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Encyclopedia > Quality

For the Talib Kweli album Quality (album) Quality is rapper Talib Kwelis second album. ...


Quality can refer to


a. a specific characteristic of an object (the qualities of ice - i.e. its properties).


b. the achievement or excellence of an object (good quality ice - i.e. not of inferior grade).


c. the essence of an object (the quality of ice - i.e. "iceness").


d. the meaning of excellence itself.


The first meaning is technical, the second practical, the third artistic and the fourth metaphysical. All four meanings, and therefore the meaning of quality, are synonymous with good.


Philosophy and common sense tend to see quality as related either to subjective feelings or to objective facts. The subject-object in question might be a concrete and functional (e.g. Arisotelian) value to be learnt and applied (a and b), or a psychic (e.g. platonic) ideal to be apprehended and represented (c). A third view tends to see quality not as a secondary value that something has, rather a primary truth which comprises apparent subjects and objects (d). Philosopher in Meditation (detail), by Rembrandt. ...


So the quality of something depends on the criteria being applied to it. Something might be good because it is useful, because it is beautiful, or simply because it exists. Determining or finding quality therefore involves an understanding of use, beauty and existence - what is useful, what is beautiful and what exists.

Contents


In Business


Many different techniques and concepts have evolved to improve product or service quality, including SPC, Zero Defects, Six Sigma, quality circles, TQM, Quality Management Systems (ISO 9001 and others) and continuous improvement. Statistical process control (SPC) is a method for achieving quality control in manufacturing processes. ... The often used six sigma symbol Six Sigma is a methodology to manage process variations that cause defects, defined as unacceptable deviation from the mean or target; and to systematically work towards managing variation to eliminate those defects[1]. The objective of Six Sigma is to deliver high performance, reliability... A quality circle is a group composed of regular employees who meet together to discuss workplace improvement, and make presentations to management with their ideas. ... ... Continuous improvement is a phrase suggesting that a process or product should always get better as knowledge about it and experience with it accumulates over time. ...


The meaning for the term quality has developed over time. Seven distinctive interpretations:

  1. "Conformance to specifications" (Phil Crosby in the 1980s). The difficulty with this is that the specifications may not be what the customer wants; Crosby treats this as a separate problem.
  2. "Fitness for use" (Joseph M. Juran). Fitness is defined by the customer.
  3. A two-dimensional model of quality (Noriaki Kano and others). The quality has two dimensions: "must-be quality" and "attractive quality". The former is near to the "fitness for use" and the latter is what the customer would love, but has not yet thought about. Supporters characterise this model more succinctly as: "Products and services that meet or exceed customers' expectations". One writer believes (without citation) that this is today the most used interpretation for the term quality.
  4. "Value to some person" (Gerald M. Weinberg)
  5. (W. Edwards Deming), "Costs go down and productivity goes up, as improvement of quality is accomplished by better management of design, engineering, testing and by improvement of processes. Better quality at lower price has a chance to capture a market. Cutting costs without improvement of quality is futile." "Quality and the Required Style of Management" 1988 See http://www.deming.org/
  6. "The loss a product imposes on society after it is shipped" (Genichi Taguchi). Taguchi's definition of quality is based on a more comprehensive view of the production system.
  7. Energy quality, associated with both the energy engineering of industrial systems and the qualitative differences in the trophic levels of an ecosystem.
  8. One key distinction to make is there are two common applications of the term Quality as form of activity or function within a business. One is Quality Assurance which is the "prevention of defects", such as the deployment of a Quality Management System and preventative activites like FMEA. The other is Quality Control which is the "detection of defects", most commonly associated with testing which takes place withn a Quality Management System typically referred to as Verification and Validation.


However, the American Society for Quality defines "quality" as "a subjective term for which each person has his or her own definition." Source: http://www.asq.org/glossary/q.html Phil Crosby is an author who has written many books, including Quality is free and Quality without tears. ... The 1980s decade refers to the years from 1980 to 1989, inclusive, informally sometimes including the years 1979, 1990 and 1991. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Industrial engineer and philanthrop The industrial engineer Dr. Juran was born in 1904 in Braila, Romania and lives later in Gura Humorului. ... Professor Noriaki Kano is the developer of a program whose simple ranking scheme distinguishes between essential and differentiating attributes related to concepts of customer quality. ... In economics and marketing, a service is the non-material equivalent of a good. ... Gerald Marvin Weinberg is an author and teacher of the psychology and anthropology of computer software development. ... William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900 - December 20, 1993) was an American statistician, college professor, author, and lecturer widely credited with improving production in the United States during World War II. However, Deming is perhaps best known for his work in Japan; where from 1950 onward he taught top management... Genichi Taguchi (田口 玄一) (born January 1, 1924 in Takamachi, Japan) is an engineer and statistician. ... Energy quality, refers to our empirical experience of the different energy forms and the amount of energy available from different energy forms. ... American Society for Quality (ASQ), formerly known as American Society for Quality Control (ASQC), is a non-profit professional society comprised of almost 100,000 members who work in various aspects of the quality field (e. ...


In music

In music quality refers primarily to the timbre, but also dynamics and musical texture, of a section or piece. Music is an art, entertainment, or other human activity that involves organized and audible sounds and silence. ... In music, timbre, also timber (French, IPA /tæmbər/ as in the first two syllables of tambourine), is the quality of a musical note or sound which distinguishes different types of sound production or musical instruments. ... In music, dynamics refers to the volume or loudness of the sound or note, in particular to the range from soft (quiet) to loud. ... In music, the word texture is often used in a rather vague way in reference to the overall sound of a piece of music. ...


In phonetics

In phonetics quality refers to the articulatory features that distinguish vowels and to their acoustic correspondent. Vowel quality is opposed to vowel quantity. Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone = sound/voice) is the study of sounds (voice). ... Articulation may refer to several topics: In speech, linguistics, and communication: Topic-focus articulation Articulation score Place of articulation Manner of articulation In music: Musical articulations (staccato, legato, etc) In education: Articulation (education) In sociology: Articulation (sociology) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Acoustics is a branch of physics and is the study of sound, mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids. ... In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. ...


In philosophy

Robert M. Pirsig, in his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, studies the philosophical aspects of Quality, and examines the distinctions and relationship between classical and romantic quality, seeking to reconcile the two views and understand how they stand in relationship to each other. Robert Maynard Pirsig (born September 6, 1928) is an American author, famous for his first book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (1974). ... Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (ISBN 0688002307) is the first of Robert M. Pirsigs texts in which he explores a Metaphysics of Quality. ... As a theory of reality the Metaphysics of Quality (MOQ) can be aligned with two lineages. ... Classicism door in Olomouc, The Czech Republic Teatr Wielki in Warsaw Church La Madeleine in Paris Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicist seeks to emulate. ... Romanticism was a secular and intellectual movement that originated in late 18th century Western Europe. ...


In this context the two aspects of classical object-oriented and romantic subject-oriented quality roughly parallel aesthetic quality and functional quality. The resolution of the book points to a view of quality which relegates this subject-object dualism to a product of a non-dualistic Absolute. Aesthetics, esthetics or æsthetics is both the study of beauty and a term that denotes those properties of an entity that appeal to the senses. ...


See also

A quality management system (QMS) is a system that outlines the policies and procedures necessary to improve and control the various processes that will ultimately lead to improved business performance. ... Quality time is the time someone spends with the people they love and respect, especially with those towards whom they feel some sort of obligation. ... In engineering and manufacturing, quality control and quality engineering are involved in developing systems which ensure that products or services are designed and produced to meet or exceed customer requirements and expectations. ... William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900 - December 20, 1993) was an American statistician, college professor, author, and lecturer widely credited with improving production in the United States during World War II. However, Deming is perhaps best known for his work in Japan; where from 1950 onward he taught top management... The often used six sigma symbol Six Sigma is a methodology to manage process variations that cause defects, defined as unacceptable deviation from the mean or target; and to systematically work towards managing variation to eliminate those defects[1]. The objective of Six Sigma is to deliver high performance, reliability... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Quality management. ... ISO 9001 certification of a fish wholesaler at the Tsukiji fish market ISO 9000 is a family of ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) standards for quality management systems. ... As a theory of reality the Metaphysics of Quality (MOQ) can be aligned with two lineages. ... Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (ISBN 0688002307) is the first of Robert M. Pirsigs texts in which he explores a Metaphysics of Quality. ... Lila: An Inquiry into Morals (1991) is the second book by Robert M. Pirsig, who is best known for his cult favorite, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. ... Robert Maynard Pirsig (born September 6, 1928) is an American author, famous for his first book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (1974). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Video quality is a characteristic of video passed through a video processing system. ... Energy quality, refers to our empirical experience of the different energy forms and the amount of energy available from different energy forms. ...

Finding related topics

This aims to be a complete list of the articles on economics. ... Management information systems an overview E-business Intranet strategies Database management system Data warehousing Data mining Document warehousing Customer relationship management (CRM) Sales force management system Enterprise resource planning (ERP) Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS) Business performance management Project management software Integration management Middleware Groupware and collaborative systems RSA Computer... Manufacturing and manufacturing systems manufacturing factory Craft system English system of manufacturing American system of manufacturing Mass production Batch production Just in time manufacturing Toyota Production System Lean manufacturing Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) Mass customization Theories of production Taylorism Fordism Theory of constraints Productivity Productivity benchmarking cost accounting experience curve...

External links


  Results from FactBites:
 
Quality control - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (993 words)
Quality Assurance has developed a good deal during the last 80-90 years (in about 20 year intervals) from its inception to the current state of the art.
These full time inspectors were the real beginning of inspection quality control; and this was the beginning of large inspection organizations of the 1920s and 1930s, which were separately organized from production and big enough to be headed by superintendents.
The systematic approach to quality started in industrial manufacture during the 1930s, mostly in the USA, when some attention was given to the cost of scrap and rework.
Quality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (755 words)
Energy quality, associated with both the energy engineering of industrial systems and the qualitative differences in the trophic levels of an ecosystem.
The other is Quality Control which is the "detection of defects", most commonly associated with testing which takes place withn a Quality Management System typically referred to as Verification and Validation.
In this context the two aspects of classical object-oriented and romantic subject-oriented quality roughly parallel aesthetic quality and functional quality.
  More results at FactBites »


 

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