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How is Quality Related to Innovation?
The ISO 8402 standard (now defunct, and a precursor of ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 9001:2015) defines quality as “the totality of characteristics of an entity that bear upon its ability to satisfy stated and implied needs.” Even though this definition is old, it helps us understand how quality is related to innovation. Here’s the connection:…
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How ISO 8402 (9000 para 3.1.5) Relates Quality to Innovation
The ISO 8402 standard (now 9000 para 3.1.5) defines quality as “the totality of characteristics of an entity that bear upon its ability to satisfy stated and implied needs.” It is a static definition, fixed in time, and considers only those characteristics that meet stated and implied needs now. It addresses the needs of the…
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What is Quality?
What is quality? There are a myriad of ways to define quality, which is one reason why the study or pursuit of quality can feel so nebulous at times. For example, quality can be considered: Zero defects (Crosby) Conformance to requirements (Crosby) Fitness for use (Juran) Best for customer conditions (Feigenbaum) Hunt (1992) provides an…
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Being Frugal vs. Being Lean
The October 20, 2008 issue of Business Week features an article on page 55 called “The New Age of Frugality”. The article, about “confronting the debt culture” in the U.S., describes a handful of real-life stories from people who recently overextended themselves, and were forced to learn some hard lessons about finding the natural limits…
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When Lean and Six Sigma Don’t Work
Someone on LinkedIn recently asked “Are there examples of processes where the concept of Lean, the philosophy of Six Sigma, or other quality tools don’t work?” Fortunately, there have been plenty of researchers who have asked this question already. A persistent in theme in the management and quality management academic literature over the past several…
Quality and Innovation 