| Total quality management | Managing the entire organization so that it excels on all dimensions of products and services that are important to the customer.
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| Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award | An award established by the U.S. Department of Commerce given annually to companies that excel in quality.
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| Design quality | The inherent value of the product in the marketplace.
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| Conformance quality | The degree to which the product or service design specifications are met.
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| Quality at the source | Making the person who does the work responsible for ensuring that specifications are met.
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| Dimensions of quality | Criteria by which quality is measured.
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| Cost of quality (COQ) | Expenditures related to achieving product or service quality, such as the costs of prevention, appraisal, internal failure, and external failure.
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| Six Sigma | A statistical term to describe the quality goal of no more than 3.4 defects out of every million units. Also refers to a quality improvement philosophy and program.
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| Defects per million opportunities (DPMO) | A metric used to describe the variability of a process.
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| DMAIC | An acronym for the define, measure, analyze, improve, and control improvement methodology followed by companies engaging in Six Sigma programs.
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| Lean Six Sigma | Combines the implementation and quality control tools of Six Sigma and the inventory management concept of lean manufacturing.
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| Black belts, master black belts, and green belts | Terms used to describe different levels of personal skills and responsibilities in Six Sigma programs.
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| Fail-safe procedures and poka-yokes | Simple practices that prevent errors or provide feedback in time for the worker to correct errors.
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| ISO 9000 | Formal standards for quality certification developed by the International Organization for Standardization.
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| External benchmarking | Looking outside the company to examine what excellent performers inside and outside the company’s industry are doing in the way of quality.
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