Information Management Process in Continuous Improvement Area at Worldwide Steel Company - Enterprise Information Systems Design, Implementation and Management: Organizational Applications - page 179

referenciAL theorY to predict, uniqueness related to its business and

ability to share. The companies that have flex-
ibility to react to market changes are more likely
to last. However, having access of information
is not enough; it is necessary to know how and
when to use it.
It seems to be growing the feeling that world
events are rapidly converging to shape a world
that is unique, integrated and which influences
economic, cultural or any other traditional cross
borders very easily. The implications of these
changes are significant and affect all spheres of
life, providing new challenges for all organizations
(Parker, 1998, p.400).
An example of such change that is impacting
the whole economy is the steel industry, which
has been growing and, according to Lopes (2007),
would grow even more.
In this optimistic scenario, in October 2006,
Mittal Steel took over the majority of the shares of
Arcelor and the company became ArcelorMittal,
the largest steel group in the world.
It is necessary to emphasize that this study
was conducted in an environment of growth and
optimism in the steel market. Nevertheless, as
of September 2008 the world economic scene
changed dramatically and all sectors of the
economy were affected. The economic crisis
caused a drop in steel prices worldwide, reduction
of new applications and more factories stopped
production for a few weeks to reduce inventories.
In this scenario, the year of 2009 will be crucial
to redesign the way not only of the steel industry,
but the world economy.
The main objective of this paper is to find out
the characteristics of the appropriate model for
the information management exclusively for the
continuous improvement area in ArcelorMittal
Long Carbon Americas.

The theoretical framework was divided into five
major groups:

1. Continuous Improvement
2. Information and Knowledge
3. The Intelligent Organization
4. Information Environment
5. Information Management

continuous improvement

We must return to the concept of quality to speak
about continuous improvement within the organi-
zation and the context of this research.
For some authors, quality can mean the fit for
use. For audit process it means meeting the require-
ments of standards. In the business environment,
the concept is tied to meeting the specifications of
the products required by customers. According to
Garvin (1992) (apud Cruz, Rodrigues and Nagano
2007), it can be defined in four stages of quality:

1. Phase of inspection (reactive): Focus on the
verification of compliance with the specifi-
cations of the pre-defined product;
2. Phase of the statistical process control (pre-
ventive): Focus on ensuring the uniformity
of the product;
3. Phase of quality control (preventive): Focus
comprises the tasks and the process beyond
the products;
4. Phase of Total Quality Management: At this
stage, the focus is on the overview of the
organization, seeking to integrate different
technical processes, operational and admin-
istrative, to the continuous improvement of
management in the organization.

Campos (1992) was one of the main advisers
of the cycle of PDCA (Deming Cycle), which
stands for Plan, Do, Check and Action (PDCA).
According to him, continuous improvement is