Abstract

VILAR HERNANDEZ, Juan; VELASCO GAMEZ, María del Mar  and  PUENTES POYATOS, Raquel. Efectos de la implantación de un sistema de gestión de la calidad en el proceso de elaboración de aceite de oliva: Un estudio internacional. Agroalim [online]. 2009, vol.15, n.29, pp.69-86. ISSN 1316-0354.

The aim of this paper is to make available, through an empirical study, whether the introduction of a quality management system in the olive oil extraction process according to the norm ISO 9001:2000 would have a positive impact on the quality of the final product. In order to achieve this objective, the data analyzed were collected by means of questionnaires sent to a sample of 2.800 olive oil plants, of which 501 answered to it. The statistical analysis of the data collected allowed classifying the olive oil plants in five clusters according to different standards of quality, as follows: very high, high, medium, low and very low. The membership to one or another cluster was determined by the involvement of each olive oil plant with six factors: characteristics of the milling process, the existence of complementary management methods, implementation of formative actions, treatment of basic processes, availability of alternative processes and classification methods for the products. The results obtained show that the introduction of a quality management system according to the norm ISO 9001:2000 in the olive oil extraction process allows a percentage increase in the obtaining of a product of quality.

Keywords : olive oil; quality management system; olive oil plant; ISO 9001.