From Elsmar Cove Quality Assurance and Business Standards Wiki

Index

Contents:  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z – Top of page

A

Abilene paradox - based on a story of a group of people that ended up agreeing to go to abilene, when in reality none of them wanted to go. A book by the same name [1974] describes the phenomenon in teams or task groups that causes people to say and do things in order to gain or keep approval of others in the group. This, and the tendency to focus on differences rather than points of agreement may cause a group to fail to recognize they are each after the same goals. The need to be accepted as part of the group may result in a "collective self-deception that leads to self-

Acceptance sampling - statistical quality control technique used in deciding to accept or reject a shipment of input or output.

Accountability - holding an individual or group subject to blame or penalty for the results of specified tasks, functions or results. The risk can be that the individual or group, while having responsibility to make a contribution to the task or result, cannot control all of the factors affecting the outcome and may be blamed (or credited) undeservedly for effects of other factors.

Accreditation - certification by a duly recognized body of the facilities, capability, objectivity, competence, and integrity of an agency, service or operational group or individual to provide the specific service(s) or operation(s) needed.

Accredited registrars - qualified organizations certified by a national body (e.G., The registrar accreditation board in the U.S.) To perform audits to the qs-9000 and to register the audited facility as meeting these requirements for a given commodity.

Accuracy - the degree of agreement of the results of a measurement process with an established standard (see "precision"). Assumes the measurement process is in statistical control.

Active data gathering - a method for gathering data that involves approaching respondents to get information.

Actively solicited customer feedback - pro-active methods for obtaining customer feedback such as calling customers on the telephone or inviting customers to participate in focus groups.

Activity network diagram - also knows as a pert diagram, an activity network diagram is a tool used in controlling projects.

Active data gathering - a method for gathering data that involves approaching respondents to get in formation.

Actively solicited customer feedback - proactive methods for obtaining customer feedback such as calling customers on the telephone or inviting customers to participate in focus groups.

Activity network diagram - also knows as a pert diagram, an activity network diagram is a tool used in controlling projects.

Aesthetics - a dimension of quality that refers to subjective sensory characteristics such as taste, sound, look, and smell.

Affinity diagram - a tool that is used to help groups identify the common themes that are associated with a particular problem. A process to organize disparate language information by placing it on cards and grouping the cards that go together in a creative way. “Header” cards are then used to summarize each group of cards.

Affinity diagram - a tool that is used to help groups identify the common themes that are associated with a particular problem.

Algorithm - a procedure for carrying out a task.

Alignment - term that refers to optimal coordination among disparate departments and divisions within a firm.

Alternative hypothesis - a null hypothesis (typically that there is no effect) is compared with an alternative hypothesis (typically that there is an effect, or that there is an effect of a particular sign).

Andon - a Japanese term that refers to the warning lights on an assembly line that light up when a defect occurs. When the lights go on, the assembly line is usually stopped until the problem is diagnosed and corrected.

Annuity relationship - this occurs when a business receives many repeat purchases from a customer. The income is received steadily over time from a single customer.

Appraisal costs - expenses associated with the direct costs of measuring quality.

Assurance - a dimension of service quality that refers to the knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust and confidence.

Attribute - a binomial state of being.

Acceptable quality level (AQL) - the maximum percentage or proportion of non-conformities in a lot or batch that can be considered satisfactory as a process average.

Anova analysis of variance - A statistical method for understanding the similarities and differences between different distributions.

Anova studies - similar to t tests, except that more statistical information is obtained about the components of product and process variation.

Appraisal costs - (1) expenses associated with the direct costs of measuring quality. (2) costs incurred to determine the degree of conformance to quality requirements.

AQL - Acceptable Quality Level: the maximum percentage or proportion of non-conformities in a lot or batch that can be considered satisfactory as a process average.

Assignable cause - (1) outside influences on the process's performance that change the nature and add variation to a process. One should look for assignable causes for points outside the control limits or points inside the limits with unnatural patterns. (2) (also special cause) a source of variation that is not part of the inherent variation for which it is often possible to assign the reason for the variation.

Assurance - a dimension of service quality that refers to the knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust and confidence.

Attribute - a characteristic that can take only one value..

Attributes data - (1) (also discrete data) can be described as the number of times something happens or not and is therefore an integer quantity. Attribute data cannot be logically subdivided; you cannot have 0.4 Of a ‘defect’. (2) data arising by classifying the individual outcomes of a process into two or more categories or by counting the number of occurrences per unit of time, area or volume.

Attrition - the practice of not hiring new employees to replace older employees who either quit or retire.

Assessment - an evaluation process including a document review, an on-site audit and an analysis and report.

Audit – (1) an on-site verification activity used to determine the effective implementation of a supplier's documented quality system. (2) systematic, independent and documented process for obtaining audit evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine the extent to which audit criteria are fulfilled.

Audit conclusion - outcome of an audit provided by the audit team after consideration of the audit objectives and all audit findings.

Audit criteria - set of policies, procedures or requirements used as a reference (while conducting an audit).

Auditee - client organization or person requesting an audit.

Audit evidence - records, statements of fact or other information which are relevant to the audit criteria and verifiable.

Audit findings - results of the evaluation of the collected audit evidence against audit criteria.

Auditor - person with the competence to conduct an audit.

Audit program - set of one or more audits planned for a specific time frame and directed towards a specific purpose.

Audit team - one or more auditors conducting an audit.

Average outgoing quality (AQL) - the expected average quality level of outgoing product for a given value of incoming product quality.

Average outgoing quality limit (AOQL) - the maximum average outgoing quality over all possible levels of incoming quality for a given acceptance sampling plan and disposal specification.

Average run lengths (ARL) - on a control chart, the number of subgroups expected to be inspected before a shift in magnitude takes place.

Average sample number (ASN) - the average number of sample units inspected per lot in reaching decisions to accept or reject.

Average total inspection (ATI) - the average number of units inspected per lot, including all units in rejected lots (applicable when the procedure calls for 100% inspection of rejected lots).

Award audits - site visits relating to award programs.

Axioms of probability - there are three axioms of probability: (1) chances are always at least zero. (2) The chance that something happens is 100%. (3) If two events cannot both occur at the same time (if they are disjoint or mutually exclusive), the chance that either one occurs is the sum of the chances that each occurs.

B

Balanced scorecard - a suggested tool to describe the relevant measures of a business, usually in the following categories: financial, or return on investment and economic value-added; customer, or satisfaction, retention, market and account share; internal, or response time, cost, and new product introductions; and learning and growth, or employee satisfaction and information system availability.

Baldrige award - a national award established in 1988 [named for Malcolm Baldrige, former secretary of commerce] for the purpose of recognizing and promoting outstanding corporate [for-profit companies] efforts to improve quality and productivity. The Baldrige award guidelines are sometimes used as a checklist or framework for developing and implementing a plan for total quality or, for assessing organizational progress toward total quality. Some concerns and criticisms of the award include: a) it creates winners and losers by being limited to one company in each category, b) apparent emphasis on results over methods, c) insistence on "benchmarking" without accompanying instruction and cautionary information on the inherent risks in that practice.

Baldrige-lite - term used to depict states’ quality award pro-grams using the same criteria as the Malcolm Baldrige national quality award but with a simplified process or application.

Baldrige-qualified - term used by firms that have been granted a site visit by the judges in the Malcolm Baldrige national quality award competition.

Basic events - term used in fault tree analysis. Basic events are initiating faults that do not require events below them to show how they occurred. The symbol used for a basic event is a circle.

Basic prototype - non-working mock-up of a product that can be reviewed by customers prior to acceptance.

Bathtub-shaped hazard function - reliability model that shows that products are more likely to fail either very early in their useful life or very late in their useful life.

Bayes' rule - expresses the conditional probability of the event a given the event b in terms of the conditional probability of the event b given the event a: p(a|b) = p(b|a) _p(a)/( p(b|a)_p(a) + p(b|ac) _p(ac) )

Benchmark - an organization that is recognized for its exemplary operational performance in one or more areas and is willing to allow others to view its operations and tour its facilities.

Benchmarking - (1)the process of finding a company that is superior in a particular area, studying what it does, and gathering ideas for improving your own operation in that area. (2) identifying an organization that appears to do something well and copying or adapting its methods. Studying how well competitors are meeting customer needs or what other organizations appear to do well can be beneficial, providing management is aware that transferring a method from one set of circumstances to another will not necessarily produce the same results. It is important to have a theory as to why a method or system works and the conditions needed for its success.

Best-of-the-best - term used to refer to outstanding world benchmark firms.

Best-in-class - term used to refer to firms or organizations that are viewed as the best in an industry on some meaningful criterion.

Bias - a measurement procedure or estimator is said to be biased if, on the average, it gives an answer that differs from the truth. The bias is the average (expected) difference between the measurement and the truth.

Bimodal distribution - a distribution with two identifiable curves within it, indicating a mixing of two populations such as different shifts, machines, workers, etc.

Binomial distribution - a random variable has a binomial distribution (with parameters n and p) if it is the number of "successes" in a fixed number n of independent random trials, all of which have the same probability p of resulting in "success." Under these assumptions, the probability of k successes (and n-k failures) is nck pk(1-p)n-k, where nck is the number of combinations of n objects taken k at a time: nck = n!/(K!(N-k)!). The expected value of a random variable with the binomial distribution is n_p, and the standard error of a random variable with the binomial distribution is (n_p_(1 ]]</strong> - p))_.

Brainstorming - a method for getting ideas from a group of people in which ideas are offered and recorded without any judgment of the quality of the idea in order to stimulate one idea with another. After the group has run out of ideas, then some method such as "multi-voting" or "nominal group technique" is used to organize and prioritize the ideas collected.

By what method? - Goals set for any organization or system without an explicit method for achieving them are evidence of failure to understand the system of profound knowledge. "If you have a stable system, then there is no use to specify a goal. You will get whatever the system will deliver. A goal beyond the capability of the system cannot be reached. If you have not a stable system, then there is again no point in setting a goal. There is no way to know what the system will produce: it has no [predictable] capability." (Deming: chapter 2, out of the crisis) it is management's job to change and improve the system. Others would say that if the system is not capable of achieving the goal, the goal might be met temporarily, but only with unexpected damage in other dimensions of organizational performance, either in the short term or the long term.

C

C Chart - a chart used to monitor the number of defects in a production process.

Calibration - comparison of a measurement instrument or system of unverified accuracy to a measurement instrument or system of known accuracy to detect any variation from the required performance specification.

Capability - likelihood a product will meet specification.

Capability analysis - a study to determine the extent of the actual variation against that required or specified. See process capability

Cartesian management - seeing events or causal factors as separate and independent and managing accordingly. System management, on the other hand, acknowledges the complex interrelationships among the various factors and the dynamics of cause and effect over time. This latter view is part of what Deming refers to when he speaks of appreciation for a system.

Catchball - term used to describe the iterative nature of the Hoshin planning process.

Categorizing - the act of placing strengths and weakness into categories in generic internal assessment.

Causation - causal relation two variables are causally related if changes in the value of one cause the other to change. Two variables can be associated without having any causal relation, and even if two variables have a causal relation, their correlation can be small or zero.

Cause and effect (or fishbone or Ishikawa) diagram - (1) A diagram designed to help workers focus on the causes of a problem rather than the symptoms. (2) Tool for analyzing process dispersion.

Cause and effect matrix - a tool used to help quantify team consensus on relationships thought to exist between key input and key output variables. The results lead to other activities such as an FMEA, creating multi-vari charts, doing an ANOVA, regression analysis or doe.

Cedac - cause and effect diagram with the addition of cards. Developed by Ryuji Fukuda, author of managerial engineering, this variation of the "fishbone" diagram is modified as needed simply by moving the cards (or "post-its") containing the information.

Central limit theorem - states that the probability histograms of the sample mean and sample sum of n draws with replacement from a box of labeled tickets converge to a normal curve as the sample size n grows

Certificate of compliance - a document signed by an authorised party affirming that the supplier of a product or service has met the requirements of the relevant specifications, contract, or regulation.

Certificate of conformance (certificate of conformity) - a document signed by an authorized party affirming that a product or service has met the requirements of the relevant specifications, contract, or regulation.

Certification - the procedure and action by a duly authorized body of determining, verifying, and attesting in writing to the qualifications of personnel, processes, procedures, or items in accordance with applicable requirements.

Certification audits - audits relating to registration (e.g., ISO 9000 audits).

Chain of customers - a philosophy that espouses the idea that each worker’s “customer” is the next worker in the chain of people that produce a finished product or service.

Chance variation, chance error - a random variable can be decomposed into a sum of its expected value and chance variation around its expected value. The expected value of the chance variation is zero; the standard error of the chance variation is the same as the standard error of the random variable---the size of a "typical" difference between the random variable and its expected value.

Change - in the context of quality management, this means to move from one state of operation to another state of operation.

Chebychev's inequality - for every number k>0, the fraction of elements in a list that are k sd's or further from the arithmetic mean of the list is at most 1/k2. For random variables: for every number k>0, the probability that a random variable x is k ses or further from its expected value is at most 1/k2.

Check sheets - data-gathering tools that can be used in forming histograms. The check sheets can be either tabular or schematic.

Chi-square curve - a family of curves that depend on a parameter called degrees of freedom (df). The chi-square curve is an approximation to the probability histogram of the chi-square statistic for multinomial model if the expected number of outcomes in each category is large. The balance point of the curve is df, So the expected value of the corresponding random variable would equal df. The standard error of the corresponding random variable would be (2_df)_. As df grows, the shape of the chi-square curve approaches the shape of the normal curve.

Chi-square statistic - used to measure the agreement between categorical data and a multinomial model that predicts the relative frequency of outcomes in each possible category. The chi-squared statistic summarizes the discrepancies between the expected number of times each outcome occurs (assuming that the model is true) and the observed number of times each outcome occurs, by summing the squares of the discrepancies, normalized by the expected numbers, over all the categories: Chi-squared = (observed1 - expected1)2/expected1 + (observed2 - expected2)2/expected2 + . . . + (Observedk - expectedk)2/expectedk. As the sample size n increases, if the model is correct, the sampling distribution of the chi-squared statistic is approximated increasingly well by the chi-squared curve with (#categories - 1) = k – 1 degrees of freedom (df), In the sense that the chance that the chi-squared statistic is in any given range grows closer and closer to the area under the chi-squared curve over the same range. Chi square tests use discrete, count data, arranged in a matrix of rows and columns, to look for statistical differences among populations.

Closure - to bring to a completion, as in a meeting, when a topic or task is finished and the group is ready to move on or to end the meeting.

Collaborative - an agreement or a relationship in which two or more parties work together (co-labor) on a task of mutual interest.

Common cause - (1) A source of variation that is acting on or common to all outcomes of a process. It is constantly present but its influence may vary over time. (2)Natural or random variation that is inherent in a process over time, affecting every outcome of the process. If a process is in control it has common cause variation only.

Company culture - a system of values, beliefs, and behaviours inherent in a company. To optimise business performance, top management must define and create the necessary culture.

Compensation - an organization's formal system of wages or salary and other benefits such as insurance, holidays, retirement, vacation, etc. [See also reward system].

Compensate - (1) to pay or remunerate for some work; (2) to make up for some lack of ability or acuity.

Complaint - recovery process, process associated with resolving complaints.

Complementary products - products that use similar technologies and can coexist in a family of products.

Compliance an affirmative - indication or judgment that the supplier of a product or service has met the requirements of the relevant specifications, contract, or regulation; also the state of meeting the requirements.

Component - any raw material, substance, piece, part, software, firmware, labeling, or assembly which is intended to be included as part of the finished, packaged, and labeled device.

Component reliability - the propensity for a part to fail over a given time.

Components search - a approach to interchanging components in product in order to identify those that result in poor performance.

Computer-aided design (CAD) - a system for digitally developing product designs.

Computer-aided inspection (CAI) - a system for performing inspection through the use of technology. For example, some systems use infrared to detect defects.

Computer-aided testing (CAT) - technology for taking tests or examinations.

Computer-based training - a form of training that uses specialized software, known as courseware, to address specific topics.

Concept design - the process of determining which technologies will be used in production and the product.

Concurrent engineering - the simultaneous performance of product design and process design. Typically, concurrent engineering involves the formation of cross-functional teams. This allows engineers and managers of different disciplines to work together simultaneously in developing product and process designs.

Confidence interval - a random interval constructed from data in such a way that the probability that the interval contains the true value of the parameter can be specified before the data are collected.

Confidence interval - an interval computed from sample values. Intervals so constructed will straddle the estimated parameter a certain percentage of the time in repeated sampling.

Conformance - (1) A dimension of quality that refers to the extent to which a product lies within an allowable range of deviation from its specification. (2) An affirmative indication or judgment that a product or service has met the requirements of the relevant specifications, contract, or regulation; also the state of meeting the requirements.

Consensus - often used to describe a decision-making process in which formal rules or voting are not used. It usually means that everyone who wishes to, has spoken and has been heard, and while the "consensus decision" may not be everyone's first choice, they can agree to it and can support it.

Consultant audits - inspections that are performed by consultants to determine how an organization should be changed for improvement.

Consumer product safety commission (CPSC) - an independent federal regulatory agency that helps keep american families safe by reducing the risk of injury or death from consumer products.

Consumer’s risk - the risk of receiving a shipment of poor quality product and believing that it is good quality.

Contact personnel - the people at the “front lines” who interact with the public in a service setting.

Contingency theory - a theory that presupposes that there is no theory or method for operating a business that can be applied in all instances.

Continuous data - data that uses some sort of measurement scale e.G. Length, time temperature. It can be broken down into smaller and smaller increments.

Continuous improvement - the ongoing improvement of products, services, or processes through incremental and breakthrough improvements.

Contract review - contract review involves the steps associated with contracting with suppliers. These steps involve acceptance of the contract or order, the tender of a contract, and review of the contract.

Contrition - forgiveness for error or mistake.

Control - three commonly-used versions of this word: (supervision)- to influence or manipulate an employee's behavior through the threat of consequences or the promise of reward, whether these are explicit or implied; (engineering)- to influence or manipulate a process through feedback or feedforward; (statistical)- a description of behavior of the variation in the output of a process.

Control chart - (1) A graphic comparison between the process's performance and computed limits know as control lines. This statistical method is used to decide when to take action and when to leave a process alone. The charts can identify when statistically unnatural patterns occur so their cause can be investigated. Tool for monitoring process variation. (2) A plot of the process output against time or observation order. The variation observed is used to determine and plot the process average and the upper and lower control limits set at three standard deviation from the average. Observations outside the control limits and other patterns indicate the presence of special cause variation.

Control factors - variables in a taguchi experiment that are under the control of the operator. These can include things such as temperature or type of ingredient.

Control limits - calculated values representing the expected variation in the process.

Controlled experiment - an experiment that uses the method of comparison to evaluate the effect of a treatment by comparing treated subjects with a control group, who do not receive the treatment.

Control plans - ensure that problem solutions are permanently effective. Three questions are addressed: what has been done to prevent process problems; how is it known when problems occurs; and what will be done when problems in fact do occur? Written descriptions of the systems for controlling parts and processes.

Control process - a process involving gathering process data, analyzing process data, and using this information to make adjustments to the process.

Conversion process - aligning the inputs of a process together to form a product or service.

Corporate culture - popularized in the early 1980's by a book of the same title, this term means the values, the assumptions, the organization's "legends" and heroes, the rituals and folklore that exist in most organizations and get passed along from one person to the next by example or word of mouth.

CA - Corrective Action action to eliminate the cause of a detected nonconformity or other undesirable situation. aka Corrective Action Corrective Action

See also: PA

Corrective Action Request (CAR)

Corrective Action -

Correlation - a measure of linear association between two (ordered) lists. Two variables can be strongly correlated without having any causal relationship, and two variables can have a causal relationship and yet be uncorrelated.

Correlation coefficient r - a measure of how nearly a scatterplot falls on a straight line. The correlation coefficient is always between -1 and +1.

Cost benefit analysis - an assessment of the costs of a change against the projected benefits in order to quantify the timing and magnitude of the return on investment

Cost of quality (COQ) - (1) Often cited as "the cost of conformance (achieving quality) plus the cost of nonconformance (waste)". This measure of organizational "effectiveness" fails to take into account the unknown and unknowable costs (e.g., the cost of a dissatisfied customer, or the loss to the individual and to society of poor education) and narrowly defines quality as conformance to specifications. (2) Costs associated with providing poor quality products or service. There are four categories of costs: internal failure costs – costs associated with defects found before the customer receives the product or service, external failure costs – costs associated with defects found after the customer receives the product or service, appraisal costs – costs incurred to determine the degree of conformance to quality requirements, and prevention costs – costs incurred to keep failure and appraisal costs to a minimum.

Crawford slip method - developed by E.C.Crawford, this is a form of brainstorming which attempts to draw from a group of people their ideas on a particular subject. Participants write down each idea on a separate piece of paper, writing as many as they can in a limited period of time. All the different ideas are then compiled into one greater list.

Criticality - a term that refers to how often a failure will occur, how easy it is to diagnose, and whether it can be fixed.

Critical mass - Dr. Deming uses this term to refer to that stage when an organization has "recruited" enough of its personnel to a new idea or philosophy that the transformation or change process will now be self-sustaining. Enough people will be behind the idea and will help convert others that the new idea will "take hold".

Critical value - the value of the test statistic beyond which we would reject the null hypothesis. The critical value is set so that the probability that the test statistic is beyond the critical value is at most equal to the significance level if the null hypothesis be true.

Cross-functional teams - teams with members from differing departments and vocations.

Cross-training - training an employee to do several different jobs.

Cumulative sum control chart - a control chart on which the plotted value is the cumulative sum of deviations of successive samples from a target value. The ordinate of each plotted point represents the algebraic sum of the previous ordinate and the most recent deviations from the target.

Customer - (1) Anyone who is the receiver of the goods or services that are produced. (2) This term is now used to described those persons who receive and use products and/or services, whether they be customers outside the organization (external customers) or coworkers within the same organization...Usually referred to as "internal customers". See also supplier.

Customer benefits package (CBP) - the package of tangibles and intangibles that make up a service.

Customer contact - a characteristic of services that notes that customers tend to be more involved in the production of services than they are in manufactured goods.

Customer co-production - the participation of a customer in the delivery of a service product. For example, in many restaurants it is not uncommon for customers to fill their own drinks.

Customer delight - the result of delivering a product or service that exceeds customer expectations.

Customer-driven quality - term that refers to a pro-active approach to satisfying customer needs.

Customer expectations - (1) what customers expect from a service provider; (2) a part of the servqual questionnaire.

Customer future needs - projection predicting the future needs of customers and designing products that satisfy those needs.

Customer perceptions - (1) how customers view products or services; (2) the second part of the servqual survey.

Customer rationalization - the process of reaching an agreement between marketing and operations as to which customers add the greatest advantage and profits over time.

Customer-related ratios - ratios that include customer satisfaction, customer dissatisfaction, and comparisons of customer satisfaction relative to competitors.

Customer-relationship management - a view of the customer that asserts that the customer is a valued asset that should be managed.

Customer retention - the percentage of customers who return to a service provider or continue to purchase a manufactured product.

Customer satisfaction - customer's perception of the degree to which the customer's requirements have been fulfilled.

Customer-supplier partnership - a long term relationship between a buyer and a supplier characterized by teamwork and mutual confidence. The supplier is considered an extension of the buyer’s organization. The buyer provides long term contracts and uses fewer suppliers. The supplier implements quality assurance processes so that incoming inspection can be minimized. The supplier also helps the buyer reduce costs and improve product and process designs.

Customer service surveys - instruments that consists of a series of items (or questions) that are designed to elicit customer perceptions.

CQI - continuous quality improvement - a term now used by some organizations, ( e.g., Hospitals) in place of TQM

See also: TQ, TQI, TQM, TQE.

D

Data - factual information used as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or calculation; often refers to quantitative information.

Dead messenger society - a movie title parody that prompts recognition that organizations still tend to blame the messenger who happens to bring bad news (or call attention to the organization's problems, errors or flaws).

Deduction - an approach to theory development based on modelling.

Defect - (1) A defect is any variation of a required characteristic which is far enough removed from its target so as to cause customer dissatisfaction. (2) A product’s or service’s non-fulfilment of an intended requirement or reasonable expectation for use, including safety considerations. There are four classes of defects: class 1 very serious, leads directly to severe injury or catastrophic economic loss; class 2 serious, leads directly to significant injury or significant economic loss; class 3 major, is related to major problems with respect to intended normal or reasonably foreseeable use; class 4 minor, is related to minor problems with respect to intended normal or reasonably foreseeable use.

Dependability - collective term used to describe the availability performance and its influencing factors: reliability performance, maintainability performance and maintenance support performance.

Defect opportunity - any measurable event that provides the chance of not meeting a customer critical characteristic.

Delayed effects - an acknowledgment of the fact that the effects of actions or decisions will likely not be fully observed in the immediate time frame. Managers need to take this into account when determining or evaluating strategies, or drawing conclusions about the effectiveness of managerial methods or actions. One of the lessons in this is that in organizations in which managers are frequently moved, it is common to incorrectly attribute the carry-over effects of the previous manager or managers to the manager currently in place, leading to erroneous conclusions about both the current and the previous manager's performance and ability.

Deming cycle - see plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycle

Deming prize - a Japanese quality award for individuals and groups that have contributed to the field of quality control.

Dependent variables - the variable, usually the process output (y) which is affected by the independent variables (x’s).

Dependability - the degree to which a product is operable and capable of performing its required function at any randomly chosen time during its specified operating time, provided that the product is available at the start of that period. Dependability can be expressed as the ratio of time available/(time available + time required)

Design and Development - set of processes that transforms requirements into specified characteristics or into the specification of a product, process or system.

Design control - a set of steps focused on managing the design of a product.

Design for disassembly (DFA) - a method for developing products so that they can easily be taken apart.

Design for maintainability (DFM) - a concept that states that products should be designed in a way that makes them easy for consumers to maintain.

Design for manufacture (DFM) - the principle of designing products so that they are cost effective and easy to make.

Design for manufacturability and assembly - a simultaneous engineering process designed to optimize the relationship between design function, manufacturability, and ease of assembly.

Design for remanufacture - a method for developing products so that the parts can be used in other products. Associated with green manufacturing.

Design for reuse - designing products so they can be used in later generations of products.

Design of experiments (DOE) - (1) An approach to product design that involves identifying and testing alternative inputs to the production of a product to identify the best mix of inputs. (2) A statistical experimentation approach that enables understanding of how the variables (factors) in a process contribute and interact to affect the output (response) of that process.

Design input - the physical and performance requirements of a device that are used as a basis for device design. [4]

Design review - (1) A formal, documented, comprehensive, and systematic examination of a design to evaluate the design requirements and the capability of the design to meet these requirements and to identify problems and propose solutions. (2) A documented, comprehensive, systematic examination of a design to evaluate the adequacy of the design requirements, to evaluate the capability of the design to meet these requirements, and to identify problems.

Design validation - testing to ensure that product conforms to defined user needs and/or requirements. Design validation follows successful design verification and is normally performed on the final product under defined operating conditions. Multiple validations may be performed if there are different intended uses.

Design validation - establishing by objective evidence that device specifications conform with user needs and intended use(s).

Design verification - testing to ensure that all design outputs meet design input requirements. Design verification may include activities such as:

• • design review
  • performing alternate calculations
  • understanding tests and demonstrations
  • review of design stage documents before release

Detection - the process of inspection or looking for defects after the output has been produced. Often compared to “prevention” in which the process is improved to avoid making the defect.

Development plan - a plan that identifies the skills that will be required for a particular employee to move up in an organization.

Deviation permit - written authorization, prior to production or provision of a service, to depart from specified requirements for a specified quantity or for a specified time.

Devil's advocate - reference to the role assumed by a person who takes the opposing side in a discussion in order to provide a good "test" of the prevailing argument (even though that person may not be personally opposed).

DFA - design for assembly

DFM - design for manufacturability. Design of product that considers the capability of the manufacturing process and the robustness of the product design to "forgive" (tolerate without affecting quality) process variation.

DFMEA - design failure mode and effects analysis

Diagnostic Journey and Remedial Journey - a two phase investigation used by teams to solve chronic quality problems. In the first phase, diagnostic journey, the team journeys from the symptom of a chronic problem to its cause. In the second phase, remedial journey, the team journeys from the cause to its remedy.

Discrete Data - data that can only be described by levels, i.e. Pass/fail, colour. Discrete data cannot be logically subdivided.

Discrete variable - a quantitative variable whose set of possible values is countable. A random variable is discrete if and only if its cumulative probability distribution function is a stair-step function; i.e., If it is piecewise constant and only increases by jumps.

Distance learning - training that is conducted in one location and is observed in a distant location through telecommunications technology.

Distribution - the population (universe) from which observations are drawn, categorized into cells, and form identifiable patterns. It is based on the concept of variation that states that anything measured repeatedly will arrive at different results. These results will fall into statistically predictable patterns. A bell-shaped curve (normal distribution) is an example of a distribution in which the greatest number of observations occur in the center with fewer and fewer observations falling evenly on either side of the average.

Dodge-Romig Sampling Plans - plans for acceptance sampling involving four sets of tables: single-sampling lot tolerance tables, double-sampling lot tolerance tables, single-sampling average outgoing quality limit tables, and double-sampling average outgoing quality limit tables.

Dual sourcing - using only a few suppliers for a single ]]</strong> -component.

Durability - (1) A dimension of quality that refers to a product’s ability to withstand stress or trauma. (2) The probability that an item will continue to function at customer expectation levels, at the useful life without requiring overhaul or rebuild due to wearout.

E

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) - using computers to share data between customers and suppliers.

Empathy - a dimension of service quality that refers to the amount of caring and individualized attention exhibited by the service firm.

Empirical law of averages - states that if one repeats a random experiment over and over, independently and under "identical" conditions, the fraction of trials that result in a given outcome converges to a limit as the number of trials grows without bound.

Empirical method - relying upon or derived from observation or experiment (from Latin and Greek words meaning "experience")

Empowerment – (1) A management initiative designed to move decision making to the lowest level in the organization. (2) In the strict sense: authorization or permission. In a broader sense: taking action or creating conditions in which another person's full potential may be better realized, e.g., By providing proper tools, good training, clear direction, effective processes and systems and an environment in which the employee can take pride and find joy in his/her work. This broader definition is also referred to as "enablement" or enabling an employee.

End user - the ultimate user of a product or service.

Engineering analysis - the process of applying engineering concepts to the design of a product, including tests such as heat transfer analysis, stress analysis, or analysis of the dynamic behaviour of the system being designed.

Enterprise capabilities - capabilities that make firms unique and attractive to customers.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) system - a system that integrates financial, planning, and control systems into a single architecture. Examples include the SAP r/3 system and Oracle.

Entropy - in common usage: the tendency of systems to deteriorate toward a disordered state.

Evaluation - assessment of how relevant resources and capabilities are to generic strategies in generic internal assessment.

Evaporating cloud - a term used to describe a methodology developed by goldratt (theory of constraints) to resolve conflicts in a "win-win" manner. Name relates to the idea that conflicts, like clouds, are often indistinct i.e., People are unable to articulate the real reasons for the conflict.

Exogenous factors - a term borrowed from biology: derived or developed from external causes. In this case referring to external factors influencing the process or system.

Experiential training techniques - training that is hands-on and provides the recipients of training the opportunity to experience in some manner the concepts that are being taught.

Expert system - a term used to identify systems or software that are developed with "expertise" built in. Presented to users as "ready for use". Users should seek information by which to judge the underlying assumptions on which the system is designed, the quality of the data used, and whether all relevant factors were included in the design.

External customers - the ultimate consumers of the goods that an organization produces.

External events - a term used in fault tree analysis. An external event is an event that is normally expected to occur and thus is not considered a fault when it occurs by itself.

External failure costs - (1) these are monetary losses associated with product failure after the customer has possession of the product. These may include warranty or field repair costs. (2) Costs associated with defects found after the customer receives the product or service

External services - service that are provided by companies other than yours.

External validation - using benchmarking as a way to ensure that a firm’s current practices are comparable to those being used by benchmark firms.

Extrinsic motivation - action taken because of external factors, such as pay, bonus, threatened consequences, coercion, etc.

F

Facilitate – (1) In a group meeting, to serve as a supporter of the meeting process, helping the group move through its agenda to its desired outcome, but not getting personally involved in the meeting content. (2) To "facilitate" efforts means to be help make things happen more readily or effectively.

Facilitation - helping a team or individual achieve a goal. Often used in meeting or with teams to help the teams achieve their objectives.

Facilitator - the person who performs facilitation. This person may be trained in group dynamics, teamwork, and meeting management methods.

Factorial experiments - structured techniques for building a model of how two or more input variables affect an output variable. This technique is allows the discovery of interactions between input variables. The result of factorial experiment is a model that predicts how much each input, and all possible combinations of the inputs, influence the output.

Failure costs - two sets of costs — internal failure costs and external failure costs. Internal failure costs include those costs that are associated with failure during production, whereas external failure costs are associated with product failure after the production process.

Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) - method for systematically considering each component of a system by identifying, analyzing, and documenting the possible failure modes within a system and the effects of each failure on the system.

Failure Mode, Effect, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) - An extensive but simple method for identifying ways in which an engineered system could fail. The primary goal of FMECA is to develop priorities for corrective action based on estimated risk.

False discovery rate - the fraction of rejected null hypotheses that are rejected erroneously (the number of type i errors divided by the number of rejected null hypotheses), with the convention that if no hypothesis is rejected, the false discovery rate is zero.

Fault tree analysis - an analytical tool that graphically renders the combination of faults that lead to the failure of a system.

Features - a dimension of quality that refers to those attributes of a product that supplement the item’s basic performance.

Final product definition - the process of articulating the final drawings and specifications for a product.

Financial benchmarking - a type of benchmarking that typically involves using cd rom databases such as lexis/nexis or compact disclosure to gather information about competing firms to perform financial analyses and compare results.

Financial ratios - numerical ratios of firm performance such as return on equity, return on assets, and earnings per share.

Fishbone diagram - also known as a cause and effect diagram or an Ishikawa diagram, this is a tool for study of processes. It shows possible causes of an effect on the "bones" branching out from a line representing the process which produces the effect. Its primary limitation is that it has no means for adequately showing the possible inter-relationships of the various causes.

First Article

Fishing expedition - gathering data without any clear idea of what you are looking for, nor any plan for carefully investigating an issue.

Fitness for use - a term used to indicate that a product or service fits the customer’s defined purpose for that product or service.

Fire-fighting - spending one's time solving endless daily problems without improving the process or system that created them.

Five S (5S) - a process for inducing discipline in an organization. Five terms beginning with "s" utilized to create a workplace suited for visual control and lean production. Seiri (sort) means to separate needed tools, parts, and instructions from unneeded materials and to remove the latter. Seiton (set in order) means to neatly arrange and identify parts and tools for ease of use. Seiso (shine) means to conduct a cleanup campaign. Seiketsu (standardize) means to conduct Seiri, Seiton, and Seiso at frequent, indeed daily, intervals to maintain a workplace in perfect condition. Shitsuke (sustain) means to form the habit of always following the first four ss.

Five whys - a technique for discovering the root causes of a problem and showing the relationship of causes by repeatedly asking the question, "why?"

5W2h - who, what, when, where, why, how, and how much.

Flowchart, Flow chart - a pictorial representation of the progression of a particular process over time. Generally, a pictorial display of the sequence of actions taken in a process or in carrying out a task. There are several types of flow charts or flow diagrams: 1) top down - detailed steps are listed under headings describing major actions. 2) Logic flow - a symbolic display of the logical sequence of actions and decisions in a process. 3) Deployment flow - actions, decisions, meetings, etc., Are listed sequentially and in columns according to the individual, group or function responsible for, or participating in, the particular step. 4) Organization viewed as a system - a picture of an entire organization's components and its customers and suppliers as a system, beginning with customer research and ending with customers who use the output.

FMEA - failure modes effects analysis. A quality planning method that involves thinking about what might go wrong, what are the chances of it going wrong and what might be the consequences of it going wrong, leading to a plan for prevention and/or containment.

Focus group - a group of people who are brought together and are asked to share their opinions about a particular product or service.

Force field analysis - a commonly used method of examining the conditions or forces which tend to drive a particular action or change as well as the forces which tend to prevent that action or change from occurring or succeeding. Once listed, strategies can then be devised to either increase one or more of the driving forces or decrease one or more of the blocking forces or some combination of both in order to move closer to the desired goal.

Forming - the first stage of team development, where the team is formed and the objectives for the team are set.

Frequency distribution - a statistical table that presents a large volume of data in such a way that the central tendency (average/mean/median) and distribution are clearly displayed.

FTA - fault tree analysis

Full-Baldrige approach - term used to depict states’ quality award programs using the same criteria as the Malcolm Baldrige national quality award.

Functional benchmarking - a type of benchmarking that involves the sharing of information among firms that are interested in the same functional issues.

Fundamental rule of counting - if a sequence of experiments or trials t1, t2, t3, . . . , tk could result, respectively, in n1, n2 n3, . . . , nk possible outcomes, and the numbers n1, n2 n3, . . . , nk do not depend on which outcomes actually occurred, the entire sequence of k experiments has n1_ n2 _ n3_ . . . _ nk possible outcomes.

Funnel experiment - a term referring to the experiment Deming describes to illustrate the futility and damage of adjusting a stable process in reaction to each outcome to try to affect subsequent results as desired. There are four rules of the funnel, three of which amount to tampering and produce more variation than if the process were left alone [see chapter 11 in Deming's out of the crisis]. See "tampering".

G

Gap - the difference between desired levels of performance and actual levels of performance.

Gap analysis - a term associated with the servqual survey instrument, gap analysis is a technique designed to assess the gap that can exist between a service that is offered and customer expectations.

Gap analysis - a formal study of the gaps between what exists and what needs, or ought, to exist.

Gauge R&R - gauge repeatability and reproducibility ]]</strong> - a means of checking how much the measurement system itself is contributing to process variability.

Geometric mean - the geometric mean of n numbers {x1, x2, x3, . . . , Xn} is the nth root of their product:

(x1_x2_x3_ . . . _xn)1/n.

Geometric modelling - a technique used to develop a computer-based mathematical description of a part.

Globalization - an approach to international markets that requires a firm to make fundamental changes in the nature of its business by establishing production and marketing facilities in foreign markets.

Green manufacturing - a method for manufacturing that minimizes waste and pollution. These goals are often achieved through product and process design.

Group decision - support system a computer system that allows users to anonymously input comments in a focus group type of setting.

Group "memory" - a term used by meeting facilitators to describe any method for recording and displaying the pertinent points, questions, concerns, decisions, actions, plans, etc. of a group of people working together on a common task. This is often done with "flipcharts" which allows each page to be torn off and placed either in sequence or in some other logical order in the room. This gives the whole group quick and easy reference to their work, and provides visible evidence of the group's progress.

Group technology - a component of cad that allows for the cataloging and standardization of parts and components for complex products.

H

Hack -a label for someone who knows just enough to teach the wrong things very well...And enough to be dangerous.

Hard data - measurements data such as height, weight, volume, or speed that can be measured on a continuous scale.

Hardware mock-ups - physical representations of hardware that show designers, managers, and users how an eventual system will work.

Heijunka - the act of levelling the variety or volume of items produced at a process over a period of time. Used to avoid excessive batching of product types and volume fluctuations, especially at a pacemaker process.

Heterogeneous - a characteristic of services that means that for many companies, no two services are exactly the same. For example, an advertising company would not develop the same advertising campaign for two different clients.

Heteroscedasticity - a scatter-plot or residual plot shows heteroscedasticity if the scatter in vertical slices through the plot depends on where you take the slice. Linear regression is not usually a good idea if the data are heteroscedastic.

Hidden factory - a term introduced by Wickham Skinner that refers to firm activities that have no effect on the customer.

Histogram – (1) A representation of data in a bar chart format. (2) Vertical bar type display of a population distribution in terms of frequencies; a formal method of plotting a frequency distribution.

Homoscedasticity - a scatter-plot or residual plot shows homoscedasticity if the scatter in vertical slices through the plot does not depend much on where you take the slice

Horizontal deployment - a term that denotes that all of the departments of a firm are involved in the firm’s quality efforts.

Hoshin - from the Japanese term Hoshin Kanri, meaning policy deployment or management by policy. Used in this country to refer to a special focus of an organization. One organization refers to Hoshin as a "planning system for implementing total quality management (TQM)"

Hoshin planning - process a policy deployment approach to strategic planning originated by japanese firms. Breakthrough planning. A strategic planning process in which a company develops up to four vision statements that indicate where the company should be in the next five years. Company goals and work plans are developed based on the vision statements. Periodic audits are then conducted to monitor progress.

House of quality - another name for quality function deployment.

Human resource measures - ratios that are used to measure the effectiveness of a firm’s human resource practices.

Hypothesis - an assertion subject to verification or proof.

Hypothesis testing - statistical hypothesis testing is formalized as making a decision between rejecting or not rejecting a null hypothesis, on the basis of a set of observations. Used to determine whether the observed differences can be attributable to chance alone.

Hypothesis errors - two types of errors can result from any decision rule (test): rejecting the null hypothesis when it is true (a type i error), and failing to reject the null hypothesis when it is false (a type ii error). For any hypothesis, it is possible to develop many different decision rules (tests). Typically, one specifies ahead of time the chance of a type i error one is willing to allow. That chance is called the significance level of the test or decision rule. For a given significance level, one way of deciding which decision rule is best is to pick the one that has the smallest chance of a type ii error when a given alternative hypothesis is true. The chance of correctly rejecting the null hypothesis when a given alternative hypothesis is true is called the power of the test against that alternative.

I

ibnr - sometimes used to make the point that some information or data may be "interesting, but not relevant". Management needs to know "what are we trying to learn from these data (what is the purpose of these data)?" "What do we know about how the data were obtained?" "What do the data tell us?" "What do the data not tell us that we need to know?"

See also: fishing expedition

Ideal quality - a reference point identified by taguchi for determining the quality level of a product or service.

Imagineering - a term used to describe creating a vision of a process or system as it would be in an ideal state.

Independent variable - variables (x’s) that influence the response of the dependent (or output) variable.

Individual needs assessment - a method for determining training needs at the worker level prior to developing and implementing training programs. Often associated with company literacy programs.

Induction - an approach to theory development based on observation and description. Although the process of induction is useful, it is subject to observer bias and misperception.

Initiator firm - the firm that is interested in benchmarking and initiates contact with benchmark firms.

In-process inspection - the practice of inspecting work, by the workers themselves, at each stage of the production process.

Inspection – (1) Functional Inspection: testing products in real or simulated conditions to see whether they work as intended. (2) Mass (100%) Inspection: looking at all products to screen out those that may be defective. (3) Sampling Inspection: looking at a fraction (a sample) of all the output to determine disposition of that output.

Instant pudding - a term used to illustrate an obstacle to achieving quality: the supposition that quality and productivity improvement is achieved quickly through an affirmation of faith rather than through sufficient effort and education. W. Edwards Deming used this term in his book out of the crisis.

Intangible - a characteristic of services that means that services (unlike manufactured goods) cannot be inventoried or carried in stock over a long period of time.

Interference - checking a feasibility test for product designs to make sure that wires, cabling, and tubing in products such as airplanes don’t conflict with each other.

Internal assessment - the act of searching for strengths and areas for improvement in quality deployment.

Internal customers - individuals within the organization that receive the work that other individuals within the same organization do.

Internal failure costs (1) Losses that occur while the product is in possession of the producer. These include rework and scrap costs. (2) Costs associated with defects found before the customer receives the product or service.

Internal services - services that are provided by internal company personnel. For example, data processing personnel are often considered providers of internal services.

Internal validation - method of studying the quality system to find gaps in quality deployment.

Interrelationship digraph - a tool designed to help identify the causal relationships between the issues affecting a particular problem.

Intrinsic motivation - actions taken because of internal desires or needs for such things as satisfaction with doing a job well, engaging in meaningful work, feeling challenged, achieving a personal goal, growing in skill or gaining knowledge.

Investigation - ability to find sources of competitive advantage in generic internal assessment.

Involuntary services - a classification for services that are not sought by customers. These include hospitals, prisons, and the internal revenue service.

ISO-9000 Series of Documents including (ISO 9001) - Consists of individual but related international standards on quality management and quality assurance. Developed to help companies effectively document the elements to be implemented in order to maintain an efficient quality system. It is a requirement often placed on manufacturing companies. The basic idea behind iso-9000 methodology is that you document what you do, then you do what you described in the documentation. During an iso-9000 certification process, the examining registrar will audit your company to confirm that you are following the standard. If you re, you can be certified. An updated version is iso-9000:2000, which requires that you demonstrate improvements are being made within your processes. ISO stands for organization for international standards.

J

Job analysis - the process of collecting detailed information about a particular job. This information includes tasks, skills, abilities, and knowledge re-quirements that relate to certain jobs.

Just-In-Time (JIT) – (1) "just-in-time"...Maintaining minimal inventory by arranging with suppliers to deliver the needed items daily or even hourly. Has major inventory cost-saving benefits, but can be accomplished only if high levels of quality are consistently available from suppliers. (2) "just- in-time training" - providing training when it is needed and when there is both the opportunity and support for applying that training. (3) A method for optimizing processes that involves continual reduction of waste; (4) the toyota motor company production system; (5) an umbrella term that encompasses several Japanese management techniques. (6) JIT Purchasing an approach to purchasing that requires long-term agreements with few suppliers.

K

kaizen - a Japanese term meaning continual improvement involving everyone. Said by some, to be one of the most important concepts in "Japanese management", it is working each and every day to make improvements in the processes of the organization. Such incremental, but continuous improvement may reap great gains over time. It is contrasted with the western world's pattern of relying on major "breakthrough" to gain needed improvement. The term was used by masakai imai.

Kaizen event (or kaizen blitz) - a kaizen event occurs when an operation team works together to improve a specific operation. It typically involves a detailed description of the current state of the selected operation, developing the kaizen plan for improvement, implementing the plan, following-up to confirm that the plan was carried out fully and correctly, and reporting to management on the event and its accomplishments.