--- Quality Assurance and Quality – Access to Success: Two Representative Journals of the Field Published in Romania on an Anniversary Milestone
Author(s): BACIVAROV, Ioan
Issue: Volume XIV, Issue 2, Year 2025
Quality – a century-old science – is an essential component of the success of a product or service, a company and ultimately even a country (see Japan or more recently other Asian “tigers”).
Romania, which has been undergoing a forced industrialization process since the 1970s, understood this – with all the limitations and obstacles specific to the era – and in establishing the General State Inspectorate for Product Quality Control (IGSCCP) in 1971, it created the premises for implementing more efficient procedures for product quality control, especially for those destined for export. In the same year, IGSCCP began publishing the monthly journal Calitatea producției și metrologie (Production Quality and Metrology), designed to present modern methods in the field of quality control and reliability.
Unfortunately, economic limitations caused this journal, which featured many of the best specialists of the era, to cease publication in 1974.
Despite the economic difficulties and constraints of the era, in 1985, through the efforts of a group of specialists, who managed to highlight the importance of the fields, a new Romanian magazine was approved: Calitate, Fiabilitate, Metrologie (Quality, Reliability, Metrology) – coordinated by Dan Stoichitoiu (Editor-in-Chief) and Veronel Antonescu, Ioan Bacivarov, and Ulrich Wiener (as Responsible Editors of the Quality, Reliability, and Metrology sections, respectively). This magazine was published – with a frequency of 12 issues per year – until the early 1990s. It is interesting to note that the first appearance of this journal in the year 1990, was a special issue dedicated to the “Reliability of electronic components”, coordinated by Ioan Bacivarov and Marius Bazu.
After the political changes in 1989, concerns about quality experienced a real “boom”, specialists in the field considering that this can be an important argument for the success of any enterprise or company. At the beginning of the 1990s, several organizations and associations in the field of quality and reliability were established, some of them organizing conferences and symposia, and a small number of them publishing – for a shorter or longer period – specialized magazines.
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(a) The cover of an issue from 1989 of the journal “Calitate, Fiabilitate, Metrologie”
(b) Editorial Board structure of the magazine for the period 1985-1993
In 1993, the Romanian Society for Quality Assurance (SRAC) was founded, which would become – in the following decades – the leader of the certification and conformity assessment market in Romania and one of the important organizations in the field in Central and Eastern Europe.
Later SRAC CERT becomes the Romanian certification body with the largest recognition of the marks and certificates nationwide, mainly due to IQNet Partnership and RENAR accreditation body – signatory of EA-MLA (European Multilateral Agreement).
In addition to other Romanian organizations in the field, SRAC has chosen to permanently promote the culture and science of quality and reliability through a bi-annual international conference – International Conference on Quality and Dependability (CCF), as well as of two specialized journals: Quality Assurance and Quality – Access to Success, which have achieved important international recognition over time. As a member of the SRAC Board of Directors, Professor Ioan Bacivarov*, Director of the EUROQUALROM Laboratory at ETTI – UPB, has coordinated the conference and SRAC’s scientific publications for almost 3 decades.
Professor Ioan Bacivarov, PhD and Dan Stoichitoiu, PhD, the President of SRAC, two pioneers of the field of quality and reliability in Romania who are linked not only by a long and fruitful scientific collaboration, but also by a strong friendship
Asigurarea Calității – Quality Assurance
It was the first journal in the field published under the aegis of SRAC. The first issue of the journal appeared in early 1995, printed by Technical Publishing House (Editura Tehnică). The journal appeared uninterruptedly for almost two and a half decades in print (with 32 pages in A4 format) and since 2005 in online format, too.
The covers of the first two issues of the journal “Quality Assurance”, published in 1995
Since 2000, the journal has become international and changed its name to Asigurarea Calității – Quality Assurance.
As mentioned on the second cover of the publication, Asigurarea Calității – Quality Assurance is a peer-reviewed quarterly international journal aimed at disseminating significant theoretical and practical results in the field of quality and dependability (reliability, maintainability, availability, safety / security a.o.) engineering, assurance and management. An important aim of this journal was to achieve a balance between academic material and practical applications.
Throughout its existence, the Editor-in-Chief of the journal was Prof. Ioan Bacivarov, who coordinated a distinguished International Advisory Board, which ensured the review and selection of published articles.
The structure of the Editorial Board of the journal Asigurarea Calității – Quality Assurance in 2018
The journal “Asigurarea Calității – Quality Assurance” has been included in important international databases, and over time, authors from over 25 countries have published their works here.
This journal has published several special issues, including: “Modern Approaches in Quality Engineering, Assurance, Management and Education. European Dimensions” (coordinated by Professors Ton van der Wiele and Ioan Bacivarov – 1998), and “Quality Management, Assurance and Certification in Higher Education” (2002), “Centennial Joseph M. Juran” (2004), “Advances in Quality Management – A Tribute to Joseph M. Juran” (2008),”90 Years of Modern Quality” (2014),”Cyber-Security” (2017) a.o., all coordinated by Prof. Ioan Bacivarov.
Some of the covers of the special issues of the journal Asigurarea Calității – Quality Assurance (created by Gabriel Petrică)
I would like to especially mention the special issue dedicated to the analysis of the 2015 version of the ISO 9001 standard (which is the most well-known and widely used international standard), published in September 2015, simultaneously with its launch by ISO. For this special issue, the Editor-in-Chief of the journal managed to gather together the views of the coordinators of the main organizations responsible for the development and implementation of this standard, such as the International Organization for Standardization – ISO, the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), or the International Certification Network – IQNet, as well as other well-known international experts.
Calitatea- Acces la succes / Quality – Access to Success
The second publication in the field, published under the aegis of SRAC – the magazine Calitatea – Acces la succes (Quality – Access to Success) was launched in September 2000 during the international conference CCF 2000, during a ceremony that took place at the Sinaia Casino in the presence of the publishers and of the main editors of the magazine.
The same ceremony also saw the launch of the French-speaking world magazine Qualité – Forum Scientifique, in the presence of the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine, Prof. Bruno-Marie Bechard, PhD. (Canada).
Launching of the journal Calitatea – Acces la succes (Quality – Access to Success) at the Sinaia Casino – during the international conference CCF 2000 in the presence of Prof. Ioan Bacivarov, PhD (Senior Editor of the journal), Prof. Bruno-Marie Bechard, PhD (Canada), Dan Stoichitoiu, PhD (President of SRAC), Bogdan Ficeac (Director of Societatea R – România Liberă) and Eugen Chirovici (Editor in Chief of the journal) – from left to right
This journal, benefiting from an excellent graphic presentation**, was conceived as a publication in the field of quality management.
In the first years of its publication, in addition to specialized articles, the journal included several permanent columns, such as “Sacred Monsters of Quality” (in which Dr. Ioan Bacivarov presented the life and contributions of the great “gurus” of quality) and “Q Dictionary” in which Dr. Viorel Voda presented and commented on the main terms of the field of quality. Conferences and specialized bodies in the field of quality were also analyzed.
In the first decade of publication, the magazine also included the permanent column “Information Society“, elaborated by Prof. Ioan Bacivarov.
The way in which the launch of the publication within CCF 2000 was reflected in the pages of the magazine Calitatea – Acces la succes in November 2000
Two covers of the journal Calitatea – Acces la succes / Quality – Access to Success
As Senior Editor of the journal Calitatea – Acces la succes / Quality – Access to Success, I would like to mention that I had a special human relationship and an excellent collaboration with the two Editors-in-Chief who coordinated the magazine for almost two and a half decades: Mr. Eugen Chirovici (in the early years) and Mr. Tudor Maruntelu, later, two true professionals of the press.
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The structure of Editorial Boards of the journal Calitatea – Acces la succes / Quality – Access to Success in the year 2000 (a) and in the year 2022 (b)
Starting with 2010, the management policy of the journal changed, aiming to transform it into a high-level scientific journal, which would publish only articles in English in the field of management systems and which could be included in prestigious international databases. The title of the journal became Calitatea – Acces la succes / Quality – Access to Success.
The Editorial Advisory Board was greatly expanded and supplemented with specialists who could ensure the complex review procedures in a timely manner.
Through an intense managerial effort, which involved complicated evaluation procedures, the journal was included in important international databases, including Scopus, EBSCO, PROQUEST, and listed in Cabell’s White List. As a culmination of this effort, the journal was included, starting with 2014, in the prestigious Web of Science – ESCI, thus becoming an ISI-listed publication.
This made the journal highly sought after as a platform for publishing research results, mainly by the academic and research environment. Specialists from over 30 countries have published their results in this journal. The journal continues to appear today, but since 2024 it has changed its publisher and management.
*It should be mentioned that Dr. Ioan Bacivarov already had – at the beginning of the 1990s – a very good experience in the field of conferences and journals in the field of quality and dependability: he was a member of the International Scientific Committees of the main international conferences in the field, including the European Safety and Reliability Conference – ESREL, Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management – PSAM, QUALITA, a.o. and a member of the International Advisory Editorial Boards of prestigious international journals such as Quality Engineering (U.S.A.), Reliability Engineering & System Safety, Maintenance Management International (Elsevier Applied Science, U.K.) – future ISI publications, Forum Qualite Scientifique (Canada) a.o.
**Dr. V. Voda and Dr. D. Stoichitoiu, analyzing in their excellent book “History of Quality” (2002) the Romanian magazines in the field of quality, mentioned about the journal Calitatea – Acces la succes – apart from its remarkable scientific qualities – the excellent graphic printing conditions of the publication: “polychrome on acid-free extra vellum paper, with high-resolution photographic reproductions”.
Title: Quality Assurance and Quality – Access to Success: Two Representative Journals of the Field Published in Romania on an Anniversary Milestone
Author(s): BACIVAROV, Ioan
Publication: International Journal of Information Security and Cybercrime
ISSN: 2285-9225, e-ISSN: 2286-0096
Issue: Volume XIV, Issue 2, Year 2025
Section: Books Reviews and Conferences Analysis
Page Range: 61-68
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