Quality Engineering (QE) develops (in conjunction with other business and engineering disciplines) systems and methodologies to assure that products, processes and information achieve an optimum level of 'trust'. It is a discipline for establishing specific guidelines and auditing methods, which will affirm that the stated qualities (lower case 'q') of a product or a process conform, within a determinable and acceptable variance to the stated goals of those qualities.

The Product Requirements Specification (PRS) and Marketing Requirements Documents (MRD) [see: On... Good Product Engineering Practices] establish the qualities and goals (claims made) for the product, and the Quality Engineering group establishes the measurement and validation methodologies with the help of the engineering group.

The process is pictorially shown below. Generally, a project manager provides a Product Requirements Specification (PRS) describing the proposed or chosen technology, features and functions of the product. Marketing provides a Marketing Requirement Document (MRD) describing product, market and consumer strategy. QA and QC, as described above, provide Quality guidelines and validation processes. QE provides the drive (crank) to reduce all of the above into distinct product qualities (q). Here, each q is the description of an individual product quality (which can be designed and technically implemented) and the desired goal with its acceptable variance (which can be measured or assessed).



We Techies can then develop and test each of the product qualities to their respective goals.