Chapter Objectives

• Introduce those individuals, often referred to as quality gurus, who have played a significant role in the evolution of quality management, and describe their specific contributions.
• Identify the different dimensions of quality as they relate to both goods and services.
• Define the various elements that comprise the cost of quality.
• Describe the more successful management quality initiatives such as total quality management (TQM) and six sigma.
• Present the various quality awards and recognition that promote and encourage firms to provide high-quality goods and services.

Supplement Objectives

• Introduce the different quality control tools that are used for analyzing and improving the quality of processes.
• Describe in detail the two major approaches (that is, acceptance sampling and statistical process control) in which statistical analysis can be used to improve process quality.
• Define the two different types of errors that can occur when statistical sampling is used.
• Distinguish between attributes and variables with respect to the statistical analysis of processes.
• Discuss Taguchi methods and how they are different from traditional statistical quality control methods.
• Describe the quantitative methodology behind six sigma.