practical implications – The research purpose is to establish the performance vectors to enable effective value stream health comparisons to be made. Additionally “quick hits” (not “quick fixes”) may well be identified specific to an individual host organisation.

Originality/value – QSAM has already made an important contribution in enabling the gap between case-based and survey-based logistics research to be properly bridged.

text: Effective supply chain research via the quick scan audit methodology Purpose – This paper aims to provide an answer to the important question of how can accurate assessment of supply chain practice and performance be conducted? By conducting audits across a sample of value streams it is thereby possible to identify the components of “good practice” via evidence-based procedures.

Design/methodology/approach – Quick scan audit methodology (QSAM) is a site-based, team-oriented action research-led investigative technique for establishing meaningful “snapshots” of value stream behaviour. The participants cover both academic researchers and host organisation staff.

Findings – QSAM is found to output repeatable results enabling the transfer of technique between companies, between businesses, between market sectors, and between countries.

Research limitations/implications – Care must be taken when training new auditors and QSAM teams to ensure the required degree of consistency. There is no substitute for operating a “watch one, share one, do one” regimen.

Practical implications – The research purpose is to establish the performance vectors to enable effective value stream health comparisons to be made. Additionally “quick hits” (not “quick fixes”) may well be identified specific to an individual host organisation.

Originality/value – QSAM has already made an important contribution in enabling the gap between case-based and survey-based logistics research to be properly bridged.

year: 2010

title: The Challenge to Fijian Methodism - the vanua, identity, ethnicity and change

authors: Degei, Sekove. Bigitibau

subjects: Fijian Methodism

abstract: Christianity is the dominant religion in the Fiji islands today. However, this was not the case in the early eighteen hundreds. Back then, the Fijians had lived a life and culture of their own that was not known to the world. This all changed when different groups of Europeans started to arrive in the early eighteen hundreds.  Of these, the group that had the most influence on the Fijians was the English Wesleyan missionaries. The result of their evangelism was the establishment of the Methodist church in 1835.  This church is the dominant denomination in Christian Fiji and has been closely meshed with concepts of Fijian identity. However, the church's dominance is being challenged, partly because of the entwining of concepts of church and the vanua (land, people). Additionally the arrival of other, new denominations with their different ideologies has also affected the standing and influence of the Methodists.

In this thesis the way in which the missionaries had introduced themselves to the Fijians and how they influenced and converted them to Christianity are outlined.  This was not a one-way affair, where only the missionaries' ways of living and ideologies were involved.  They first had to accept the structure and some of the customs of the vanua before their mission could proceed. It was found that the influence and ideologies brought by the missionaries was incorporated into the vanua ideologies and has formed the basis of what became the Fijian way of life. When Fiji became a colony of Britain in 1874, the incorporation of the vanua and Methodist Christian ideologies and structure was well established. 

However, all these views, and the previously accepted local views of Fijian culture, have changed in response to the challenges from the new denominations.  The effect of these new approaches and ideologies on the vanua and the Methodists in Fiji is discussed. The outcome of this on-going situation is not yet clear.

text: The Challenge to Fijian Methodism - the vanua, identity, ethnicity and change Christianity is the dominant religion in the Fiji islands today. However, this was not the case in the early eighteen hundreds. Back then, the Fijians had lived a life and culture of their own that was not known to the world. This all changed when different groups of Europeans started to arrive in the early eighteen hundreds.  Of these, the group that had the most influence on the Fijians was the English Wesleyan missionaries. The result of their evangelism was the establishment of the Methodist church in 1835.  This church is the dominant denomination in Christian Fiji and has been closely meshed with concepts of Fijian identity. However, the church's dominance is being challenged, partly because of the entwining of concepts of church and the vanua (land, people). Additionally the arrival of other, new denominations with their different ideologies has also affected the standing and influence of the Methodists.

In this thesis the way in which the missionaries had introduced themselves to the Fijians and how they influenced and converted them to Christianity are outlined.  This was not a one-way affair, where only the missionaries' ways of living and ideologies were involved.  They first had to accept the structure and some of the customs of the vanua before their mission could proceed. It was found that the influence and ideologies brought by the missionaries was incorporated into the vanua ideologies and has formed the basis of what became the Fijian way of life. When Fiji became a colony of Britain in 1874, the incorporation of the vanua and Methodist Christian ideologies and structure was well established. 

However, all these views, and the previously accepted local views of Fijian culture, have changed in response to the challenges from the new denominations.  The effect of these new approaches and ideologies on the vanua and the Methodists in Fiji is discussed. The outcome of this on-going situation is not yet clear.

year: 2007

title: Revitalizing Te Ika-a-Maui: Māori migration and the nation

authors: Mahuika, Nepia

subjects: Māori

abstract: Maui-Tikitiki-A-Taranga is more than simply a ‘mythic’ hero. For many he is a prominent figure in a long family line. The whakapapa that binds Māori to our tupuna is significant to the present and future, and carries with it the ‘ultimate expression’ of who we are. Maui has been described as ‘the most important culture hero in Māori mythology’, whose exploits and archetype provide precedents that Māori respond to in the present. The status of Maui within my own tribal boundaries is clear: ‘In accordance with the traditions and tikanga of Ngati Porou, we as People of this Land have been here since the beginning of time, or more aptly in the context of Aotearoa, since Maui fished up Te Ika-a-Maui (North Island). Maui-Tikitiki-a-Taranga is attributed with fishing up the North Island, raising it out of the depths of the sea, for successive generations of Māori to populate and cultivate.’ Maui’s waka, as Ngāti Porou uphold, is Nukutaimemeha, believed to be ‘cradled’ upon our ancestral mountain Hikurangi. However, there are other stories that recognize the waka as the South Island, with Stewart Island its anchor. These variations aside, the history remains a well-rehearsed one throughout the Māori world and in other parts of Polynesia.

text: Revitalizing Te Ika-a-Maui: Māori migration and the nation Maui-Tikitiki-A-Taranga is more than simply a ‘mythic’ hero. For many he is a prominent figure in a long family line. The whakapapa that binds Māori to our tupuna is significant to the present and future, and carries with it the ‘ultimate expression’ of who we are. Maui has been described as ‘the most important culture hero in Māori mythology’, whose exploits and archetype provide precedents that Māori respond to in the present. The status of Maui within my own tribal boundaries is clear: ‘In accordance with the traditions and tikanga of Ngati Porou, we as People of this Land have been here since the beginning of time, or more aptly in the context of Aotearoa, since Maui fished up Te Ika-a-Maui (North Island). Maui-Tikitiki-a-Taranga is attributed with fishing up the North Island, raising it out of the depths of the sea, for successive generations of Māori to populate and cultivate.’ Maui’s waka, as Ngāti Porou uphold, is Nukutaimemeha, believed to be ‘cradled’ upon our ancestral mountain Hikurangi. However, there are other stories that recognize the waka as the South Island, with Stewart Island its anchor. These variations aside, the history remains a well-rehearsed one throughout the Māori world and in other parts of Polynesia.

year: 2009