Quality is defined, not divined - It must be measurable or assessable and be based on the important, albeit imperfect, user, market, regulatory, technical and reproduction qualities of the product. Richard M. (Dick) Haney, Principal of the CMT Group, a technology consulting company in Palo Alto, CA., specializes in product engineering, manufacturing and technical management

This article is for product development engineers and executives; it outlines a simple technique for applying the concepts of Quality directly to the technical requirements of a product development program. It is not a treatise on Quality Assurance theory or Quality Engineering theory; rather, the article will outline how a small to midsize product developer can effect serious Quality management and provide a methodology to 'implement' Quality at the product engineering level. But first, we need to set the stage with a review of what Quality seems to mean today.

For many product developers Quality is like politics - everyone talks about it, but hardly anyone does anything about it. The following is a quite common (paraphrased) response from product development and engineering people, when asked: What is Quality?

Which ostensibly means, "I guess… I'm not really sure."

So, how is Quality most often handled in the development of a product by developers who are not familiar with quality concepts? Usually, it's lots of words - written and spoken; then product development proceeds without much further reference to it. Quality is spoken of in marketing brochures, product specifications, business plans, 10K statements and yearly reports and is very likely to be 'tested into a product', after the product is developed.

It is traditionally acceptable for design problems (AKA quality problems) to be found either during manufacturing testing or by the customer during actual use in an 'ad hoc' manner. This presumption of our technology cultural is quite acceptable in the fast-paced, high-tech world of get-it-designed-quickly, test-it-minimally, push-it-into-the-market-ASAP… It seems that Quality is just a 'name called Joe'. So…how can the contemporary, but necessary, high-octane development and marketing environment handle Quality issues in a preventive fashion, effectively and efficiently without burdening the development pace? First, we must find out why Quality is mostly just talk -