Effecting a Quality Change: An Engineering Approach

by S.W. Field, K.G. Swift

As manufacturing businesses world-wide face fierce competition and operate in rapidly changing markets, customers are demanding higher quality products and ever more competitive prices and delivery times. This concise and easy to read text, based upon actual experience, defines the fundamental ingredients required to introduce quality improvement into an organization. The book opens with a discussion of past and present concepts of quality, and provides a working definition of the term. The role of the management and workforce in improving quality is emphasized, as is the need for training to bring about any cultural change. A major objective of the book is to highlight the importance of designing quality into a product rather than relying on inspection procedures, and the reader is given an insight into effecting a quality change, which is relevant to both large and small companies, and into future developments in this subject area. Each chapter includes descriptions of actual industrial experiences that illustrate the practical obstacles to implementing quality improvements. Stressing throughout the need for a fundamental change in the culture of an organization, the book will be equally useful for practising engineers and managers as well as all students of engineering and management.

147 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 1996