Quality Engineering is a discipline with the engineering circle that is focused on improving and innovating the all things related to the quality of a process or product. Quality Engineering is an important philosophy to understand within the continuous improvement umbrella.

  Qualitative gives reference to the use of "qualities" rather than "quantities." Qualitative data and analysis is subjective and is used mostly in circumstances where data is not easily accessible, not relevant or simply not available for use.  Qualitative research is largely based on experience, feelings and intuition.   

  Quality Control is a system of verification and maintenance that is used to meet a desired level of control/quality in an existing product, service or process.  Optimum control is often achieved through:

1. Detailed planning
2. Proper use of equipment, tools, materials and resources.
3. Continued inspection.
4. Integrity.
5. Corrective action as needed.

Discussion Opportunity (Comment below please)

• Why do you feel quality control is important to an organization?
• What are some common trends in quality control today?

  A queue is often compared to a line.  A queue can be associated with any item, person or service that spends any amount of time in a line before work begins.  

Example:

  During the holiday season customers are asked to take a number and wait to purchase their chocolates.  After the customer has taken their number they then stand in line until it is their turn.  This is one example of people standing in queue.  

Improvement Opportunities:

   Queue time can generally take up more than 75% of the total lead time in many different factories.  Finding and reducing these queue points can significantly improve throughput.

  Quantitative data is data that can be verified and quantified using numbers.  Quantitative data is much more defining than qualitative data which is often used as a description.  

Examples of Quantitative Data:

1. Age
2. Speed
3. Weight
4. Temperature

Question:  Jack was driving his brand new corvette down the highway, as he looked up the red and blue lights were shining.  As the police officer approached the car he asked "Do you know how fast you were going?" Jack responded, "I was going a little bit fast."  The cop replied, "you were going 115 mph."  

  Quality Function Deployment is a methodology developed by Dr. Yoji Akao.  The methodology attempts to accomplish all major requirements of the customer.  It does this by identifying the voice of the customer and working to ensure the needs are met or exceeded.  QFD is also often viewed as a set of communication and translation tools.  QFD tries to eliminate the gap between what the customer wants and what they get.  

  Quality is the standard by which something is measured and how well it meets those measurements. It is also a speciffic characteristic or attribute of an item or service.  When Quality is measured it is typically in terms of how well a product, process or service is meeting the expectations set forth by a customer.