Quality
The ability of a product or service to consistently meet or exceed customer expectations
Deming Prize
Prize established by the Japanese and awarded annually to firms that distinguish themselves with quality management programs.
Shewhart
Control Charts; Variance Reduction
Deming
14 points; special vs. common causes of variation
Juran
Quality is fitness-for-use; quality trilogy
Feigenbaum
quality is a total field; the customer defines quality
Crosby
quality is free, zero defects
Ishikawa
Cause-and-effect diagrams; quality circles
Taguchi
loss function
Ohno and Shingo
Continuous improvement
1. Design
2. How well the product or service conforms to the design
3. Service after delivery
What are the three determinants of quality?
Quality of design
Intention of designers to include or exclude features in a product or service
Quality of conformance
The degree to which goods or services conform to the intent of the designers
loss of business, liability, productivity, costs
What are four consequences of poor quality?
Appraisal Costs
Costs of activities designed to ensure quality or uncover defects
Prevention Costs
costs associated with preventing defects before they happen
Failure costs
costs caused by defective parts or products or by faulty services
Internal Failures
failures discovered during production
External Failures
failures discovered after delivery to the customer
Return on quality
an approach that evaluates the financial return of investments in quality
Baldrige Award
Annual award given by the U.S. government to recognize quality achievements of U.S. companies.
European Quality Award
European award for organizational excellence
ISO 9000
Set of international standards on quality management and quality assurance, critical to international business
ISO 14000
A set of international standards for assessing a company's environmental performance
ISO 24700
A set of international standards that pertains to the quality and performance of office equipment that contains reused components.
Total Quality Management (TQM)
A philosophy that involves everyone in an organization in a continual effort to improve quality and achieve customer satisfaction.
Fail-safing
incorporating design elements that prevent incorrect procedures
Continuous Improvement
Philosophy that seeks to make never-ending improvements to the process of converting inputs into outputs
Kaizen
Japanese term for continuous improvement
Quality at the source
The philosophy of making each worker responsible for the quality of his or her work.
PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act)
A framework for problem solving and improvement activities
Six Sigma
A business process for improving quality, reducing costs, and increasing customer satisfaction
Flowchart
A diagram of the steps in a process
Check Sheet
a tool for recording and organizing data to identify a problem
Histogram
a chart of an empirical frequency distribution
Pareto Analysis
technique for classifying problem areas according to degree of importance, and focusing on the most important
Scatter Diagram
a graph that shows the degree and direction of relationship between two variables
Control Chart
a statistical chart of time-ordered values of a sample statistic
Cause-and-effect diagram
A diagram used to search for the cause(s) of a problem; also called fishbone diagram.
Run Chart
tool for tracking results over a period of time
Quality Control
A process that evaluates output relative to a standard and takes corrective action when output doesn't meet standards
Random Variation
Natural variation in the output of a process, created by countless minor factors
Assignable Variation
In process output, a variation whose cause can be identified. A nonrandom variation
Central Limit Theorem
the distribution of sample averages tends to be normal regardless of the shape of the process distribution
Control Limits
the dividing lines between random and nonrandom deviations from the mean of the distribution
Type 1 Error
concluding a process is not in control when it actually is
Type 2 Error
concluding a process is in control when it is not
Variables
generate data that are measured
Attributes
generate data that are counted
Run Test
A test for patterns in a sequence
Run
Sequence of observations with a certain characteristic
Specifications
a range of acceptable values established by engineering design or customer requirements
Process Variability
natural or inherent variability in a process
Process Capability
the inherent variability of process output relative to the variation allowed by the design specification
Capability Index
used to assess the ability of a process to meet specifications