What is Quality?
Conformance to standards, fitness for use, timely delivery, value for money, etc there are endless definitions for quality. But just like Beauty, Quality also lies in the eyes of the beholder or the customer or the end user ( i.e. Consumer). In this competitive world only quality takes us much ahead of our competition. Japan is a live example as to how from no where you can become the king. The teachings of the Quality Gurus (like Dr. Deming, Ishikawa, Shewhart etc) which was listened to and accepted in Japan brought drastic changes in the thinking and working of Japanese and they knew at once that if there is anything that can overhaul Japan it is Quality.
Various tools and techniques are being developed and used today for CONTINUALLY improving the quality of product and services. Different organizations like ISO, SEI have developed and are developing models, standards and guidelines which are helping organizations to focus on points of improvement.
Is Quality a completely different field or other fields of study also connected to Quality? The answer lies below and explanation throughout this site.
Statistics
Data is something that we deal with every now and then in our day to day life. We keep on collecting, analyzing and interpreting data without knowing that one of the branches of applied mathematics i.e. statistics is into play. Statistics is simply collection and analysis of sample data and then using probability theory to estimate population parameters from these sample data.
The sampling technique described in books of statistics is something that we are doing even when we go to market to buy something like rice.
Statistics is just the mathematical/quantitative form of nature. We know that nature balances everything, this is the basis of the most commonly used distribution in statistics i.e. Normal Distribution whose symmetry about the average value shows the nature at work.
Statistical Quality
How do we say that quality of one product is better as compared to another and that also not subjectively but objectively?
In bringing objectivity to the above asked question Statistical Quality plays a very important role. Statistical Quality employs the various tools of statistics and quality and then these are applied on the whole lifecycle of the Process/Product/Service. Earlier Statistical Quality played very important role in manufacturing unit’s only, especially where there was mass production, but, now due to high competitiveness and consumers awareness Statistical Quality is playing a major role in every field.
Statistical Quality employs tools like Statistical Quality Control (SQC), Design of Experiment (DOE), Reliability, etc. One of the very famous tools used is Six Sigma which was developed by Motorola industry. Six Sigma encompasses all the major tools and techniques of statistics and Quality at one place and defines when and how to use them in a systematic and logical manner.
Software Quality
Software industry in the recent past has grown at a very rapid pace and now is the most sought after industry. Coming up of a lot of organizations has added to the competition and this has led people to shift there focus to Quality.
Software quality employs statistical quality and also a lot of models and standards which have come up directly from the practitioners. American Department of Defense, SEI and ISO have contributed a lot towards software Quality.
CMMI is one such model which is helping organizations align their processes in the best possible way to make their organization “ Process Dependent” ad not “Person Dependent”, which means even if a person leaves and a replacement comes in his/her place the work and quality of the output won’t be effected.
Software Quality is divided into two major streams i.e. Software Quality Control and Software Quality Assurance. Both these branch play a very important role in the software industry these days. Software Quality Assurance though was not given much importance but in the recent past it has played a major role in improving the Quality of the final product and also in reduction of cost / losses thus increasing profit.
Operations Research
World War II saw the coming up of Operations research in a big way when it was used to optimize the output from limited resources. Operations research is defined as “It is a set of tools and techniques that give bad solution to problems that have worse solutions”.
Operations research connection with Quality is very visible as it comes straight from the definition. Anything that converts worse to bad is for sure increasing its quality.
Two of the major tools of Operation research which are very famous among people who even don’t know that they are a part of Operation research are CPM/PERT. CPM/PERT are network methods for project management. CPM/PERT are used for scheduling activities and identifying the critical activities in a project. These help in monitoring and controlling the project activities so that everything is completed as planned and on time.
