Engineering Quality

Through continual improvement in the satisfaction of customer needs and expectations, Japanese manufacturers have set new standards in product specification, quality, and reliability and nowhere more so than in the international automotive markets where there is recognition of best-in-world status. In response to the challenge, manufacturing companies in the West and in particular those with international market perspectives, have initiated a process of change that commits to a different approach to quality. The reinforcement of quality control procedures driven by design specifications to which all manufacturing processes must be made to conform, is being displaced by the need for change in the operation of all functions within the company, including those less obviously associated with quality in the end product. Total quality is a philosophy that lays the ground for revisions to the management of the entire production process and creates the conditions for the establishment of a common purpose.