The Future of Quality - An Early Discussion

[Marc]

The Future of Quality

A 'Blast from the Past'. As in about 5 years ago - 1998....

There has been some recent discussion in at least one thread about 'quality'. In addition, there is the thread about the 'relevance' of the ASQ today - as of September 2003. Some background grumbling, if you will, not to mention a magazine article critical of the ASQ.

Anyone interested in building on this thread?

Don is no longer a regular - haven't heard from him in years now. I miss the guy...

What is the Future of Quality? Let's hear it and maybe 5 years from now we can dredge this thread up again and see if we were right (Time Capsule Effect).

 

[Wes Bucey]

I will state that QUALITY is a bull**** term which has little value any more. For a number of years I have told clients to name their Quality Systems Manual simply Systems Manual or [Company Name] Systems Manual.

The issues include design to packaging and shipping with everything in between - and all in all, 'quality' is EVERYTHING as a whole [including customer expectations].

In effect, I think the concept Marc proposed here is what the 6S folk have taken to heart. They talk about getting best product out the door in most efficient (read "profitable") way possible. They don't linger and hand-wring over microinches or shuffling reams of inspection protocols and records. The much-vaunted "Six Sigma" as an indication of "closeness to perfection" in measuring conformance is a tired joke. The real story is "can we make a profit and still satisfy our customer?" If not, begin a 6S initiative!