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appraisal costs  Costs of activities designed to ensure quality or uncover defects.
Baldrige Award  Annual award given by the U.S. government to recognize quality achievements of U.S. companies.
benchmarking  Process of measuring performance against the best in the same or another industry.
brainstorming  Technique for generating a free flow of ideas in a group of people.
cause-and-effect (fishbone) diagram  A diagram used to search for the cause(s) of a problem; also called fishbone diagram.
check sheet  A tool for recording and organizing data to identify a problem.
continuous improvement  Philosophy that seeks to make never-ending improvements to the process of converting inputs into outputs.
control chart  A statistical chart of time-ordered values of a sample statistic.
Deming Prize  Prize established by the Japanese and awarded annually to firms that distinguish themselves with quality management programs.
DMAIC  A six-sigma process: define, measure, analyze, improve, and control.
European Quality Award  European award for organizational excellence.
external failures  Failures discovered after delivery to the customer.
fail-safing  Incorporating design elements that prevent incorrect procedures.
failure costs  Costs caused by defective parts or products or by faulty services.
flowchart  A diagram of the steps in a process.
histogram  A chart of an empirical frequency distribution.
internal failures  Failures discovered during production.
ISO 9000  A 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.
kaizen  Japanese term for continuous improvement.
lean/six sigma  An approach to continuous improvement that integrates lean operation principles and six-sigma techniques.
Pareto analysis  Technique for classifying problem areas according to degree of importance, and focusing on the most important.
plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycle  A framework for problem solving and improvement activities.
prevention costs  Costs of preventing defects from occurring.
process improvement  A systematic approach to improving a process.
quality  The ability of a product or service to consistently meet or exceed customer expectations.
quality at the source  The philosophy of making each worker responsible for the quality of his or her work.
quality circles  Groups of workers who meet to discuss ways of improving products or processes.
quality of conformance  The degree to which goods or services conform to the intent of the designers.
quality of design  Intention of designers to include or exclude features in a product or service.
return on quality  An approach that evaluates the financial return of investments in quality.
run chart  Tool for tracking results over a period of time.
scatter diagram  A graph that shows the degree and direction of relationship between two variables.
six sigma  A business process for improving quality, reducing costs, and increasing customer satisfaction.
total quality management (TQM)  A philosophy that involves everyone in an organization in a continual effort to improve quality and achieve customer satisfaction.







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